Database Users

[Q] IconiaTab or Kindle?

Ok, the tagline is misleading...
I picked up an A500 about a week ago and still trying to decide if I want to keep it. Primarily, I wanted it for reading. At this it does pretty good, tried a few eReader apps and settled on Moon+. So, it satisfies my reading requirement BUT as an android tablet I expect more. It is supposed to play audio and video files but I find that android is rather crummy at that. It will only play .mp3's for audio, 95% of my music is in lossless WMA. For video, it only plays .mp4. All my video is either mpg, avi or wmv. So it seems an android tablet kinda stinks for entertainment purposes.
So, I hit the forums here and started looking for info and alternatives. I heard some other apps would work. I downloaded winamp, poweramp and playerpro and none of them would play my wma files.
For video, I downloaded Moboplayer (had good reviews here) and Arcmedia. Arcmedia just totally croaked on all files. Moboplayer would play wmv but the sound was completely hosed. Moboplayer did play mpg's and mkv's ok though, but again most of my video is wmv. Sure wish VLC worked on android.
So, right now it looks like the only thing this tablet is really good for is reading books. For that I could just get a nook or something and save some money. I wont even mention gps, thats another thread.
So have I missed something or are android tabs just lame for entertainment (only playing mp3/mp4)?
PS
Yes I know others have asked similar questions. Sorry for the redundancy, but perhaps some progress has been made that isnt on the forum.

They are OK but you have a lot of files in Windows Media Audio or Video format which is IMHO badly supported on Android phones.
Did you try RockPlayer? Some people report good results with that but I don't have any WMA or WMW files anywhere to try it out.

So your Android device has major problems playing Microsoft DRM'd proprietary files... I am not the least bit surprised, as licinsing would be expensive, and not Open Source. Mine plays all my ogg audio, AVC/AC3, AVC/OGG, Mpeg4/OGG, Mpeg4/MP3, etc. just fine. Of course it can't do all the video natively (I suspect the MKV parser is a dud, as it can decode properly the same streams from an mp4), but Moboplayer handles those just fine. The problen you are going to continue to have is expecting MS codecs to play nice on Android devices. Maybe find one that advertises WMA/WMV support?

Try RockPlayer for video.
It has run everything I have thrown at it.
As far as your music collection, I have not seen a lot of support for wma anywhere outside of a microsoft product (windows, zune, xbox, etc)
You might want to bite the bullet and convert those to a more sustainable format.
Also, even though you have found a book reader, try Aldikio. I love it. I just wish it had syncing options...though those are supposedly in the works.

Best Players for Android Honeycomb are:
Doubletwist Player and Moboplayer.
Give these a try. Moboplayer has codecs inside of it should it SHOULD be able to play anything.....and its FREE.

you could also try handbrake to convert your video files into a more android friendly format. However, no matter what you end up doing, the Iconia is going to run circles around a Kindle any day of the week.

Rumor is that Amazon will be coming out with a couple of android tablet in the next few months. Surely before Christmas if they are.
As for WMA lossless very few players can handle it out of the 50 or so I have reviewed for my blog. Check the Android market for "WMA player". You might get lucky.

Thanks for the info all !
Didnt have much luck with rockplayer either
(Moboplayer says it will do wma, but if you dig a little deeper it says it cant do the lossless wma)
Oh well, I certainly cant put my whole audio/video collection on a tablet anyway so I could just occasionally convert some files to put on it in a format it can handle. BTW, these files are not drm'd they even play on my "dumb" phone.
As far as ebook apps, I did try Aldiko and liked it but what kinda killed it for me was that it cant do annotations.

perry59, your biggest issue is that you've chosen to use a Microsoft's own proprietary format that simply isn't supported too well anywhere, and the reason for that is that Microsoft requires a hefty sum of money in licensing deals for the support.
FLAC is probably the most widely-supported lossless audio codec these days, so unless there's some very specific reason for you to keep using WMA you could transcode all your audio files to FLAC.
H.264/.mp4 also seems the most ubiquitous video codec+container, but I admit that transcoding all your video files from one lossy codec to another is not only messy and time-consuming, but it also loses on the picture quality a little. However, if you do decide to just transcode videos for the tablet every now and then and keep the original files you could use Handbrake or Cyberlink MediaEspresso; Handbrake does the transcoding in software so it takes quite a bit longer, MediaEspresso does it in hardware if you have an Nvidia CUDA-compatible card or ATI Stream one.

