Database Users

Did I overestimate the Tegra2?

So far, everything seems to work pretty well. No force closes, the few games I have tried look great, everything is nice and smooth for the most part.
But god dammit, I just wanted one thing. ONE THING. To be able to play scene release 720p HD Tv shows, when I'm on the train every day, without having to re-encode. For years, there has been almost no solution to this. I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I can play the lower quality xvid rips on my Evo.
There are always other players like Archos that just play this stuff right out of the box. But I always wished that something I would carry anyway would play it, like my phone or tablet.
I downloaded every media player I could get a hold of with good reviews. Rock Player, VPlayer, qqplayer, arcmedia, mVideoplayer. No success. The best I could get was sound with choppy/lagging video, in Rock Player.
I know there are alternatives, but like I said, for this to be a feature on something I would be carrying on an every day basis for multipurpose use, instead of a dedicated media player is top feature to me.
I'm just trying to figure out if there is any hope of this eventually working on the current slew of Honeycomb Tablets with app optimization, or if the processor just can't handle it. Anyone have decent/extensive knowledge on that subject?

MichaelWestin said:
So far, everything seems to work pretty well. No force closes, the few games I have tried look great, everything is nice and smooth for the most part.
But god dammit, I just wanted one thing. ONE THING. To be able to play scene release 720p HD Tv shows, when I'm on the train every day, without having to re-encode. For years, there has been almost no solution to this. I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I can play the lower quality xvid rips on my Evo.
There are always other players like Archos that just play this stuff right out of the box. But I always wished that something I would carry anyway would play it, like my phone or tablet.
I downloaded every media player I could get a hold of with good reviews. Rock Player, VPlayer, qqplayer, arcmedia, mVideoplayer. No success. The best I could get was sound with choppy/lagging video, in Rock Player.
I know there are alternatives, but like I said, for this to be a feature on something I would be carrying on an every day basis for multipurpose use, instead of a dedicated media player is top feature to me.
I'm just trying to figure out if there is any hope of this eventually working on the current slew of Honeycomb Tablets with app optimization, or if the processor just can't handle it. Anyone have decent/extensive knowledge on that subject?
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The hardware is capable of it. You just need to stop buying devices that don't hardware accelerate mkv files. You need to look for something with divx certification. My epic4g plays ridiculously high bitrate 720P mkv files FLAWLESSLY, because Samsung went the extra mile and got hardware acceleration for avi and mkv files. The evo is a mess because its made by HTC and HTC doesn't give a crap about media capability. The evo stutters playing AVI files because it has to software decode them, which makes me laugh at my friend who owns it. That giant screen and it is useless for video. A tablet without divx certification is useless to me, which is one of the dozen or so reasons I will not be buying the Xoom.

Well if they do that for the new Tab, then the Xoom is going right back.. I have 90 days to find out

MichaelWestin said:
So far, everything seems to work pretty well. No force closes, the few games I have tried look great, everything is nice and smooth for the most part.
But god dammit, I just wanted one thing. ONE THING. To be able to play scene release 720p HD Tv shows, when I'm on the train every day, without having to re-encode. For years, there has been almost no solution to this. I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I can play the lower quality xvid rips on my Evo.
There are always other players like Archos that just play this stuff right out of the box. But I always wished that something I would carry anyway would play it, like my phone or tablet.
I downloaded every media player I could get a hold of with good reviews. Rock Player, VPlayer, qqplayer, arcmedia, mVideoplayer. No success. The best I could get was sound with choppy/lagging video, in Rock Player.
I know there are alternatives, but like I said, for this to be a feature on something I would be carrying on an every day basis for multipurpose use, instead of a dedicated media player is top feature to me.
I'm just trying to figure out if there is any hope of this eventually working on the current slew of Honeycomb Tablets with app optimization, or if the processor just can't handle it. Anyone have decent/extensive knowledge on that subject?
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Did you enable hardware decoding in the settings of RockPlayer?

parrotheadmjb said:
Did you enable hardware decoding in the settings of RockPlayer?
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That only works if the hardware supports hardware acceleration of the filetype, right? Does the Xoom support playing MKV and AVI files in the stock video player?

MichaelWestin said:
Well if they do that for the new Tab, then the Xoom is going right back.. I have 90 days to find out
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Thats what I am hoping for too. So far the entire line of Galaxy S phones and the Galaxy Tab was divx HD certified. I am hoping and praying that the delicious Galaxy Tab 10.1 with its giant 6860 mah battery has Divx HD certification as well. I can't imagine it wouldn't.

parrotheadmjb said:
Did you enable hardware decoding in the settings of RockPlayer?
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Software only. :-(

MichaelWestin said:
Software only. :-(
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Idk I turned on hardware decoding on RockPlayer in my Xoom and it started playing the 720P almost seamlessly, but no audio... weird

It is hardware decoding my mkv's though I am hitting an annoying bug where sound stops. going to home and back restores sound though.
The m4v I put on is being decoded in software and it can't quite handle it smoothly.
I will have to try a couple of my mp4 rips.

