Database Users

EVO 4G & Epic 4G Hanging out SIDE BY SIDE

For some side my side images of the Epic4G and the EVO 4G check out my post at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=779123

So do we then get to post about how great the EPIC is compared to EVO? lol...
just kidding
I love the way people defend their purchase. Why can't people figure out the phrase
"Different Strokes for Different Folks"
There is a reason there is an EVO and there is a reason there is an EPIC.

HeroHTC said:
I love the way people defend their purchase. Why can't people figure out the phrase
"Different Strokes for Different Folks"
There is a reason there is an EVO and there is a reason there is an EPIC.
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Well said!

I agree with you 100%. Like I said before they are both high end devices and one would not really trade one for the other. Uses are quit content with their high end device.
BTW : the reason why I posted it on the evo forum is because I got an Evo. I def.ly was gonna post it twice because like u said users will defend what they got. Just didn't see the reason to post it twice when I could share the link and ones can comment,but I might as well include the images on the epic forum so epic uses can have their say,lol.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I had 2 Epics. The first one had none working capacitive buttons. The screen was AMAZING but I developed image retention or drooping. The GPS din't work and the slider was not flat so the phone clicked when you touched the screen. I ended up going back to an Evo but I really do miss the Epic. Samsung is developing a really bad reputation anymore. I also really liked the native divx support. I could just copy a full blooded .mkv at 720p and it would play perfectly. I miss that on my Evo.
I hope they fix the issues and maybe I could go back but right now I just needed something that worked....

The evo could play all files including divx and .mkv. just copy the file to your SD card and play it using yx player,works flawless..
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

jahnile said:
The evo could play all files including divx and .mkv. just copy the file to your SD card and play it using yx player,works flawless..
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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Correct, but straight 720p plays at a few frames per second where as on the epic I could copy over a 720p bluray rip and it would play without problems.

ptfdmedic said:
Correct, but straight 720p plays at a few frames per second where as on the epic I could copy over a 720p bluray rip and it would play without problems.
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Confirmed this last night on my EVO. It chokes on 720p mkv files in both yx player AND rock player. Both of them can play lower quality files though....

My observations with Evo vs Epic vs Epic Shift

I have all 3 phones. I have tried running divx, mp4 and mkv through all of them. The resolutions vary between dvd up to 720p hdtv quality. I am sad to say that, this is just my unscientific opinion, the evo shift stock is not more powerful than the other two in real world testing. I've tested operating all three in stock rom form and the shift isn't the badass.
If you want to recreate these tests for yourself to see or prove me wrong then go ahead. Go find a 720p mkv tv show off torrents or something and try running them on these phones.
Each phone has it's strong points and weaknesses. It just depends on what are you wanting the phone to do and what is more important than another thing. In general games, the epic seems to have the higher and smoother frame rates. It does have the largest keyboard area of between the two. I found that with my big fingers, I was bumping keys next to the one I was trying to hit many more times than I do on the Shift. The Epic's drawer mechanism is pretty darn loose. The Epic in video recording had closer to the actual colors and less artifacting caused by too high compression when compared to the Evo. I have yet to test video on the Shift much. I cannot record at the highest video resolution with the Epic without an error message coming up. The video is always corrupted when it crashes. If I do short recording sessions of just a few seconds, the epic looks better to me than the Evo. The Evo compresses too much and it shows in playback. The Evo will continue to record and not crash though when it is in highest resolution. Epic's high quality audio recording really sucks. It skips and studders. Both Evos sound great without any complaints. The screen on the Epic looks nicer and has richer looking colors than both Evos. Black is really black on the Epic. The colors might be richer but they exaggerate the saturation when comparing to whatever it is you are filming in real life.
The Epic seems to have more sensitive radios than the Evo but not the Shift, it hears just a little bit better than the Epic. I don't know who wins for battery life but I do know the Evo is in last place for runtime on a single charge.
Running the operating system on all three, the Evo seems quickest, Epic second, and the Shift in third. I'm talking about noticing hiccups, studders, temporary lockups and delayed reactions to screen touches. The Evo is very sensitive to the touch, the Shift second and Epic last. I found too many times I was talking back to the Epic, telling it to hurry up or come on!
The Epic takes a long time to charge and I haven't seen it be able to charge and use the device at the same time and actually increase battery capacity. I have seen both the Evos be able to charge and run at the same time.
Another thing I tried was pinch zooming in and out with the stock browser and see how smooth and fast it was. The Evo was definitely quick, followed closely by the Epic and Shift in last place with quick yet jerky zooming.
In closing, to be fair, the Evo has had the most official updates since first release. The epic has had a few updates too. The Shift is less than a week old. Evos are running 2.2 and Epic 2.1 so take some of that under consideration for speed too. I might be wrong but I would speculate that the Epic would be even faster when/if it finally goes to froyo. How would that stack up with the Evo? I don't know. It all comes down to what do you want in order of importance? For physical keyboards, I'm making less mistakes by hitting nearby keys with the Shift than the Epic.
Do any of you have two or all three of these phones? What are your observations? I'm not saying that these things I've said are facts per se, just my personal observations and impressions after using them. You mileage will most likely vary.