Mp3 is best format small in size at same time high on quality use it instead
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk

umanko said:
Mp3 is best format small in size at same time high on quality use it instead
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mp3 is a lossy format, the OP chose a lossless format for a reason.

Try VPlayer for videos
VPlayer is the best video player for Android.
Video formats: divx/xvid, wmv, m4v, flv, rmvb, avi, mkv, mov, mp4, 3gp, ts, tp...
Streaming: http, rtsp, mms and m3u(apple http stream, m3u8
https://market.android.com/details?id=me.abitno.vplayer.t&feature=more_from_developer
Only free for 7days, altho it is only like £3

To identify qualty difference with ears u need very high quakity speakers which might cost more then tab itself
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk

umanko said:
To identify qualty difference with ears u need very high quakity speakers which might cost more then tab itself
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a lot easier with headphones as there's no echo from the walls around you, the furniture doesn't affect the sound, and finding headphones with wide frequency response area isn't difficult.

[TIP] Streaming video solutions for your home network

I have a gigantic media server, over 10TB, mostly video (my music collection, while huge, just doesn't take much space comparatively).
While there are a variety of approaches/solutions to distributing this media around the home via a network, I've found that the easiest means for me is to simply mount server share(s) on playback devices when possible, rather than using solutions like TVersity and ORB.
Windows shares (a.k.a. CIFS) are simple to set up, provide full-resolution / quality playback of the material, and for whatever reasons (there are many), is more broadly compatible as a means of streaming. I've run into too many files that AllShare balks at, yet will play just fine when the file is streamed directly.
So what's the point of this thread?
Two-fold. 1) stimulate discussion on technology and methods used for streaming video on a LAN to get the best results, and 2) share my own solutions.
Here's what I've found:
CifsManager is Da Bomb. It does a great job of adding a system-wide Windows Share mounting and access capability to an Android device. Once a share is mounted on your phone, it looks just like any other mounted filesystem to any app, so files can be access on the shares as if they were local.
x264 encoded video plays very nicely on the stock video player. It's obvious that it has been optimized to take maximum advantage of hardware acceleration. I use the stock player to play HD content from a share over my network, which almost always means something in a mkv or mp4 container.
HOWEVER: The stock player can't play AAC encoded audio. This is a problem for mp4 -- these days, many people encoding for mp4 use AAC, so I find I have to demux, transcode audio (usually to mp3), and then remux. This is a PITA, but I haven't found any other solution... None of the third-party alternatives I've tried (most of them) can play x264 HD content and keep up. None.
To make things worse, for some reason hardware acceleration doesn't seem to have been implement for the Divx/Xvid (h263) default codec, so xvid video (usually SD format in avi containers) plays haltingly, and locks up frequently when streaming over CIFS. Oddly, copying a file over to local storage makes this problem go away with the stock player. My theory is that the network processing load combined with the CPU effort necessary to decode h263 without hardware assist just overwhelms the processor. Regardless, the stock player is not an acceptable solution here.
After trying many different players, the one that works best for "avi" files (almost always xvid encoded) is arcMedia (market, free). Close to flawless playback of this type of media streamed via CIFS. Unfortunately, arcMedia is completely useless for h264 (mkv, mp4 containers).
Streaming the direct source media, rather than going through a streaming server that will transcode, gives you the best possible quality and experience. While the above may sound complicated and involved, it really isn't -- in fact, it's the simplest:
Share your media library files in the usual way using the "Sharing and Security..." context-menu item on your windows media server.
Install CifsManager from the market.
Install arcMedia player from the market.
Mount your media shares on your phone with CifsManager.
Using your favorite File Manager, browse your media shares the same way you would your local SD card filesystem. To play an HD media file encoded with h264, click on it and play it in the stock player the same way you would if it was on your SD card.
For h263 encoded media (divx/xvid, virtually always avi container), run arcMedia and use its built-in file browser to navigate to the media file, then play it.
There are many, many advantages of convenience and ease-of-use in this approach over streaming with servers like TVersity, ORB, etc. On a LAN, where bandwidth isn't an issue, this approach works really well!