Yes they really should add more codecs to default Android. I bet they expected some 3rd party apps to arrive.

MichaelWestin said:
So far, everything seems to work pretty well. No force closes, the few games I have tried look great, everything is nice and smooth for the most part.
But god dammit, I just wanted one thing. ONE THING. To be able to play scene release 720p HD Tv shows, when I'm on the train every day, without having to re-encode. For years, there has been almost no solution to this. I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I can play the lower quality xvid rips on my Evo.
There are always other players like Archos that just play this stuff right out of the box. But I always wished that something I would carry anyway would play it, like my phone or tablet.
I downloaded every media player I could get a hold of with good reviews. Rock Player, VPlayer, qqplayer, arcmedia, mVideoplayer. No success. The best I could get was sound with choppy/lagging video, in Rock Player.
I know there are alternatives, but like I said, for this to be a feature on something I would be carrying on an every day basis for multipurpose use, instead of a dedicated media player is top feature to me.
I'm just trying to figure out if there is any hope of this eventually working on the current slew of Honeycomb Tablets with app optimization, or if the processor just can't handle it. Anyone have decent/extensive knowledge on that subject?
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Click to collapse
A similar problem on the Tegra 2 Notion Ink adam was fixed with a software update or a custom rom.
When shipped, all the players etc, were choppy or desynced or had no audio - but running a custom rom fixed these problems. Additionally, shortly after shipping, Notion ink provided an update that fixed these problems on stock.
Its definetly a software issue - it will be fixed soon im sure.

OK Rockplayer can not handle my default mp4 rips well. They are nothing particularly special though I don't use ... I can't remember the term. "simple mode" I use the higher modes to allow for better quality for size.
Ah well, most of my newer stuff I rip to mkv's anyway (subtitle and alternative audio support).

setite said:
Yes they really should add more codecs to default Android. I bet they expected some 3rd party apps to arrive.
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CODECs cost money to license them. Google leaves this up to the OEM's to pay the bill.

This handbrake preset produces great videos for my evo...

warb said:
This handbrake preset produces great videos for my evo...
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I'm sorry, not to use a Steve jobsism, but if you have to convert videos for your tablet you have failed. I think it's ridiculous to have to do it for phones, which is why i bought the epic4g. To have to do it on a tablet is ridiculous, especially one with a dual core processor and an eight core gpu. The freaking iPad can play 720p mkv files now with xbmc ported over.

setite said:
Yes they really should add more codecs to default Android. I bet they expected some 3rd party apps to arrive.
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Strange as I am reading this a Xoom commercial came on the TV saying that the Xoom is "everything a tablet should be" and even showing a video playing on the device. I hope they are not serious about this issue.

+1 thanks for Costco return window

well I dont know what to say.. I tried two different formats (mp4 and mkv) 720p, and both worked just fine, all video and audio was perfect. These were top gear uk episodes. I'll try a dvd rip and see what happens now.

And.... any news in that regard?

If you own an iPad, how is this situation there?
I mean, can you just throw any video files and iPad will play it flawlessly?
I just want to know this comparison.
If VLC is available for Android, do you think this kind of issue will be solved?
I read this is caused by Google not investing on "codec" (licensing), neither does VLC.
If VLC can solve this, why Google does not want to use it
Sorry, if I got this all wrong. I am not an expert on video thing ...

TF101 has serious video playback problems

Good Day
I have had the stock 101 from day one, installed all updates and find it to be a fairly good unit for a number of things except video playback. Not sure where the problem originates but this tab is useless for video playback. I am astounded on bad this tab operates. I consider it useless in its current state. I purchased the unit to read books surf and play videos nothing else. It can do the first two fairly well. I have tried just about everything that previous posts have recommended to no avail. Creating directories on the external SD card that disappear. It sometimes plays the video other times it will not. I have owned a few tabs and I consider this one to be the poorest one yet. I would not recommend the 101 to anyone that wants to watch videos without having to piss around to make the 101 operate as it should. This unit should be able to play most video types without having to resort to apps that trick it to work. I will now shut this thing down and not use it anymore. For me it is truly not worth the money I paid for it. This should never have been released to the public
I will fire up my Archos 101 and watch all of the same videos until I cannot stand it anymore. The 101 has no real video playback issues other than it does not support flash he last time I checked. It has its own flaws but it video playback is not one of them.
I really like the TF101 but I cannot overlook its clearly unstable, amazingly childish and poorly thought out video playback section. It is stock and I have not messed with it. I am not interested in spending countless hours conducting surgery on it to make it work. This tab should be able to play most videos out of the box.
My dislike for apple is slowly but surely being eroded with products such as the TF101.
ASUS or Android, you have a problem with your product. Fix it!