Well here is my take.
First: I do not have any of the above phones but I will be getting on soon.
I went into a Sprint store last night to get the shift, walked out not getting anything yet. Here is why.
To me currently its between 2 EVOs as I do not trust Samsung to fix or update anything, even if they roll out 2.2 or even 2.3 (skipping 2.2 as a Sprint employee suggested that Samsung is doing - I don't trust that but... whatever I have an Instinct and they dropped a ball on that with bugs glaring issues still in it).
So between the 2 EVOs here is what I see , any input would be welcomed.
Shift has better battery life, keyboard, smaller foot print, seems it should be faster at playing movies.
EVO thinner, larger screen.
So for me the keyboard is not a huge selling feature, I like it, but can easily live without it. Then there was an employee at the Sprint store with EVO and Extended battery. From all I've read/heard the extended battery on EVO should last at least as long as the stock on Shift. When I put both phones on the table the EVO was a smidgen thiker (with the extended battery) then the Shift.
So the way I see it the battery issue, is a non issue, between EVO and Shift so whats left is screen and keyboard.
I guess I will be selecting screen size, as bigger browser is a better experience, the way I see it.
From the above I am not sure I understand what is smoother playing videos (from the memory card) ?
Also is there any EVO issues (like connector problems, screen peeling ...) that I should put into my decision. Seems like where there but now are minimal if any.

I had an epic from launch which I traded for an evo two days ago and I bought my wife a shift on tuesday. While I may not have the epic right here to test I can assure you that I've run it through it's paces quite often.
First and foremost there is one glaring flaw in your testing and that is that the epic is running eclair which lacks the JIT speed enhancements and there fore its at a disadvantage. Second you even with that I have seen first hand how much more graphics processing power the epic has than the shift or even the evo.
As I started in your other thread about this, the shift has a second gen snap dragon whereas the evo has the first. Its a more powerful chip that has been underclocked exactly like it was in the desire z which has a stable overclock kernel running at 1.9ghz. The evo tops out at 1.2 and the epic overclocking was not "true" so its hard to judge that.
On to charging: my epic would charge to full from around 20% in about 4 hours while on and about 2 while off. I have not been able to thoroughly test the shift or the evo yet however I can say that I used to charge and use my epic all the time and it still charged very quickly.
Oh also for battery tests you have to keep in mind that while an lcd takes the same amount of power to display all colors a SAMOLED does not. Black requires no power and knowing that using dark themes as well as other tweaks I generally got about 28 hours per charge on the epic.
To sum up, I don't know a lot about .mkv files but I do know a lot about these three phones and here is what I know: the epic will always out perform the others on graphical tests. The evo and the epic will be close on productivity tests however the shift will be over clocked and will destroy the other two in productivity.
Edit sorry forgot to mention updates! The evo has received many major updates and tweaks that have made it a better device. The epic has received two and neither had fixed anything. One of them did make it so you could give samsung more money.
Sent from my cm7 Evo 4G!

I have the Epic and the Shift and I really believe the Shift runs better than the Epic in the real world enviornment. I havnt tested 720 mkv's though. Are you using the same SD card on each device when testing?
I find the Shift most def faster than the og evo in every aspect. I havn't had one lag, hickup or anything what-so-ever.
My browser doesnt have any lag at all when I pinch zoom in and out multiple times as fast as I can. Are you sure there isnt something running in the backround hendering your performace on your Shift? I truely believe when we overclock this thing its gonna smash on both phones minus the graphics of the Epic.
Considering I've messed with the EVO a ton and my friends with og EVO's say my phone is def faster in all aspects we could test at the time. I'm thinking maybe your device isnt running up to par for some reason...Or maybe I got a lucky device because my phone has been flawless (except for the signal drop when holding the base of the phone) for me and even lasted over 48 hours on 1 charge with light use.