By the stock Video Player, did you mean on Android? Or Windows?
If Android:
Vital Player
If Windows:
Media Player Classic.

always looking for good info, and this is good stuff. Going to try it out when i get home and see if i have better luck than i've been having getting xvid and mkv's to stream from my network shares...

If you use GB rom, try diceplayer.
diceplayer can play 720p MKV+DTS with full HW acceleration.

I wish we had a thread like this for over the net streaming. If I'm at home I just use upnplay with rockplayer from my mediatomb box which is set to transcode anything ps3 can't play natively.. Haven't had any problems yet.
Cd's or tapes?

I use this:
http://www.serverelements.com/?target=NASLite-M2_x64
I have a dual core tower with 2 250 gig drives but want to add 5 1 tb drives with 8 gig of ram. This OS runs off a 8 gig jump drive with NO issues. I use UPNP to my Xbox and laptops. I haven't tried on my phone yet but I don't see why this wouldn't work.

schnowdapowda said:
I wish we had a thread like this for over the net streaming. If I'm at home I just use upnplay with rockplayer from my mediatomb box which is set to transcode anything ps3 can't play natively.. Haven't had any problems yet.
Cd's or tapes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check or something called Plex its great, I used orb for years and was never happy with playback...Plex is amazing and the android app is awesome.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

see, my whole thing is I don't want to run some extra server software just to have this work. I've got a networked media box (Patriot Box Office) and it plays everything over my network flawlessly from my NFS and SMB shares, and I want to be able to do the same thing from my Epic and Tab (mostly Tab with the bigger screen.) Working on some dev stuff with my Tab so it's not fully setup, but once i've got it back to normal I'm going to test Cifsmanager and see if it's the missing link to the issues I've had with getting mkv's to stream.

pvtjoker42 said:
see, my whole thing is I don't want to run some extra server software just to have this work. I've got a networked media box (Patriot Box Office) and it plays everything over my network flawlessly from my NFS and SMB shares, and I want to be able to do the same thing from my Epic and Tab (mostly Tab with the bigger screen.) Working on some dev stuff with my Tab so it's not fully setup, but once i've got it back to normal I'm going to test Cifsmanager and see if it's the missing link to the issues I've had with getting mkv's to stream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cifs works with samba. Don't know if you knew that or not.
Cd's or tapes?

pvtjoker42 said:
see, my whole thing is I don't want to run some extra server software just to have this work. I've got a networked media box (Patriot Box Office) and it plays everything over my network flawlessly from my NFS and SMB shares, and I want to be able to do the same thing from my Epic and Tab (mostly Tab with the bigger screen.) Working on some dev stuff with my Tab so it's not fully setup, but once i've got it back to normal I'm going to test Cifsmanager and see if it's the missing link to the issues I've had with getting mkv's to stream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
schnowdapowda said:
Cifs works with samba. Don't know if you knew that or not.
Cd's or tapes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, and with ordinary Windows shares.
CifsManager is one of the best pieces of software I've put on my Epic. And I have A LOT of stuff...

Shinydude100 said:
By the stock Video Player, did you mean on Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android, Samsung player that comes with the Epic.
For windows, I swear by CorePlayer. I'd buy it all over again full price if they'd add Android to their platforms (with HW acceleration, of course).

formula84 said:
Check or something called Plex its great, I used orb for years and was never happy with playback...Plex is amazing and the android app is awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to find it and try it out right after I finish posting this.
I've been using Orb for years, and it has always had its issues. With Android, it became a major PITA because they only transcode to WM9 as of 6 months or so ago -- and WM codec support on Android is scant.