Not really a problem, and deffo not a "serious" one at that...
I have been playing flash videos on my TF101.
For the majority of other formats i use MX Video Player
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad
Once installed it will prompt for a codec and direct you back to the market place to download it.
Good app, streams all my movies across my network when used with a cifs manager.

Funny, lots of us don't have any issues on ours.
If your rant is legit, go buy an iPad. If it isn't, go soak your head troll.

Which types of videos ?
Divx : try mx video player it's a good player and it's free
Mkv : diceplayer, paid app.
Btw : do you think you can play divx videos on the ipad out of the box ? The answer is no, so it's not better than the transformer for that purpose. And it doesn't have flash player.
Edit : the transformer can play wmv hd out of the box with honeycomb 3.2. What do you think about that ?

No troll here! Lighten up yank. Crawl back under your bankrupt rock. I enjoy my technology when it works. Just want it to work
Why do I read countless threads about such problems. They would not be there if they did not exist. I just want my unit to play stand alone on board videos without messing about. I down loaded the eight seasons of Red Dwarf. I would really like to watch on public transport.

Is that hard for you to just install an application ? If so it's also hard to transfer your videos on the tf. Then you shouldn't watch them.

Well, I hope you got that rant out of your system, because it wasn't really helpful to anyone but you. You could've summed it all up in one sentence: "Personally, I don't recommend the TF for playing videos."
I have an Archos 101 as well, and it does play video very well, because Archos is a media player company. They always have been. They paid extra for all those codecs, and skimped out on everything else. Asus made a tablet, Archos made a media player. Don't compare them.
And for the record, Diceplayer has played every file I've thrown at it. The AC3 codec pack for the Archos was $15, and it only enabled 2 or 3 new codecs. Diceplayer is $6 and it plays almost all codecs.
P.S. I still don't see how this relates to apple. Apple only supports MP4 and MOV. And if you use MOV, you probably still have an AOL account.
P.P.S. Also, what do you mean by "serious video problems"? It says in the specs what codecs it supports, and it plays them perfectly. I think you got spoiled by Archos, and thought every Android device had infinite codec support.

swampdonkey101 said:
No troll here! Lighten up yank. Crawl back under your bankrupt rock. I enjoy my technology when it works. Just want it to work
Why do I read countless threads about such problems. They would not be there if they did not exist. I just want my unit to play stand alone on board videos without messing about. I down loaded the eight seasons of Red Dwarf. I would really like to watch on public transport.
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Then can i refer you to my previous post, which happens to be the 1st reply to yours.
CaNsA said:
For the majority of other formats I use MX Video Player
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad
Once installed it will prompt for a codec and direct you back to the market place to download it.
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It obvious you have just come on, ranted and because you haven't heard what you wanted/expected you have refused to listen to any advice.

Thanks!
I was not knowingly ranting. I just lay it out on the line. I failed at diplomacy 101. Tell it like it is. But I do expect value for money. Can't say I got that with the TF101 for what I want it to do. I have 4 pc's at home. Just want to surf and watch video on a small form factor. I think many people buy a tab for just what I am doing otherwise just use your PC. I guess I really do not understand what a tab is used for.
I am aware the differences the between the two brands. I am not sure if skimped out is the right term. The Archos is 100 less. I a not expecting it to perform like the TF101. But for that 100 I should get a fully functional video player. For 400 it should work out of the box. Remember the price of a PC's is comparable. Maybe I should not expect much for 400.
I am not concerned how much a add on costs as long as it works. Convert and and it
will work.
Just trying to make a point. Apple makes a good product right out of the box. I just do not want to live in a prison cell. Ipad is still way down the list. Steve and I are not currently talking to each other.
I have tried, AVS4you, DVD fab, Handbrake. All converted as recommended. Also loaded Daroon, Mobo, Rockplayer, Rockplayer lite. I wonder how may I have to try before I get the right one. I have spent two days reading through posts and trying everyone's recommendations as stated in my post. lots of hard work. Thanks to everyone for for the countless help threads. Been there done that. Something is not right.
I stand corrected. Very serious problems was the wrong term to use. Maybe something like " 400 spent and it cannot play the most common video formats, go figure".
I still think it is a firmware problem that should never have been. Not sure if it is a hardware problem, too many inconsistencies with on again off again performance. There are too many posts out there regarding this problem for it to be a non issue or operator error.
Your right, I did get spoiled by a somewhat inferior product. It is not very often less gets more. They are meant to do the same thing, with different quality of bits.
Thanks to everyone for you help threads. I have tried about everything that is recommended. Maybe it is time to RMA it. Do not think that will fix it. I am looking for a good media player similar to the TF101 but plays common video formats. Hardware based of course. I already have a few PC's do not need another one. Any recommendations?