Someone was mentioning speed improvements with jit. There's all kinds of ways to boost speed, the way I tested was stock rooted with official up to date roms.
I have just copied two shows that were converted from 1280x720 3700kbps video bitrate mkv. The video bitrate on both after re-encoding was 2000. One video I left the same 1280x720 and the other I converted down to the screen resolution of the phone 800x448. I am surprised that BOTH are 657.8mb regardless of resolution. My common sense is telling me this should not be. It's telling me the 1280 video should be larger in mb than the 800. I don't understand what the deal is but I'm not going to focus on that. I did this whole conversion with handbrake, bringing the audio down to 2 channel stereo, 48khz, 160kbps audio. I will play these and report back on what I find. I'm guessing the Shift and others won't have any problems since I backed the video bitrate way down. Playback on the computer, I'm surprised I can't tell the difference at fullscreen from the original....

I mentioned the jit improvements because only the epic doesn't have it. I'm not sure why there being "a ways to boost speed" negates the fact that any device running 2.2 or higher will have these speed boosts, which both the Evo and the Evo shift do but the Epic does not. You are effectively testing win xp against win7. Its just a bad test.
Further, its mostly moot because if you want your device to perform better you can (or will be able to in the case of the Shift) install custom roms that will outperform a stock phone any day.
Sent from my cm7 Evo 4G!
EDIT
Now that I'm on my computer and can do a little research I looked up the .mkv format. To be honest, its a rather old standard and that could be the issue you're having. As I stated previously in the other thread, I test a 1080p .avi episode of 30 Rock and noticed no hiccups or stuttering at all on either my (very non-stock) Evo and my wife's Shift. It ran perfectly. Since you are using Handbrake, I'm not sure why you're using mkv as opposed to avi as in my experience avi's tend to run a whole hell of a lot smoother than most other video formats and it is works on pretty much all video players.
There is one other very real possibility that has not been discussed: When the Evo first came out and for a long time it was locked at 30 frames per second for playback of any kind and the same kind of lock could be on the Evo Shift. However, given my personal results of being able to play 1080p video flawlessly, I very much doubt that this is the case.

Avi file extension is pretty old but that alone doesn't really tell you what codec is being used. I think avi might be a microsoft creation too. There are quite a few codecs dating back well over a decade or more which use the avi extension. Divx, xvid, and indeo are a few that I can remember off the top of my head. Mkv, some mp4, and m4v are mpeg 4 avc. Mkv is one of the codecs used in blu ray, so its not that old.
I am interested in what codec, audio channels with bitrate and video codec with bitrate, what bit color, etc. That might shed some light on what might be happening and why playback is the way it is.
I tried almost a dozen video players from the market that had between 4 to 5 stars and an old version of demo player. Some played very slow. Vital player and demo/divx had very slow playback for video. I think rockplayer demo was the only one I saw that had a choice between hardware or software decoding. Either one seemed to have the same results.
The video that was 800 resolution, with the mp4 avc reencode, played with higher framerate and pretty much syncd audio. There was a noticed studdering and not butter smooth of video. I haven't figured out the cause of that yet. The 1280x720 reencode played better than the master but the video skipped and studdered even worse. Some players handled av better than others but weren't perfect.
I am starting to think that it boils down to what do I want to do the most with my phone? Play games, watch videos, record audio and or video, text and email a lot, etc. I'm loosing interest in being an intense gamer. If I want to watch videos, why watch movies and shows on a tiny phone screen when I can use my laptop? I might do some video or audio recording. Granted this isn't a real camera or camcorder, but it will work in a pinch. I'm not really complaining about the phone. It will do what it was designed to do.
As I said before, these are just my observations and results after playing around with them. They aren't scientific. Some can say its flawed but actually I don't really care about that. I did these tests for myself and am sharing what I found out.

Maybe if I have some time, I will make a youtube video showing all this stuff happening. I wonder if I might have got a lemon phone... I should go by the sprint store and play with the display and see if it acts the same.