Great thread. Love this type of info. I've been messing with streamin off and on to my epic and this just pretty much sums up what I've been trying to do. Gonna go try that now...
Thanks!
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Do I need to be rooted to mount my shares with cifs?
Also, can you recommend a tutorial or software for ripping my dvd collection to my storage server?
As a side note I am pretty happy with twonky for music dlna solution.
Thanks
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA Premium App

Does anyone know how to play mediacenter tv recordings in my htpc on epic?
Tried orb but didn't like the quality.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

PlayOn is amaaaazing. But it's 70 bucks to get it forever. You can stream out of your network over 3g/wifi to your Android and it look great! Even does subtitles. For my PC or PS3 I love PS3 Media Server. It's pretty much perfect and streams HD over WIFI G even.

sethlo said:
Do I need to be rooted to mount my shares with cifs?
Also, can you recommend a tutorial or software for ripping my dvd collection to my storage server?
As a side note I am pretty happy with twonky for music dlna solution.
Thanks
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, Cifsmanager requires root AND a cifs compatible kernel

I run Windows Home Server .v1 and have tried multiple combinations of players/clients without a whole lot of success.. until recently. Movies are in .mp4 and .mkv format. I use UPnPlay for access and MoboPlayer for streaming playback; the combination works great! I have tested on a rooted Nook, rooted Hauwei Ideos S7, Evo Shift (Not rooted.. Darn 2.3.3!), and my rooted Epic.

Best Honeycomb video player

I have been searching high and low for a really good video player for Honeycomb. Annoyingly, Google wasn't helping much, with people generally parroting advice like 'install MoboPlayer' (its awful, and its a stretchy app - not even optimised for Honeycomb.)
In short I needed to be able to do the following:
1. Smooth video when played over DLNA (I use Rygel on Ubuntu as my DLNA server, and the excellent Skifta as my client). IMO, the only way to watch torrented videos on a tab is via DLNA - forget CIFS or copying the file locally. What a drag..
2. Optimised for Honeycomb - the "turn the lights out" status bar dots feature was really important.
--
I tried...
RockPlayer Lite - It has an annoying R logo in the corner and doesn't do lights out.
MX Video Player - I found it would go all slow and jerky. At first I thought it was the ads (very obnoxious ad version btw), so I purchased the full version. It did it again so I quickly got a refund.
Daroon Player - I couldn't get it to work very well using DLNA
MoboPlayer - awful stretchy. Comes highly recommended on the web, but I hated it. Doesn't do turn the lights out either.
and the winner is..
DicePlayer
This loads videos quicker than any other via DLNA, and it does lights out. It also has the excellent 'lock screen' feature and gesture control. Its paid, unfortunately, but it does come with an ad free trial.
ANYWAY, here endeth the lesson on what is the best Honeycomb video player. DicePlayer.

mxplayer works ok for me... did you install the armv7 plugin for it? if it is using hw to decode, it should be smooth
I tried the dice player trial version, when playing mkv files with subtitles, it seems to require extracting the subtitles file first, which takes a whole minute's time, that is annoying.... do you have similar issues?

ray1234 said:
mxplayer works ok for me... did you install the armv7 plugin for it? if it is using hw to decode, it should be smooth
I tried the dice player trial version, when playing mkv files with subtitles, it seems to require extracting the subtitles file first, which takes a whole minute's time, that is annoying.... do you have similar issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mx player - yes, codecs as suggested. i can't remember if I had the lights out feature working on that.
not sure about the subs - i haven't got any to test. actually I wonder if a subs file over DLNA is even possible?

I concur with your assessment of Dice Player. Decent codec recognition, fast loading, swipe controls for brightness/volume/ffw/rwnd, on the fly adjustment of aspect ratios for screen fit, and the programmer got around the AC3 bottleneck by running the decoding of AC3 on the second core. Something that meant alot to me, as alot of my archived rips have AC3 audio, and it was the only one I found that could decode AC3.

According to the reviews, you have to have an internet connection to use it as it checks the license key when you start the APP every time? What about watching a movie on a plane, in your car, etc?
Seems ludicrous to me

I just disabled wifi and launched Diceplayer. I'm using the licensed edition. I'm using it right now with wifi turned off. Not sure about the reviews you saw, but I can confirm an Internet connection is not required with the full version.

Morpheus384 said:
I just disabled wifi and launched Diceplayer. I'm using the licensed edition. I'm using it right now with wifi turned off. Not sure about the reviews you saw, but I can confirm an Internet connection is not required with the full version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do me a favor please? Turn of wifi, reboot, then launch the app with wifi still off?
Ty
---------- Post added at 07:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 PM ----------
First review on the page:
Fantastic - but shame about the licensing issue. by W99 – November 9, 2011
Amazing app, plays every 720p mkv file that I've thrown at it. HOWEVER: I couldn't play my movies on a 7-hour flight because the app tried to go online to verify the license. Had to resort to reading a book instead!

