MKV Playback On View 4g - HTC Flyer, EVO View 4G

Ok, so far I have tried VPlayer, Rock Player and one of the other more popular players to try and play MKV files that were streamed via Serviio to the HTC View 4g using Wireless N. The playback using all of the players was very choppy and stuttery with lots of digital 'snow' or blocking. I copied a file to my SD Card (Class 10) and when I used Rock Player, Rock Player asks me if I want software or Hardware Decoding and when I select Hardware it drops back to the file selector screen after 'vibrating' for a milisecond. If I select Software then it's choppy and crappy.
Is there any player that can handle MKV playback of either local, Streamed or SMB content that isn't choppy when being played back?

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I use Dice player on my Flyer. 720p mkv-files run without any problems.

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drinkluder1 said:
I use Dice player on my Flyer. 720p mkv-files run without any problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I am not sure what is going on with my device because when playing the video in this player, it stutters then plays really fast and the audio is out of sync with the video by a few seconds during the introduction. I rebooted the tablet to see if that has any effect. It also had to use software decoding with this video which may be the issue.

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Blu3Fr0g said:
Ok, I am not sure what is going on with my device because when playing the video in this player, it stutters then plays really fast and the audio is out of sync with the video by a few seconds during the introduction. I rebooted the tablet to see if that has any effect. It also had to use software decoding with this video which may be the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to use the default setting instead of software decoding.

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It doesn't give me the option. I double click on the file and it says that it is using Software decoding. :-/

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Trial & Error
I really want to get this to work, so I tried streaming the first Episode from Game Of Thrones to my View using DLNA (Skifia) and the demo of Dice Player and it was choppy. So I skipped to the first episode of Sons Of Anarchy Season 1 and it played fine. Then I went to the second episode of Game Of Thrones and it seems to play fine. Neither video that played fine said that Dice Player was switching to software decoding. So it must be something with the Videos themselves. I will figure this out!

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Video Information
Ok, I don't know much about video. So most of this is greek to me. This is the output from the MediaInfo program:
Code:
General
Unique ID : 232663839308926656675578047163590280766 (0xAF096CEE3B2126A8B3BADE833DE4863E)
Complete name : D:\shares\Recorded TV\G H I\Game Of Thrones\Season 1\Game of Thrones S01E01 720p HDTV DD5.1 x264-EbP.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 2.66 GiB
Duration : 1h 1mn
Overall bit rate : 6 187 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-04-19 23:25:19
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.6.0 ('Still Crazy After All These Years') built on Mar 10 2011 02:50:32
Writing library : libebml v1.2.0 + libmatroska v1.1.0
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 9 frames
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 1mn
Bit rate : 5 800 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 714 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.265
Stream size : 2.44 GiB (92%)
Writing library : x264 core 115 r1936 7a9e08d
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=9 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=tesa / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.10:0.10 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=12 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=5800 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.70 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=2:0.60
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 1mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 169 MiB (6%)
This video plays choppy and will often have parts that are 'blocky.'
Code:
General
Unique ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : D:\shares\Recorded TV\G H I\Game Of Thrones\Season 1\game.of.thrones.s01e02.720p.hdtv.x264-ctu.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.46 GiB
Duration : 56mn 45s
Overall bit rate : 3 677 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-02-22 21:41:29
Writing application : no_variable_data
Writing library : no_variable_data
Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 56mn 45s
Bit rate : 3 284 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.149
Stream size : 1.28 GiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 85 r1442tw
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=30 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=0 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=3284 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Audio
ID : 1
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 56mn 45s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 156 MiB (10%)
This video plays fine via Serviio. What is the difference between the two videos, besides length, that makes one play choppy and the other to have issues?

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Blu3Fr0g said:
It doesn't give me the option. I double click on the file and it says that it is using Software decoding. :-/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
press long key. or menu key -> settings
---------- Post added at 03:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:28 AM ----------
Blu3Fr0g said:
Ok, I am not sure what is going on with my device because when playing the video in this player, it stutters then plays really fast and the audio is out of sync with the video by a few seconds during the introduction. I rebooted the tablet to see if that has any effect. It also had to use software decoding with this video which may be the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
update diceplayer to 1.6.7.
1.6.6 have some audio time stamp issues.

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drinkluder1 said:
Try to use the default setting instead of software decoding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock player does not play MKV files.

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In your examples the first has an odd size 712 pixels high vs. 720 pixels and is twice the bitrate. That format will probably not be decoded by the hardware decoders and falls back to software which causes the choppy playback.

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Out of all of the free players out there QQ is the only one that can play 720p mkvs w/o a lag in the video ... though audio is off by like half a second.

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MKV is not a format its a container. A file that has a .mkv extension could contain almost any format of video and audio, it can be virtually anything, just like .avi files so what really counts is what is inside. The hardware cannot possibly be setup to hardware decode all the countless possibilities for different formats and encoding schemes so when you have a file containing a video that is encoded in a non-standard (laugh because there are 100s of standards) scheme, the play falls back to software decode which hurts performance and playback.

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Blu3Fr0g said:
Ok, I don't know much about video. So most of this is greek to me. This is the output from the MediaInfo program:
Code:
General
Unique ID : 232663839308926656675578047163590280766 (0xAF096CEE3B2126A8B3BADE833DE4863E)
Complete name : D:\shares\Recorded TV\G H I\Game Of Thrones\Season 1\Game of Thrones S01E01 720p HDTV DD5.1 x264-EbP.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 2.66 GiB
Duration : 1h 1mn
Overall bit rate : 6 187 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-04-19 23:25:19
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.6.0 ('Still Crazy After All These Years') built on Mar 10 2011 02:50:32
Writing library : libebml v1.2.0 + libmatroska v1.1.0
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 9 frames
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 1mn
Bit rate : 5 800 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 714 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.265
Stream size : 2.44 GiB (92%)
Writing library : x264 core 115 r1936 7a9e08d
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=9 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=tesa / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.10:0.10 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=12 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=5800 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.70 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=2:0.60
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 1mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 169 MiB (6%)
This video plays choppy and will often have parts that are 'blocky.'
Code:
General
Unique ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : D:\shares\Recorded TV\G H I\Game Of Thrones\Season 1\game.of.thrones.s01e02.720p.hdtv.x264-ctu.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.46 GiB
Duration : 56mn 45s
Overall bit rate : 3 677 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-02-22 21:41:29
Writing application : no_variable_data
Writing library : no_variable_data
Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 56mn 45s
Bit rate : 3 284 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.149
Stream size : 1.28 GiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 85 r1442tw
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=30 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=0 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=3284 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Audio
ID : 1
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 56mn 45s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 156 MiB (10%)
This video plays fine via Serviio. What is the difference between the two videos, besides length, that makes one play choppy and the other to have issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your problem with the file is right here:
Code:
Format profile : [email protected]
High profile 4.x is Bluray (IIRC), which is going to be way to high for these poor tablets to handle without some better dedicated hardware. Even the Tegra 2 won't play profile 4, though it will play 1080p at lower profiles.
Has anyone tried a 1080p file in a lower profile (2 or 3 should look okay)? It might play with Dice or Rockplayer.