Database Users

Just wondering

Hello all. As a prospective HD2 owner I just wanted to pose a question or two in regards to the changes that have occurred to the phone now that you're all happily running the latest and greatest custom versions of 2.2. I have an X10 and sadly for me, i'm still running 1.6 Needless to say the idea of being able to dual boot Win Mobile and Android is pretty cool. And from what i'm reading, you'll all be flashing android directly in the not to distant future.
Anyway, my question is in regards to hardware and apps. The first is the camera. In initial reviews of the HD2 the camera had some issues with funny "hue's" showing up in the photo. Some would look pinkish. And the other question is in regards to video recording. Again, initial reviews state that switching from camera to video was laggy and jumpy and that the video quality itself was choppy, and well, sucked. Has any of this improved with the jump to Android? Will it be possible to record at 720p like so many other phones are doing now?
As far as apps are concerned have there been any issues with media apps like MixZing, or Meridian? Any here using Vignette for the camera? How do games play on the phone now? There are a multitude of multitouch games out there that are currently beyond my reach with the X10 (lets not get started on the multitouch debate). If you hadn't guessed i'm looking to use this phone primarily for multimedia purposes. Just don't want to waste my time with another device that leaves me wanting just a bit more. That being said I can get my hands on one for very little so recouping my $$ via resale shouldn't really be an issue.
Thanks for taking the time to read this novel and any help / suggestions are appreciated.

I can only answer your question about recording in 720p. AFAIK, 720p recording is not yet supported in any kernel tree. I also don't know if hardware-wise it is possible to record in HD. I don't really use my HD2 for multimedia purposes so I really can't tell more at this point.

1080p playback

I've tried searching but haven't had much luck... some of the older (relatively) search results seem to indicate that the atrix should be capable or, at least, will be capable of doing 1080p video playback. I'm not really planning on going out of my way to find 1080 files to play on the phone, but there are a few that I already have and I'm sure I'll come across a few in the future as well.
So the questions is: Can it be done? Am I asking too much?
Thanks in advance

dude I can't even get it to play MP4's let alone any HD ****... This phone has **** for touch sensitivity too. I traded my captivate for this and I'm not too happy as of yet

I've had issues with some MP4's and others have worked. The only difference I can readily see is the video quality which is why I posted this thread. I've found a couple of programs that will actually play the files I'm having issues with but it's so laggy that it's unusable.
People need to stop commenting on the other phones they've had experience with unless it is actually useful to a thread. If it wasn't such a prevalent issue with posters, I wouldn't be an ass about it, but I really don't care how you feel about this phone compared to your captivate as that is not at all related to my original post. Even though it's completely unrelated to my thread: the touch sensitivity is fine on mine. It's amazingly responsive and better than most phones I've used.
Point of this thread: Provide any information you may have on how to play higher quality video files or any future potential to do so. If there is a reason this is not possible, please provide that information.
Again, thanks in advance to any useful information!

Before the phone was even for sale they made a statement about 1080p support, it will be added after release with a patch. Goolge atrix 1080p!

I searched but none of it seemed to be recent enough to be definitive.
Is the problem that the software doesn't make use of the capabilities of the Atrix? Some reason I hadn't thought of that when looking for an app earlier...

If rumor is true, Tegra 2 only supports a specific type of HD format or something... and its not the common type that most get ripped too.
This is a Xoom thread that is all hot about the same issue... HD video choppy, no audio, etc, etc... The Xoom uses Tegra 2 as well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=968640

I was able to get a 720p WMV running through RockPlayer, but I'm not sure if it's really the right quality. I haven't tried 1080p, due to the notice about the patch requirement.