Disabled wifi, rebooted, and double checked that wifi was still turned off. Status bar confirmed "No Internet Connection". Launched Diceplayer. Smooth sailing with no wifi. I'm unsure, since I purchased the app when I found that it fulfilled all my requirements, but perhaps the reviewers were alluding to the trial app checking the licence as a form of copy protection? That would be my first guess. When I saw your post I knew I'd used it in the absence of wifi, but decided to double check before posting.

Morpheus384 said:
Disabled wifi, rebooted, and double checked that wifi was still turned off. Status bar confirmed "No Internet Connection". Launched Diceplayer. Smooth sailing with no wifi. I'm unsure, since I purchased the app when I found that it fulfilled all my requirements, but perhaps the reviewers were alluding to the trial app checking the licence as a form of copy protection? That would be my first guess. When I saw your post I knew I'd used it in the absence of wifi, but decided to double check before posting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks bro, I appreciate it. Not sure why someone would be commenting on a trial for a plane ride, but there's no accounting for that
Now I just have to decide if paying $5+ for a video player is worth it lol
ty again for checking for me

I consider it the best money I've spent since getting my tablet. Its played everything I've thrown at it up to 720p MKV, Divx, Xvid, MP4 etc. Its feature rich as hell, with a splendidly simple user interface. I really like the swipe gestures in play. Swipe across center to the right fast forwards 30 seconds, swipe left rewinds the same. Swipe up or down on the right controls brightness, swipe up or down on left controls volume. The "toggle box" just above sequence slider toggles stretch/4:3/16:9 and many others for full screen/TV out compatibility. My research showed when I bought it that it was the only player that could use Hardware Decoding to save on battery life as well. Plus as of this writing its the only one I know of that can decode AC3. I wouldn't use it on an Android phone as the system requirements are higher, but On Honeycomb it's awesome. Just my 2 cents

Another vote in favor of Diceplayer. I use it exclusvely now, both local files and DLNA streaming. It has played just about everything. I tried the others before this, clearly the best.

Does anyone know if i can switch folders in dice player? i only see my internal and external sd card and i would like to play movies off of my external hdd.

I'll stick to my current player and I'm happy with it.
It can play almost most of media format including MKV files (Matroska) and most importantly, it's FREE.

MXVideo player is the best player. Most importent function for me is hand add subtitles. Very useful if you don't wish to rename subtitles.

elsuirad said:
I'll stick to my current player and I'm happy with it.
It can play almost most of media format including MKV files (Matroska) and most importantly, it's FREE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I'll bite... Got a link? Maybe the name of the player?
Please.
:/

+1 for Dice Player. Tried all the usual suspects and came to the same conclusion. Top notch app, however the $5 price tag did seem a bit steep. $2-3 would be more fair, but hey, can't always win.
As far as Mobo Player being highly recommended, I must say it does wonders for me on my phone, however it was less than satisfactory on the A500. Thought I'd point that out. Since buying Dice Player though, I now use it on my phone as well. Might as well get the most out of my $5 right?
brewmaster said:
Does anyone know if i can switch folders in dice player? i only see my internal and external sd card and i would like to play movies off of my external hdd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just use any file manager to open your videos from anywhere. Problem solved. I have tons of movies on my external HDD and just do it this way and it works great. Infact, I never use the internal file manager
JdgM3NT4L said:
Ok, I'll bite... Got a link? Maybe the name of the player?
Please.
:/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
It's nice to hear that you have a good player, but it does no good without saying what it is...

I have noticed that no one tried BSplayer.
It's free, plays 720p MKV with subtitles, hides buttons and DLNA works great over my PS3 Media server.
I found it plays MKV much better than Diceplayer.

I purchased MX Player and it plays all of my 720P MKVs with AC3 sound well.
I use HW decoding for the video and software for the audio.
It won't play my 1080P MKVs though.
Are you guys saying Dice Player is better?