I've owned all three for extended periods of time and have rooted the Evo and Epic and tweaked the crap outta them both. The Epic is a complete POS period. Doesn't even deserve to be in the same conversation. Their GPU #s mean absolutely ZERO to me because if you place a piece of **** in a tuxedo, it's still a POS. The Evo was a great phone but did have a lot of lag ESPECIALLY in the browser (scroll, pinch to zoom, etc) Battery life was just plain humerous and the screen resolution was just so bad that everything looked like it was washed through bleach before making it to the display. The Evo Shift is the fastest of the 3 BY FAR! It has no lag thus far, incredible reaction times, excellent scrolling, amazing battery life, and a clearer display than the EVO. I can honestly say that I own the best phone Sprint has to offer and I can't wait to get some seriously crazy Kernals on this thing and OC the crap out of it.
Please Note: I hate qwerty keyboards and have never used it. I'm not thrilled about the screen size of the Shift but will GLADLY tolerate a smaller screen for the crazy fast processor and unbelievable battery life. Not to mention I feel like the build quality is much nicer than both the Epic (piece of plastic Shyte) or the Evo (Nice but just no contrast on the body...all looks like black plastic) The brushed metal frame with the lazer etched polished rim on the front of the Evo shift is just beautiful. The back has a very nice look and feel but I would have preferred a metal backside like the G2 to complete the theme setup by the front of the phone.

Can anyone with the EVO and Shift compare how they play games like pocket legends or dungeon defenders?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

etbrandt2 said:
Can anyone with the EVO and Shift compare how they play games like pocket legends or dungeon defenders?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App
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It's really hard to tell honestly. Very little difference if any. The Shift's GPUs are slightly better than the Evo but it's a little hard to tell. I played on my Shift and my sister's Evo...I call it a draw, maybe a slight edge in smoothness to the Shift but hardly noticeable.

You should odin the epic to dk28 aka froyo and then do these tests
There's too many inconsistents in your experimenting
But yeah once the shift gets Oc'd like the g2, then its good.
The epic can only oc to 1.2, 1.3 stable and 1.6 max from the last time I bothered with eclair a few months ago lol
There hasn't been any oc for the leaked froyo
Also, the keyboard on the epic looks nice, but misses keys. Everything I type from here on out wont b edited so you can see lol
The TP2 kb was the best. Idk why htc went with the g2 kb and left the tp2 in history :/
I think this test should be between the shift and g2 considering sprints phones are different beasts for different people lol
If samsung were to be on par with htc on software updates, I honestly don't think either of those phones would stand a chance against the epic
Also, 720p .mkv play great on the epic...even subtitles! But I believe its because samsung is usingthe codecs from rockplayer in the market for the galaxy s video player lol so I don't think that's a fair comparison since its basically atird party app
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

The epic can only oc to 1.2, 1.3 stable and 1.6 max from the last time I bothered with eclair a few months ago lol
There hasn't been any oc for the leaked froyo
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The 1.6 was a fake. Was not truly 1.6ghz and that was brought up in the thread about the shift in the epic forums...
Sent from my Detoxed CM6.1.2 Evo 4G!

My brother has an epic 4g and I have a shift 4g. From what I've noticed the only thing better about his phone is the way that the screen looks and the screen size. I tried loading up a blu-ray rip of avatar and I don't notice any artifacts, lag, or anything different between the two. The epic is faster in anything to do with gpu? Then why is it losing in benchmarks?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

I went to Radio Shack a few days ago to handle the Epic, Evo and the Shift. I ultimately decided on the Shift and here's why:
The Epic and Evo are just too big. I have fairly large hands (can palm a basketball) but I just couldn't stand the thought of something that large in my pocket; I prefer mobility.
The Evo doesn't have a keyboard, so it was automatically ruled out based on that one trait alone. The Epic has an additional row of buttons for the number keys, which I liked, but isn't necessary. The Epic's "drawer" (I saw someone call it that in this thread already), or the mechanism that allows the keyboard to slide out, felt cheap and loose.
Making the decision of buying the Shift was based on the keyboard, the smaller footprint, the better performing CPU and the price ($150 from RS on 2 year contract).

Ok, so I am digging this one out from over half a year ago, and I just wanted to see what people thought of the Shift vs Epic now that both have 2.3 and custom roms as I have a Shift at the moment but I can take it back and get the Epic for free. I was wondering as to which one performs better/smoother does better at call quality? I like the bigger screen and the number row on the keyboard.