My first 24 hours with the trasformer

Got the 16 gb transformer (black seal) and dock (green seal) yesterday at best buy. Here's my thoughts after 24 hrs of use:
1) Form, build and quality are fine, however I think the Sammy 10.1 clearly wins this category.
2) Docking is a bit of a hassel at first but not bad once used to it.
3) This tab overall is sluggish and unrefined. Playing ANY flash video is a joke. HBO GO is not supported, and trying to play it in a desktop browser (dolphin hd) won't work as flash is broken on the TF. In other words, this tab barely works for my normal web usage.
4) Typing lag in browsers is beyond a joke. It's basically unusable. I am typing this on my TF with keyboard dock and it is taking forever. Google shoud be embarrased to release an OS and tab touted so highly that is basically unusuable if one wants to actually ENTER TEXT at all.
5) Most everthing else so far is fine. I use a Droid X (rooted, OC'd) and it is a ten times better experience. Honeycomb and Asus have a lot of refining to do on this tab.
Normally my posts and thoughts would be much more well put but I am stopping here as there is no way my brain can think as slow as this thing enters text in browsers. Chances are high that I will be returning this tab before my 14 day return window at best buy. I may give the Sammy 10.1 a try as most of these issues are not evident, or not as bad on that unit. I liked it better overall anyway except for the lack of a simple micro sd card slot.
again sorry for my sloppy sounding post, but that's what happens at 2 seconds per text input speeds.

Have you updated to 3.1? Flash for me works perfectly. No lag.

Here I am able to type a reply via Opera mini with very little input lag in the browser. Of course, Opera mini is not the full browser but I guess it's at least useable.
To further my thoughts, the TF is a sexy unit with the keyboard dock making this into what looks like a netbook killer. My belief is that this dockable form factor will continue to be very popular, and it is the main reason i chose this over the Sammy 10.1, which also has a keyboard dock, but not one nearly as convenient nor one with a battery in the dock.
Other things I will mention is that I do have some bleeding on the left edge and bottom of the display. This to me I could overlook as it is only really noticeable in certain low light situations. However, it really isn't something that should be acceptable. The speakers I find adequate. Loading apps via market or sideloading via micro sd has been a breeze. Battery life has seemed very good - too good as I am at almost 5 hours unplugged (full charge on both dock and tab) and it is somehow showing 99% left! Not possible..... but if true I will ecstatic.
I should mention that I have installed the firmware upgrade that asus pushed to my unit for the dock, however I have not been able to force-push the 3.1 update so I am still on 3.01. However, from reading this and several other TF forums I do not think the main issues with this unit (or honeycomb on this unit) have been addressed with 3.1. Who knows if or when the main issues will be addressed successfully. If Asus is reading these forums hopefully they will realize that these issues are extreme enough to drive customers to other companies products. I have had an Asus laptop (g73jh) and it had some inherent keyboard issues that never were fixed and I ended up selling that laptop because of it. I will give this unit the 14 days I have to return to best buy, but I have doubts these problems are addessed by then. I hope they are because this tab has the potential to be very nice otherwise.

zephiK said:
Have you updated to 3.1? Flash for me works perfectly. No lag.
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I have not yet, and probably will soon. I have been trying to force-push the update to the unit but so far no luck. I would also like to root, and will probably use the true-root version of 3.1, athough I do not think that wil have any positive effect on the problems plaguing it currently. I do use several root apps though and if I keep the unit I will definitely root it.

I've never had problems with flash (I updated to 3.1 like an hour after I opened the box).

I use flash all the time and do not have any major issues, I use dolphin HD and it works fine including typing.
Even before the update to 3.1,it was not as bad as the OP has mentioned with the exception of the typing lag.

To say you have no lag with flash I don't believe, everybody does, every tablet that has flash capability has some lag with flash, I've used a few so I know. The TF especially has lag with flash video because it was found the it's not using hardware decoding so it's very choppy. This should be easily fixed with an update soon hopefully by either Asus or Adobe whichever one is the cause.

The lag is there for me only when in full-screen mode. When you play flash in a window - there's no lag. As soon as you go 720p full screen - lag ensues.