I have tried the stock Acer Media Player, Rock Player, Mobo Player, Doubletwist, and Act 1 Video Player. Until recently, Act 1 was my player of choice, but I bought Dice Player and I have to say that to me, it is hands down the best one of them all. The purchase price was money well spent.
As for using an external SD card, I know that in the app settings, you can designate two different media folders. One can be the movies folder on your internal memory, and the other can be a folder on your external SD card. The only thing is that you have to know the folder path as you can only type in the path and not file browse to it when making this setting.

ninek said:
I have noticed that no one tried BSplayer.
It's free, plays 720p MKV with subtitles, hides buttons and DLNA works great over my PS3 Media server.
I found it plays MKV much better than Diceplayer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This works pretty well. I like its performance compared to Mx, but I think Mx has the better interface.

[Q] Default Media Player doesn't play the audio in some of my avi files

I'm finding that many of the movies I have downloaded contain audio that does not play back on my Elocity A7 tablet (movie plays fine but there is no sound). I haven't taken a specific look at which audio codecs they are but I'm guessing some of you have some suggestions. Is there a specific media player I need to download or is there a way to download and install a codec pack like K-Lite?

Probably an issue with the type of sound encoding.... Apparaently, Tegra 2 devices cannot decode DTS sound, or even Dolby Digital sound. At least that's what I remember reading somewhere.... So, I don't think that there is a way to hear the audio on those files without re-encoding the movie...
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.

junghm69 said:
I'm finding that many of the movies I have downloaded contain audio that does not play back on my Elocity A7 tablet (movie plays fine but there is no sound). I haven't taken a specific look at which audio codecs they are but I'm guessing some of you have some suggestions. Is there a specific media player I need to download or is there a way to download and install a codec pack like K-Lite?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to market place and download MX videoplayer and its code pack made specially for tegra, it will play all video files...

[Guide] How to play smooth 1080p MKV with DTS audio on the HTC One

I have been experiencing persistent difficulties playing high definition 1080p MKV rips on my HTC One, since day one. The video playback frame-rate always drops and the lag was apparent. My HTC One is rooted, so i was able to install FPS Meter to test the frame-rate during playback and it would always oscillate rapidly between 10 and 30. I always used MX Player Pro for video playback on Android, so i stuck to the latter and in order to enable DTS audio support, there's the settings option in-app to download the required custom codec (it's the ARMv7 NEON for the HTC One), which coincidentally opens up a link on XDA where a developer has been compiling the DTS audio codec. Here's the link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2156254. You can download and extract the libffmpeg.mx.so to any folder on your phone. Then, in the MX Player Pro settings, point it to the location of the libffmpeg.mx.so file. But in my case, even after all that, the lag wasn't solved. I thought that maybe the Snapdragon 600 SoC wasn't powerful enough to handle these bulky (around 10 GB) 1080p MKV files. That is, until i came across the following FREE media players which solved the lag completely!
DicePlayer
1. Download and Install the FREE DicePlayer app from the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inisoft.mediaplayer.a
Try to play your video file. For me, the DTS audio was supported right out of the box. Maybe it was due to the custom DTS audio file that i had already installed previously for the MX Player Pro? In any case, you should first try to play your video file to see if it's fully supported.
But if you get no audio, follow these steps:
2. Download the DTS Audio Codec to your PC: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7909146/DicePlayer-DTS-AudioCodec-libffmpeg.zip
3. Extract the downloaded zip file.
4. Transfer the extracted libffmpeg.so file to the root of the internal SD card on your Android device. DO NOT transfer it to a folder or sub-folder. Make sure to place it in the directory of your phone's internal storage.
5. Launch Dice Player on your Android device and open the Settings Menu
6. Scroll down to Custom Plugin and check the box
7. Go back to the main menu.
8. Select your video file. You should now be able to play DTS audio on your HTC One!
Archos Video Player
1. Download and Install the FREE Archos Video Player app from the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.archos.mediacenter.video
2. Download the Archos Video All Codecs Plugin to make sure that you have all the required video and audio codecs: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.m4rk3t.libcopy2
3. From the main menu, select "All Videos" and then choose the video file that you want to play.
(Credits to @spawndk for suggesting the Archos Video Player and its codecs pack)
VLC for Android
1. Download and Install the FREE VLC for Android app from the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc.betav7neon
2. From the main menu, just select the video you want to play.
3. Enjoy!
Note: The video file tested has been copied onto the phone's internal memory via USB, so if you stream the video file from your PC or online, the result might differ. If your video contains embedded subtitles, the video playback might lag in VLC and the image itself might appear corrupt (that would also depend on your video file). Since the VLC for Android player is currently in beta, some bugs still need to be ironed out. However, in DicePlayer and Archos Video Player, the subtitles play without any issue. Conclusion: use DicePlayer or Archos Video Player if you need subtitles. I tested the smoothness of the playback with power save mode on and off - it made no difference, so you can leave power saver mode on (when enabled, the power save option lowers your Snapdragon 600 CPU frequency which could cause lagging and stuttering if there is a high-enough CPU load).
Since there are many different types of codecs and bit rates used in 1080p MKV files, here is the exact video file that i've used for this guide (just in case anyone wants to replicate the steps in this guide to verify if they get identical results with the exact same video file):
Pacific.Rim.2013.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-PublicHD.mkv
Runtime ............: 2:11:17
Size ...............: 13.8 GB
Video ..............: 1920x1080
Bitrate ............: 13300 kbps (H264 [email protected] CBR)
Audio 1.............: English DTS 5.1 Ch 1510 kbps
Audio 2.............: English OGG 2.0 Ch 64 kbps -Commentary By Director Guillermo Del Toro
Chapters............: Yes
Source .............: 1080p Blu-ray AVC DTS-HD MA 7.1-PublicHD
Subs ...............: English French Spanish Portuguese
Using MX Player Pro, that same video file would lag all the time. No amount of tweaking in the settings would fix it.
Disclaimer: I own that movie on original Bluray disc, but instead of re-encoding it myself (my PC is too slow and i'm far from being an encoding wizard to know the best settings for optimal compression while preserving image quality) to play on my mobile devices, i got it from torrents. I am in no way promoting piracy. If you like a movie, definitely buy it.