The only thing I am going to say here is get the EVO Shift 4G if you are deciding between these three phones.
You ask why?
Simple
They are going to stop selling the EVO and the Epic come october that means no more updates or software support (except on XDA)
Thats just my 2 cents lol

Yea I got the Shift and not the Evo because of that (well and the actualy keyboard) but saw this week the epic went on sale for free and I know it has a biger and nicer screen and in many bench marks outclasses the shift. Though Is like to see how the shift compares when running asop and oc kernal, because correct me if I am wrong but the second gen snapdragon should out perform a first gen hummingbird that's in the epic?

saiyandide said:
Yea I got the Shift and not the Evo because of that (well and the actualy keyboard) but saw this week the epic went on sale for free and I know it has a biger and nicer screen and in many bench marks outclasses the shift. Though Is like to see how the shift compares when running asop and oc kernal, because correct me if I am wrong but the second gen snapdragon should out perform a first gen hummingbird that's in the epic?
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Not really. yea the second gen snapdragon with adreno 205 does really help close the distance between the two chipsets but a hummingbird still will outperform the Snapdragon in the graphics department.

The Epic is a MUCH better phone all around.
Clearer and larger Screen, front facing camera, snappier. All that.
Only downfall is the battery life is going to make you regret getting it.
So, second choice is the Shift. I suggest you get that if you want a phone you can use all day.

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?
Click to expand...
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 ...

Video Playback.

I'd like to make a comparison in video playback before I preorder mine mine tomorrow.
I have one particular video in mind
Zenith Part 1 Sample mkv. It can be found via thepiratebay (official destributer, its free and legal, the video I mean, as well as the full version of it.) But you can find it elsewhere (their own website) if you have a problem with TPB.
The galaxy tab struggles to play the sample in VPlayer and refuses in the stock player to even try. I get screen glitching and slowness if it doesn't just crash.
Would someone be willing to download it (33MB) sample and comment?
Thanks.
Sent from my GT-P1000

playback is very slow. audio plays at a normal speed. used mobo for the video app.

Thanks for the test. I just tried mono on my grab plays slow but no screen glitching like my other player. I had to use soft decoding though. Unsupported by system player.
It seems video playback is no better than the gtab.
Hopefully its atleast similar I'm happy with that much.
Sent from my GT-P1000

try vitalplayer just discovered it today

myv6mustang said:
try vitalplayer just discovered it today
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I tried it, but because I'm using the Galaxy Tab as a comparison here, it's build in codecs don't support the sample video format and so can't play it.

You may want to wait for Samsung's upcoming GalaxyS tablets that are coming in June. Their GalaxyS phones are the only ones I know of with out-of-the-box great MP4, MKV, Xvid, and WMV support. My Xoom doesn't play a vast majority of videos that my GalaxyS Vibrant does. Presumably the GalaxyS tablets will have similar abilities.

reuthermonkey said:
You may want to wait for Samsung's upcoming GalaxyS tablets that are coming in June. Their GalaxyS phones are the only ones I know of with out-of-the-box great MP4, MKV, Xvid, and WMV support. My Xoom doesn't play a vast majority of videos that my GalaxyS Vibrant does. Presumably the GalaxyS tablets will have similar abilities.
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Thanks for the info. So do we have solid dates and/or specs for hte GalaxyS tablets? I don't have the kind of patience to wait two more months unless i can clearly see £600 on the XOOM next week is wasted.

alias_neo said:
Thanks for the info. So do we have solid dates and/or specs for hte GalaxyS tablets? I don't have the kind of patience to wait two more months unless i can clearly see £600 on the XOOM next week is wasted.
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http://gizmodo.com/#!5784427/samsung-galaxy-tab-comes-in-in+between-89+inch-size-now
June 8 - $499

reuthermonkey said:
http://gizmodo.com/#!5784427/samsung-galaxy-tab-comes-in-in+between-89+inch-size-now
June 8 - $499
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I really don't want another TouchWiz device, so I'm out as far as the Samsung's go. Any up-coming google devices? I want pure honeycomb, looks like the scales are tipping back in favour of the XOOM.

alias_neo said:
I really don't want another TouchWiz device, so I'm out as far as the Samsung's go. Any up-coming google devices? I want pure honeycomb, looks like the scales are tipping back in favour of the XOOM.
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Click to collapse
From the videos at CTIA, it's even lighter than TouchWiz3, but I can understand wanting a pure flavor of Honeycomb. That said, any pure Honeycomb ("with Google") very, very likely will not have direct, out of the box support for MKV (See: Nexus S vs Galaxy S).
That said, I know Acer and LG are coming out with some Honeycomb tablets, as well as Sony and HTC. Pretty much all "by Summer". The only one with a set date is the Sammy.
At this point, I think the Xoom is going to be the only customization-free tablet of the bunch. Until it gets a firmware update to fix the slow rendering and video playback though, it's *very* hard for me to recommend it though. I may well be returning my own in the coming days.