anyone know why I can't play .MP4 videos anymore they are from my helmet cam
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

Ellingsoc said:
anyone know why I can't play .MP4 videos anymore they are from my helmet cam
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
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What player are you using?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

I think one big problem is a lot of the players are not using hardware decoding including the stock video player. Why?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

swampdonkey101 said:
some stuff.....
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Someone obviously didnt watch the video before registering on XDA

I Can't find any that work so give me a few to try the mobo mx don't work too well if at all these are like 720p videos too
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

Dice player works well because it uses hardware decoding.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

I will try it thanks for the help
I get a message that says video can not be played any idea on what would cause that. Note this video works on my laptop just fine
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

swampdonkey101 said:
No troll here! Lighten up yank. Crawl back under your bankrupt rock. I enjoy my technology when it works. Just want it to work
Why do I read countless threads about such problems. They would not be there if they did not exist. I just want my unit to play stand alone on board videos without messing about. I down loaded the eight seasons of Red Dwarf. I would really like to watch on public transport.
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You ***** and moan about having to use a program to watch video on your TF, but any of your "4" pc's are going to be the same. I find this highly entertaining. Also, you waste all this time trying things, and writing your snooty thread, that you could have spent doing a basic search to see which formats and programs work best.
Get your useless ass outta these forums, you obviously didn't watch the video or pay attention to the rules.
And instead of biting on your political jab, I'll just remind you, that without us, you'd not exist.

i have issues with mkv files in hardware decoding, it plays plays great but sound goes out after a min of playback on all players. But software decode they play fine. Give it time this tab is still a baby. It will keep growing, or so i hope

swampdonkey101 said:
...
I am not concerned how much a add on costs as long as it works. Convert and and it
will work.
...
I have tried, AVS4you, DVD fab, Handbrake. All converted as recommended. Also loaded Daroon, Mobo, Rockplayer, Rockplayer lite. I wonder how may I have to try before I get the right one. I have spent two days reading through posts and trying everyone's recommendations as stated in my post. lots of hard work. Thanks to everyone for for the countless help threads. Been there done that. Something is not right.
...
Thanks to everyone for you help threads. I have tried about everything that is recommended. Maybe it is time to RMA it. Do not think that will fix it. I am looking for a good media player similar to the TF101 but plays common video formats. Hardware based of course. I already have a few PC's do not need another one. Any recommendations?
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No need to convert your downloaded videos, if you REALLY have problem, then you are the only one. Like everybody said : mxplayer or the player you mention (except daroon because it doesn't use third party codecs I think) should just do fine for divx. Sure the transformer have flaws but playing divx is not one of them.
Like you said you should RMA it if you're not satisfied. I don't know why you bought a transformer if the only thing you want is a media player, you should have kept the archos. But of course you won't have the nice screen of the asus.
@Ellingsoc : do you have a sample ? I'll try it.
Sorry for my bad english.

swampdonkey101 said:
Snip
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They must not have google up there in the land of pancakes and hockey because I googled "video codecs for android" and it answered your question. It's even in french.
Please... Just box it up and return it, take the blue pill, and get an ipad before you hurt yourself.

My thoughts on the 10.1

RI've had my tab for a few weeks now and am generally happy with it.
The things I'm pleased with:
Battery life - can't fault it so far
Build quality
App compatability - generally no issues
Web browsing and music are good
Screen is fantastic
Things I'm unhappy with:
The omission of an actual sd card slot is an annoyance
Stock u.i laggy (using adw now)
Mac compatablity is lacking.Kies is ok for it but by no means fantastic
My biggest disappointment has been video compatability or lack of it. A lot of my videos are now digitally encoded, some are ok on the tab, others have horrendous breakup. I've done as much research as possible into re-encoding these to suitable format but no matter what program and settings I use I can't get them to run properly. I'm getting to the stage of moving down the Ipad route. I'd post screenshots but apparentlly can't for another 8 posts

Did you get the large update to touchwiz recently? I actually started using the stock video player now, as I don't have any problems with the playback. Unless you are enconding in some off the wall format, I would think you wouldn't have any problems.