I also tried playing the same thing with mx player .. it played video but no idea .. then added dts codec from xda and now no hiccups at all

Dts is patented and the company that has the patent doesn't want to license it to any Android player, last year most players played Dts out of the box until they got trouble from the patentholder.
Software patents suck but to ban reverse engineered playback

Good post Electronical
Still, Id like to suggest to try my favourite player Archos Video
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.archos.mediacenter.video
And the free codecs that give support for AC3 and DTS audio
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.m4rk3t.libcopy2
Plays all my mkv's 100% smooth not only on my HTC One but also on other devices I own.
And it grabs movie info, coverart, auto download subtitles etc. etc.

spawndk said:
Good post Electronical
Still, Id like to suggest to try my favourite player Archos Video
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.archos.mediacenter.video
And the free codecs that give support for AC3 and DTS audio
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.m4rk3t.libcopy2
Plays all my mkv's 100% smooth not only on my HTC One but also on other devices I own.
And it grabs movie info, coverart, auto download subtitles etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tested that app and its codecs pack with the same full hd movie and there was no lag. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll add it to the main post. :victory:

I have found that es file explorer plays 1080p mkv better than anything else.

1080p mkv files play fine for me on mx player. at first audio did not work but that was fixed by using hw+ decoder or even sw decoder (battery hog).
~dumbo.

an0ther said:
I have found that es file explorer plays 1080p mkv better than anything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried it. I never thought about using ES File Explorer for playing media before. :laugh: But using the video file mentioned in the first post, there is some lag, i can't select the audio track and the embedded subtitle doesn't load. In fact, there are no options on-screen.

HD mkv on HTC One
Hi, would just like to ask all poster above the following:
When playing this large HD mkv / 1080hp file where are you actually playing it from?
1. Are you streaming from PC to phone?
2. Is it stored on the phone itself?
3. Are you streaming it from the internet?
I ask this because I have been pulling my hair out over the last 3 days trying to get a 1080hp HD mkv rip of several different movies (between 3 and 5 gigabytes in size) to play successfully on my HTC One (M7). Movies are being streamed from a Synology NAS DS213j
NAS is connected to a VirginMedia SuperHub router.
This problem only happens when I try to stream over the internet via 3g to the HTC One.
Streaming over Wi-Fi over my LAN works perfect - can stream from NAS to Windows Laptop, my HTC One, the wifes iPhone, the kids P.C running XP four different movies at once or the same movie to all devices.
Tried bucket loads of different Video player for the HTC but nothing will play these movies stored on my NAS without buffer, lag, stuttering, choppyness whatever you want to call it.
I have done lots of research over the last few days and I am not sure whether it has something to do with Transcoding the movie on the NAS before being sent over 3g internet - really would like some clarification on this from an expert please!
According to a speed test, I am averaging 2mbps upload speeds on the virgin router - would an HD movie require more than this?
Thanks.