Its certainly encouraging to hear some feedback from people who dont seem to be having much for flash or browser typing issues. In reading several different forums it is definitely a problem that quite a few are having however. At least I am able to type at a somewhat reasonable speed to what it should be using Opera Mini. That to me is still a bandaid fix to the problem however. I will be updating to 3.1 tomorrow so I will report on if there are any positive changes after that.
On a very positive note, the battery life is looking to be amazing IF the battery percentage in the notification bar is at all accurate. After a little over 8 hours I am still at 80%, have been docked almost the entire time. Plenty of use during that time including web browsing, download and installs and quite a bit of game playing. Going to let it run almost to zero to see how long this thing will go.

obscurenetworks said:
The lag is there for me only when in full-screen mode. When you play flash in a window - there's no lag. As soon as you go 720p full screen - lag ensues.
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I experience bad flash in ever browser I have tried, and when testing speeds via youtube, it was in the single digits. Certainly strange that some have units that perform so much better than others in this area.

teegunn said:
I experience bad flash in ever browser I have tried, and when testing speeds via youtube, it was in the single digits. Certainly strange that some have units that perform so much better than others in this area.
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It's not that some units perform better, they don't, it's just everybody's perception of smooth/choppy is their own so in some people's eyes they don't have a problem with it so it's fine, or they could just not have actually tried 720P+ flash videos in a browser
I'm not saying videos are all unplayable, but 720P+ flash videos in the browsers are choppy for everybody, HTML5 ones are fine, and this is because apparently flash video isn't using hardware decoding but should be. 720P videos in the Youtube app or playing from the transformer with video players works great. I think we will eventually see a fix for htis, hopefully sooner than later.

teegunn said:
Its certainly encouraging to hear some feedback from people who dont seem to be having much for flash or browser typing issues. In reading several different forums it is definitely a problem that quite a few are having however. At least I am able to type at a somewhat reasonable speed to what it should be using Opera Mini. That to me is still a bandaid fix to the problem however. I will be updating to 3.1 tomorrow so I will report on if there are any positive changes after that.
On a very positive note, the battery life is looking to be amazing IF the battery percentage in the notification bar is at all accurate. After a little over 8 hours I am still at 80%, have been docked almost the entire time. Plenty of use during that time including web browsing, download and installs and quite a bit of game playing. Going to let it run almost to zero to see how long this thing will go.
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after you update to 3.1, you'll see much better performance.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Anyone with a Transformer has a poor flash experience. Playing a video below 360p is perfect. If anyone says they have no lag with flash on the T101 has an awful sense of frames per second.

darkonex said:
It's not that some units perform better, they don't, it's just everybody's perception of smooth/choppy is their own so in some people's eyes they don't have a problem with it so it's fine, or they could just not have actually tried 720P+ flash videos in a browser
I'm not saying videos are all unplayable, but 720P+ flash videos in the browsers are choppy for everybody, HTML5 ones are fine, and this is because apparently flash video isn't using hardware decoding but should be. 720P videos in the Youtube app or playing from the transformer with video players works great. I think we will eventually see a fix for htis, hopefully sooner than later.
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Im going to have to disagree with you here. Flash is so bad on my unit, and apparently on others TF's that something more than just perception differences is going on imho. BTW, I was getting low single digits on 360p setting on the youtube test. Literally like watching a very slow picture flip book, and that is being quite generous to be honest. Flash is broken on the TF - at least MY TF, and from the sounds of it for others also.

On a good note, I am still at over 50% on my battery levels, and I have been unpluggd for 13 hours now. It did sit idle for maybe 4 or 5 hours during that time, but was also used heavily while on. I
believe that the battery meter in the notification bar does not start to clock down until most of the battery has been used in the dock. At least that's my theory for why it took so long for the meter to even dip below 100%. So on my unit, I do not think the dock is draining extra when closed.

I go days without charging with very light usage. Maybe 1-2 hours per day. My TF will go at least 2 days without charging. I'm on Prime 1.5 (Android 3.1).