No on the touchwiz update as yet. I have limited net access in that some things are blocked. Glorious Afghanistan I'm checking every now and then as I can bypass somethings but it's not showing any updates.
In regards to video encoding I've used settings recommended in these forums and also trialled the pavtube program as well as numerous others including handbrake. Pulling my hair out over it!

i agree with you with the Video Support, coming from the Galaxy s phone the Tab almost doesn't play anything without converting and stuff on my phone it just play everything without a need for any video player other than stock

gazwkd said:
RMy biggest disappointment has been video compatability or lack of it. A lot of my videos are now digitally encoded, some are ok on the tab, others have horrendous breakup. I've done as much research as possible into re-encoding these to suitable format but no matter what program and settings I use I can't get them to run properly. I'm getting to the stage of moving down the Ipad route. I'd post screenshots but apparentlly can't for another 8 posts
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I had the same issue as you - pretty much everything I tried to play on the GT would break up or have other issues. I was about to return the tablet when I tried transferring a video over WiFi rather than Kies for the Mac. To my surprised it played flawlessly.
So, I rather suspect that your problem is Kies performing some sort of erroneous conversion on the video as it is transferring the video across to the tablet.
I don't use Kies for the Mac anymore, and always transfer files via WiFi, and seldom have any playback issues now.
Regards,
Dave

If you transfer photos/movies from a MAC via the current version of kies then these get corrupted...

I'll try the wifi tip cheers. Although a friend has a 5 year old laptop that I tried the converted videos on and the same breakup occured through vlc. No probs with any of the encoded videos through vlc on my mac pro though.

Tried the wifi tip and works Shame it's a little on the slow side but it'll do till there's a better way
Kies is definately broken for the mac, it hasn't corrupted every video I transferred but enough to really annoy!
Cheers for the tip

The touchwiz update is almost perfect IMHO, I had lags with vanilla ui but since twz update, I enjoy my tab except for one thing:
My fingers literally hurt from overuse of gab10.1!
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App

The Tegra 2 is not capable to decoding most HD video. The video accelerator (seperate from the GPU) is simply too slow and can not decode most h.264 profiles other than profiles which are obsolete (baseline for example)
Sorry folks, its not a problem with the actual software, its the Tegra 2 which is simply too slow to decode much of todays HD video.

Agreed. As an owner of both a Captivate and Tab 10.1 I am less than impressed with the video performance of this Tab. My Cappy blows it away.
Now the only thing the Tab has over the Cappy is support for legacy DIVX codecs. With the latest update all of my DIVX movies work. But the Cappy still runs laps over the Tab. A shame really. One step forward, two steps back.

You have to understand that Tegra 2 is a very old chip despite tablets just being released due to honeycomb delays.
All future tablet chipsets like the Tegra 3 and others will be able to decode any HD content without performance issues.

gazwkd said:
My biggest disappointment has been video compatability or lack of it. A lot of my videos are now digitally encoded, some are ok on the tab, others have horrendous breakup. I've done as much research as possible into re-encoding these to suitable format but no matter what program and settings I use I can't get them to run properly. I'm getting to the stage of moving down the Ipad route. I'd post screenshots but apparentlly can't for another 8 posts
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Use Dice player, and u will see how all videos will played nice!

5thElement said:
You have to understand that Tegra 2 is a very old chip despite tablets just being released due to honeycomb delays.
All future tablet chipsets like the Tegra 3 and others will be able to decode any HD content without performance issues.
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I won't count on that. The chipset used in Captivate is even older than Tegra 2. It's all about the drivers and matuality of the OS. HoneyComb just don't have much video codec support to be hornest. Tegra 1 chip in my Zune player plays 720p video better than Tegra 2 in my Tab. And there are 3rd party player app that can use Tegra 2 hardware acceleration to play videos that stock player can't. This is all software limitations in stock HC. Even when Tegra 3 comes out, HC as is will have the same limitation unless Google gets its act together.

I use dice player now, and my tab plays anything I throw at it. 1080p MKVs and avi files play awesome, even supports the multiple audio tracks and subtitles. No complaints here.
I personally don't need any more power in the tablet, it does everything I want it to do flawlessly.