Terry1968 said:
Snip
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
... I don't think 3G will be fast enough to keep up. What speeds do you usually get with 3G? There's also the horrendous latency as well which could be causing the problem...

KiraYahiroz said:
... I don't think 3G will be fast enough to keep up. What speeds do you usually get with 3G? There's also the horrendous latency as well which could be causing the problem...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really sure how to measure my 3g speed or about latency?
I don't seem to have problems with mpeg4 or avi up to 1.5gb haven't tried anything larger though yet?

Terry1968 said:
Hi, would just like to ask all poster above the following:
When playing this large HD mkv / 1080hp file where are you actually playing it from?
1. Are you streaming from PC to phone?
2. Is it stored on the phone itself?
3. Are you streaming it from the internet?
I ask this because I have been pulling my hair out over the last 3 days trying to get a 1080hp HD mkv rip of several different movies (between 3 and 5 gigabytes in size) to play successfully on my HTC One (M7). Movies are being streamed from a Synology NAS DS213j
NAS is connected to a VirginMedia SuperHub router.
This problem only happens when I try to stream over the internet via 3g to the HTC One.
Streaming over Wi-Fi over my LAN works perfect - can stream from NAS to Windows Laptop, my HTC One, the wifes iPhone, the kids P.C running XP four different movies at once or the same movie to all devices.
Tried bucket loads of different Video player for the HTC but nothing will play these movies stored on my NAS without buffer, lag, stuttering, choppyness whatever you want to call it.
I have done lots of research over the last few days and I am not sure whether it has something to do with Transcoding the movie on the NAS before being sent over 3g internet - really would like some clarification on this from an expert please!
According to a speed test, I am averaging 2mbps upload speeds on the virgin router - would an HD movie require more than this?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I updated the post to add that the video file tested in this case is copied onto the phone's internal memory via USB. I haven't tested any of these video apps relative to streaming from PC or online but the limitation is not set on the HTC One in this case. It's most likely a bandwidth throttling or low performance decoding issue.

Thank You so much!
I am so glad to have found this. I actually used new MX Player Pro and downloaded their custom Codec directly from them and configured.
I have DTS and am streaming over my network on 2.4ghz on Shield Tablet (5ghz is an issue). Beautiful and stutter free.
I use ES File Explorer to browse my SMB shares and it launches MXPlayer to play the files. Everything is instant! I tried Dice Player because I own it from my first Transformer Tablet. It is painfully slow browsing SMB shares and crashes on file launch if using ES File Explorer. A shame really, back in the day it was great app.
I actually switched to a Win 8 Tablet just because I wanted to be able to watch ANY file on my shares on the tablet. Well that Win 8 tablet is now getting given to my daughter (who keeps "borrowing" it anyway) and I am getting a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 to replace it.
Thanks again XDA-developers!!

Somtimes you may meet some problems, some MKV files playback without sound, while some MKV files even can not be recognized even with popular Android MKV players like BSPlayer FREE, Dice Player and MX Video Player.
The real reason behind that is MKV can be encoded by different codecs, some of those codecs are not compatible with your Android tablet or phone, so you are unable to play MKV videos on Android successfully. To get those MKV files to play nicely on your Android phone or tablet, the easy option is to convert MKV to Android commonly supported file format (H.264 encoded MP4 is highly recommended).

Can anywhere die codec Pack for archos Player codex pack mod for Digital 5.1 for 5.1 Toshlink output add?
i have only 5.1 by ac3 files and so by bluray Digital 5.1 only Stereo 2.0 .
can it any inofficell Mod or hack the codec Pack as Mod Edtion whit as Soundfiles support for 5.1 outfut too for all more channel Sounds?

Install BSPlayer. Done