I've not had lag (but I use dolphin hd). I did have trouble with the included youtube app. It tended to freeze if I pause, but I haven't had trouble with youtube in dolphin.

teegunn said:
Got the 16 gb transformer (black seal) and dock (green seal) yesterday at best buy. Here's my thoughts after 24 hrs of use:
1) Form, build and quality are fine, however I think the Sammy 10.1 clearly wins this category.
2) Docking is a bit of a hassel at first but not bad once used to it.
3) This tab overall is sluggish and unrefined. Playing ANY flash video is a joke. HBO GO is not supported, and trying to play it in a desktop browser (dolphin hd) won't work as flash is broken on the TF. In other words, this tab barely works for my normal web usage.
4) Typing lag in browsers is beyond a joke. It's basically unusable. I am typing this on my TF with keyboard dock and it is taking forever. Google shoud be embarrased to release an OS and tab touted so highly that is basically unusuable if one wants to actually ENTER TEXT at all.
5) Most everthing else so far is fine. I use a Droid X (rooted, OC'd) and it is a ten times better experience. Honeycomb and Asus have a lot of refining to do on this tab.
Normally my posts and thoughts would be much more well put but I am stopping here as there is no way my brain can think as slow as this thing enters text in browsers. Chances are high that I will be returning this tab before my 14 day return window at best buy. I may give the Sammy 10.1 a try as most of these issues are not evident, or not as bad on that unit. I liked it better overall anyway except for the lack of a simple micro sd card slot.
again sorry for my sloppy sounding post, but that's what happens at 2 seconds per text input speeds.
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I run magnus' custom rom and installed the hulufied version of flash 10.3 and i use my stock browser(chrome)to watch hulu and it plays just fine,but in full screen mode its has very little lag,but of course i have my tab set to 140000GHZ,which makes it play smoother.Overall after 7 days of having this tab,i'm very happy with it,no returns here,this thing has alot of future possibilities.

About flash videos :
Youtube with desktop user agent 720p => LAG LAG LAG even on 480p
Youtube with tablet user agent => youtube tablet mobile website form factor => 1080p LAGLESS
So use tablet user agent on youtube and it plays fine, dunno why but whatever.

epicfailguy2 said:
About flash videos :
Youtube with desktop user agent 720p => LAG LAG LAG even on 480p
Youtube with tablet user agent => youtube tablet mobile website form factor => 1080p LAGLESS
So use tablet user agent on youtube and it plays fine, dunno why but whatever.
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I am using the tablet user agent too, dolphin HD browser and don't seem to have much trouble with flash so I think epicfallguy has got a very good point here.
The user agent for those who don't know can be selected from your browser settings.

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.

[Q] Overall Responsiveness?

Any Nexus 10 owners happen to have any stuttering or dropped frames with general tasks? Was just watching some review video, and this person mentions "dropped frames" a lot, without gaming even:
If anything, I feel it'll probably get better in time with updates, but for now, it doesn't seem "amazing" with certain apps, in terms of performance. However, it could also be that the apps aren't tablet optimized, or maybe even the force GPU acceleration would help a lot with this.

Except for him, all the other reviews I have seen of the N10 seem to say otherwise. I might be that he's got one with buggy software/update...

espionage724 said:
Any Nexus 10 owners happen to have any stuttering or dropped frames with general tasks? Was just watching some review video, and this person mentions "dropped frames" a lot, without gaming even:
If anything, I feel it'll probably get better in time with updates, but for now, it doesn't seem "amazing" with certain apps, in terms of performance. However, it could also be that the apps aren't tablet optimized, or maybe even the force GPU acceleration would help a lot with this.
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I didn't watch the whole video, but I saw that he restored from his Google account? That takes a long, long time to fully finish, because it includes apps, music, photos, settings, etc. And did he do the OTA update? Out of the box, it ships with old software, or at least, mine did. After his tablet is done restoring and he updates, he may notice a big. My experience AFTER restoring &updating has been silky smooth, except Google earth, which lags a lot with the huge screen resolution. Strangely, games have also been very smooth.

Chrome lags as usual and poorly coded apps. Everything else is very smooth.

Plus Chris Prillo isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
Calling any sort of hesitation "dropped frames" should be your first clue.