Xoom - new user experience

I have had this Xoom tablet since Monday and every evening after work I've been busy toying with it to see what it can do. Wasn't sure initially that I was going to get it since a new version is about to hit the markets, but I got a good deal at Dixons in Dublin airport (€289) for the WiFi version.
Anyway, in most of the things it's a great toy but it has a few, but really annoying, shortcomings:
- Not able to charge via USB cable
- Not able to mount like a normal Android device to my computers
- Playing movies is a a horrible experience, if at all possible.
For the second item, I have downloaded and installed the Motorola drivers for my Windows PC and after that it mounts just fine. Same goes for my Mac. For Linux I had to fire up the Terminal and do some fiddling following various guides on how to set up USB mounting and Samba sharing. So it's not impossible, just annoying that manual setup needs to be done on various platforms...or perhaps I'm just lazy.
I have quite a few .mkv movie files and I have searched this forum for players that will accept the files. None of the players I've downloaded are able to play mkv even with Codecs installed. All of the players mentioned in this thread do not work with a mkv file the size of 1.5GB. There appears to be software that can convert the files to be more Xoom friendly, but it costs about $30. Of course, seeing my mate being able to play all movie files on his HP TouchPad with WebOS without problems doesn't exactly help to lift my spirits.
I did have some issues with Google Music not wanting to remember my online collection but since downloading the latest app yesterday this now appears to be fixed.
My Xoom runs Tiamat Xoom Rom 2.2.2 - Moray and I flashed the Odachi kernel.
Other than my ranting above the Xoom is great for browsing the web, skype, listening to music and reading books (becoming addicted to buying books in Kindle)

For the MKV files - handbrake won't convert em for you? Cause that's free - and what I use to convert raw material for my xoom.
edit: and I personally have never seen a tablet that charges via USB. Samsung's galaxy tabs charge via their dock, my old nook color required the charger to charge, even though it was a modified USB cable, and the xoom is well.. we know already.

ZeroSX said:
For the MKV files - handbrake won't convert em for you? Cause that's free - and what I use to convert raw material for my xoom.
edit: and I personally have never seen a tablet that charges via USB. Samsung's galaxy tabs charge via their dock, my old nook color required the charger to charge, even though it was a modified USB cable, and the xoom is well.. we know already.
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Haven't used Handbrake in a while so I'll have a try to see if it works. Any special settings you set up in Handbrake for it to work with the Xoom?
This is my first tablet so I don't actually have much to compare with regarding the USB charging. I just mentioned the lack of USB charging to two colleagues who have HP tablets and they were surprised that it needs an actual wall charger.

As its been said many times before USB charging would take forever on a tablet. I can charge my xoom to 100% way faster then my girlfriends Galaxy 10 which uses the 5v USB.
And the way the file managing is done is better and worse in a way. Phones and pcs handle it better and i haven't had a issue with corrupting my sd card like i did with my Droid 2 and the old mounting. But linux is a pain to get MTP to work with. On my Win 7 pcs it saw it right away and worked with out needing anything DLed.
And handbrake does all my video converting great. It may not be super 1080P HD but i really dont need super HD on a tablet. Ill try to pull my preset file for you to try.

I use MX Player off of the market for MKV files and it plays them flawlessly when changing to software decoding and such for certain files. You should look into that.

omac_ranger said:
I use MX Player off of the market for MKV files and it plays them flawlessly when changing to software decoding and such for certain files. You should look into that.
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I second MX Player off of the market (http://goo.gl/WvXLa).
I also found pre-alpha VLC player that I've used without any issues.
http://dl.cvpcs.org/android/test/common/VLC-neon.apk
http://dl.cvpcs.org/android/test/common/VLC-noneon.apk
I used to convert my video with Handspring but I no longer have to with these two awesome video players.

omac_ranger said:
I use MX Player off of the market for MKV files and it plays them flawlessly when changing to software decoding and such for certain files. You should look into that.
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Tried that but it didn't work even when changing to software decoding.

nephroid said:
I also found pre-alpha VLC player that I've used without any issues.
http://dl.cvpcs.org/android/test/common/VLC-neon.apk
http://dl.cvpcs.org/android/test/common/VLC-noneon.apk
I used to convert my video with Handspring but I no longer have to with these two awesome video players.
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Cool thanks! Was looking for VLC earlier. Will give these a try.
Edit: first one (VLC-nonneon) works albeit the picture is not very steady. Loads of small breaks when playing a film. Second one force closes.

slonn said:
Cool thanks! Was looking for VLC earlier. Will give these a try.
Edit: first one (VLC-nonneon) works albeit the picture is not very steady. Loads of small breaks when playing a film. Second one force closes.
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Just out of curiosity, how large are these files you're testing with? .mkv's, .avi's?
The VLC app works for me if I don't try to jump all around the videos too often. It's pre-alpha so there should be some quirks.

nephroid said:
Just out of curiosity, how large are these files you're testing with? .mkv's, .avi's?
The VLC app works for me if I don't try to jump all around the videos too often. It's pre-alpha so there should be some quirks.
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The files were about 1.5 GB. I've tried with smaller files and that seems to work. I just assumed that any file under 4 GB would play without problems. In any case I've fired up Handbrake to compress the movie files. Great with free software