reuthermonkey said:
From the videos at CTIA, it's even lighter than TouchWiz3, but I can understand wanting a pure flavor of Honeycomb. That said, any pure Honeycomb ("with Google") very, very likely will not have direct, out of the box support for MKV (See: Nexus S vs Galaxy S).
That said, I know Acer and LG are coming out with some Honeycomb tablets, as well as Sony and HTC. Pretty much all "by Summer". The only one with a set date is the Sammy.
At this point, I think the Xoom is going to be the only customization-free tablet of the bunch. Until it gets a firmware update to fix the slow rendering and video playback though, it's *very* hard for me to recommend it though. I may well be returning my own in the coming days.
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If it were the Nexus One of Tablets, I'd have no problem, at least we could count on the updates from Google and know it won't get dropped. But with Moto in the mix, I don't trust them to get us any updates let alone keep them going for a decent period.
I feeling now that I may end up getting one anyway and replacing it after the summer. Mainly because I'm impatient, and so far all my impatience costs me is money.

How is media playback?

I'm going to Best Buy here in a few... I know I'll fall in love with the GT 10.1. I really like the idea of the Archos, but...... the wait is killing me.
I'm not looking to view DVD quality movies on my tab. I'm not looking to encode anything. My house is wired up so that I can access all my files wirelessly throughout anyhow... I just want something that when I toss on a DIVX, AVI, ETC, standard 1gb file that I stole from the internet (um, I mean legally download) that it will play when I'm out and about, etc. My Droid Incredible plays most any file I put on it so I'm hoping the same from this tablet?
Any huge problems? I have little patience and my days of encoding things are long behind me when all I do is download, watch and then trash.

I haven't had any problems playing my downloaded movies/TV shows (even HD) with Mobo player. And when Samsung releases TouchWiz media playback will only get better.

I haven't figured out the correct sizing for ripped dvds (I'm sure its in one of these forums somewhere) but the movies that I have copied over look great and play well. They are just not full screen.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App

bbeelzebub said:
I'm going to Best Buy here in a few... I know I'll fall in love with the GT 10.1. I really like the idea of the Archos, but...... the wait is killing me.
I'm not looking to view DVD quality movies on my tab. I'm not looking to encode anything. My house is wired up so that I can access all my files wirelessly throughout anyhow... I just want something that when I toss on a DIVX, AVI, ETC, standard 1gb file that I stole from the internet (um, I mean legally download) that it will play when I'm out and about, etc. My Droid Incredible plays most any file I put on it so I'm hoping the same from this tablet?
Any huge problems? I have little patience and my days of encoding things are long behind me when all I do is download, watch and then trash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got GT10.1 last night. I was going to get the transformer, but I did a little comparison in Best Buy. I played the same Youtube HD Music video on both tablets. The Asus playback was skip and wasnt totally smooth. The GT was totally smooth so I went with the Sammy.

Thanks for the input!
I picked up a tab a bit ago, time to charge it and let the fun begin!
Now, I hope the Archos G9 sucks major donkey balls, so that way I don't get buyers remourse! LOL
After fiddling with all the other tablets at Best Buy and Fry's, I was really impressed with how light the GT 10.1 is. Maybe I was just feeling lazy, but that alone made me want it. It feels so nice in hand. Better than the iPad 2 that I had and returned.

crazed_z06 said:
I got GT10.1 last night. I was going to get the transformer, but I did a little comparison in Best Buy. I played the same Youtube HD Music video on both tablets. The Asus playback was skip and wasnt totally smooth. The GT was totally smooth so I went with the Sammy.
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The TF at bestbuy is on 3.0. Theres no issue when its on 3.1

dazz87 said:
The TF at bestbuy is on 3.0. Theres no issue when its on 3.1
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There does seem to be a problem with Flash video on the TF, as it appears that hardware acceleration is not enabled.
I'd expect that to be fixed soon though.
Regards,
Dave

It won't play mkv files. So, i've been ripping my videos to m4v format. If the source file is at a high enough resolution, i use 1280 x 720 at 1200kbs. I get a pretty good picture and a movie will be around 800MB to 1GB?
Sent from my SGT 10.1