My way of doing things.
so far i havent had any problems playing videos, partially because things have been too hectic for the 4g xooms so i keep changing stuff, and partially because most of the movies i own in digital form all play without hesitation, like from the google movies.
as far as mounting goes, windows does fine once u have the drivers, but i hate paying for software, so fudge windows. linux on the other hand is easy, all i do is boot into cwm and mount usb drive. works like a snap, prob work in windows too, just havent tried. that lets u access your externalsd, but theres prob a way to mount ur internal, just havent tried that yet either.
and the charging i read somewhere actually works through usb, its just so slow, and so low that one, it doesnt register, and two it would only really be fesible in an emergency. but i actually like the fact we get a full powered charger that just juices it up quick and painlessly. true the only way to charge it on the go is get a seperate charger, or a converter, but i can live with the battery power.
hope u figure your stuff out, i love this thing. does all i want and more, witht the added benefit of having a metal case, which is more important than u think!! wait till your mates drop their pads, i put mine through some rough wear, and that metal case has saved it several times. the biggest thing that breaks on these that ive seen is the glass on the screen, which is a pretty easy fix, plus it wont make it unusable if u do, just gotta live with it. have fun!!!

I use MX Player to play video files that were nearly 1.1GBs, never had a problem. Is the Video the problem or the audio when you were using it?

omac_ranger said:
I use MX Player to play video files that were nearly 1.1GBs, never had a problem. Is the Video the problem or the audio when you were using it?
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It's the video that lags.

no lag now after the films were compressed with handbrake. Happy days

I play 10GB MKVs with MX Video player, I have no idea why you would be having issues with your files. I love my Xoom and MX plays everything

charged it to 100 % last night and it was at 99% thus morning. Just one per cent down in 10 hours with screen off. That's very impressive!

slonn said:
no lag now after the films were compressed with handbrake. Happy days
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What format did you convert too? MP4?
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

slonn said:
charged it to 100 % last night and it was at 99% thus morning. Just one per cent down in 10 hours with screen off. That's very impressive!
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Yep in my experience this is pretty normal! ;-)
Sent from my DEFY running CM7 using XDA App

From my personal experiences:
- Not able to charge via USB cable
Aye, that's a shame but understandable due to the amount of power needed.
- Not able to mount like a normal Android device to my computers
Unfortunately this will be the way for all android devices, also all phones. This is due to the switch to MTP connectivity from ICS and up. Google made this switch so they were able to pool all the memory in a device to a single storage pool, this to avoid all the issues with earlier (low amount of memory) devices which would run out of space after installing a lot of applications like for example the HTC Desire or original Nexus.
- Playing movies is a a horrible experience, if at all possible.
Agreed, it was quite a let down, mostly due to the limitations of the Tegra cpu. As mentioned by a lot of others MX player does it pretty well however, for my own collection i use and can advise you Plex. Its removes the need to recode anything in you library. On the move its not an option if you are without wifi in your case (i have a 3g Xoom myself) but its awesome when connected.
Enjoy your device.

King350z said:
What format did you convert too? MP4?
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk
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No, converted it to m4v.

AFTV vs. Asus Chromebox

I'm very happy with my AFTV. I'm rooted, running the latest pre-rooted firmware, etc. I'm thinking of ALSO running OpenELEC from a Chromebox. I would like KODI to run somewhat better, without the Android limitations, and I like to mess around. If anyone is doing this, I would like to read your comments, thoughts, etc.

I actually had this debate several weeks ago, and ended up going with the FTV. One of the big winners for me, was how easily Hulu and Netflix can be integrated into XBMC (since everything is a regular app, it works REALLY well), unlike those services on Windows or Linux platforms. As it is, overall it has surprised me at how well it all performs,and am rather glad to have saved the money. I dont think you can go wrong either way, but i cant say i have felt any limitations (and indeed, this lets me do more than my old windows XBMC box)..

True. But I'm interested in better 1080/24p/high bitrate playback -- no dropped frames, and HD audio.
Once you start noticing dropped frames, it's very difficult to stop seeing them, and I've tried all the various advanced.xml cache settings. I also have both SPMC and Helix RC3 installed so I can compare. I'm thinking SPMC is smoother.

Not a chromebox, but I came to Roku/FireTV from XBMC/OpenElec on mini PCs. XBMC in and of itself is slightly better on those and having an open OS is nice. However, before you make the jump you need to decide what you will be using it for. If you plan to use services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, etc. you are better off sticking with the FTV. Sure, you can get all of those working, but using them just isn't fun. If you don't care about services like those and just want XBMC and it's add-ons, then something like OpenElec or XBMCbuntu on a PC is an easy choice.
However, my recommendation would be to wait. The first Android TV box was just released (Nexus Player), and while it's a bit underwhelming there are others on the way. Razer is working on one intended to be a game console. While you may not care about gaming, it should be safe to assume Android TV "gaming console" really means Android TV "high end" box. Personally I don't have the frame drop issues you are seeing (I batch transcoded all my videos into what I believe to be a friendly format), but what you describe makes it sound like the FTV is almost good enough for your videos. Perhaps the Razer Android TV or some other box in the near future will be good enough while keeping you in an environment with remote-friendly apps.

I would keep both boxes. I would do a stand alone install on the Chromebox (OpenElec), and use the Firetv for everything else. I started this thread hoping that someone else had done this and had feedback.

jmerrilljr2 said:
I would keep both boxes. I would do a stand alone install on the Chromebox (OpenElec), and use the Firetv for everything else. I started this thread hoping that someone else had done this and had feedback.
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I'm not sure I follow, or maybe you didn't get what I said. I have ran both the FireTV and OpenElec. Both I and Divine_Madcat gave you feedback. I don't have the dropped frames and audio issues you mentioned on my FireTV, but I'm playing my videos transcoded to a FTV friendly format. In my situation, FTV has all the advantages other than the open OS. If you are asking specifically about OpenElec on a chromebox, I wouldn't know. Maybe ask on a chomebox or OpenElec forum?
If you have some specific questions maybe we can answer them.

I just moved and decided to scrap cable and do everything via streaming. I think I took on too much by purchasing a RasPi preinstalled with OpenElec, as well as an FTV. Not sure which one goes on the main screen in the livingroom, but I'm leaning towards the FTV. Hope this discussion continues a bit, hope this is not too off-topic.

skeptic_always said:
... transcoded to a FTV friendly format. ...
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Which format is AFTV "friendly"?

no_spam_for_me said:
Which format is AFTV "friendly"?
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H.264, AC-3/DD 5.1 and AAC stereo audio tracks (except older DVD rips that are stereo only), in a .mp4 container. I'm sure it's not the only format that works, and probably not even the best format for FireTV, but it is the best option I found that works for both my FTV and my Roku.
I don't remember all the H.264 settings, but it was one of the included high quality profiles in Handbrake. Before transcoding they were all .mkv files with my own tweaked H.264 settings and a single audio track that was whatever passthrough I picked when ripping that particular DVD/BluRay. The old .mkv files played perfectly on my OpenElec/XBMCbuntu devices, but could be hit or miss on Roku/FireTV. After transcoding they all play flawlessly and I get surround sound on all of them (except DVDs that are stereo only) through FireTV connected to an older Logitec surround sound system via optical spdif.

skeptic_always said:
H.264, AC-3/DD 5.1 and AAC stereo audio tracks (except older DVD rips that are stereo only), in a .mp4 container. ...
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OK, I thought you maybe also talk about FPS (to avoid skips, mirco-stutter and so on ...)

no_spam_for_me said:
OK, I thought you maybe also talk about FPS (to avoid skips, mirco-stutter and so on ...)
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Nope, just a container and A/V codecs that were listed as (presumably hardware) supported on both the Roku and AFTV. Not that it should matter for performance or stuttering, but I also burn in all the forced subtitles for best compatibility. No issues with some players not showing them, and I'd never want to turn them off anyway.
As for FPS, I always use the same as the source. Same for resolution, I'm not knocking them down to a lower res or anything.
I will say my transcoded Blu-Ray videos are MUCH smaller than when I first rip them from the Blu-Ray disc. They start out at something like 30G+ and typically transcode down to 4-6G, with the largest coming in a 9G. You might be able to tell the difference if you had a freeze frame of the original next to the same frame of the smaller one, but watching the same scene from both videos I don't notice any difference. This was my "good enough" test.

jmerrilljr2 said:
I'm very happy with my AFTV. I'm rooted, running the latest pre-rooted firmware, etc. I'm thinking of ALSO running OpenELEC from a Chromebox. I would like KODI to run somewhat better, without the Android limitations, and I like to mess around. If anyone is doing this, I would like to read your comments, thoughts, etc.
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Do you have audio sync issues with your AFTV? Which version of XBMC are you running? I'm getting audio sync issues on quite a few of my files.

Nope. No audio synch issues. I have the latest SPMC and Helix RC3/

jmerrilljr2 said:
Nope. No audio synch issues. I have the latest SPMC and Helix RC3/
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Did you have to disable hardware acceleration?