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My Atrix doesn't seem to be able to play any of my .mkv video files. Is anyone else having this problem? My captivate worked fine with the exact same movies. I have also tried downloading other video players such as rockplayer, mVideoPlayer and doubletwist but I am getting the same "sorry, this video cannot be played" or "file cannot be displayed or played" message.
i have also tried the copying the videos to both my external sd card and my internal memory, no luck.
The captivate seemed to support a lot of video formats with out resizing ....what does the atrix support
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Yeah, Im having problems with that too. All my videos are either too small or can't play. Anyone know the ins and outs of the attrix media capabilities?
Ok, I just tried an .mp4 file with no success as well. this can't possible be correct. I tried 5 different media players, including the stock one.
mp4s work for me, but not mkvs with the same settings. Tegra 2 only supports baseline H264.
The Atrix only supports (3GPP) .3gp and MPEG-4) .mp4 video formats.
Codec support is for H.263, H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 SP and VP8
So far I haven't gotten the phone to play any of its said supported videos. I too had the captivate and am now very disappointed in the Atrix codec support. Maybe we were spoiled with the captivate?
Only AVI's play. Nothing else. Hopefully this will be remedied by Moto before anyone else.
eatkabab said:
So far I haven't gotten the phone to play any of its said supported videos. I too had the captivate and am now very disappointed in the Atrix codec support. Maybe we were spoiled with the captivate?
Only AVI's play. Nothing else. Hopefully this will be remedied by Moto before anyone else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because mostly any MPeg4 or H.264 video you try to play is high-profile. The Tegra 2 apparently only supports the baseline codec.
so are there any downloads out there that would supply the necessary codecs, or maybe another player (i'v already tried 5). i thought i got away from having to convert all of my videos when i got rid of my iphone
What pisses me off is I cannot even use DLNA to stream video to my phone since NOTHING is compatible.
I'm able to stream from my DVR and my Windows Media systems to any PC or DLNA equipped device in my house except for my Atrix.
The list of things that I like about this phone are slowly being overpowered by the list of crap that I should have to be dealing with.
This is supposed to be the "most powerful smartphone" on the market.
My 3 year old 3GS does more with less hacking.
And yeah... I threw up a little in my mouth when I said that as I hate having to hack my phone to get basic functionality.
rjohnstone said:
What pisses me off is I cannot even use DLNA to stream video to my phone since NOTHING is compatible.
I'm able to stream from my DVR and my Windows Media systems to any PC or DLNA equipped device in my house except for my Atrix.
The list of things that I like about this phone are slowly being overpowered by the list of crap that I should have to be dealing with.
This is supposed to be the "most powerful smartphone" on the market.
My 3 year old 3GS does more with less hacking.
And yeah... I threw up a little in my mouth when I said that as I hate having to hack my phone to get basic functionality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Subsonic server/app combo. Works great for me.
jiggytom said:
Try Subsonic server/app combo. Works great for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't work with DirecTV DVR's.
I have the whole home service so I can play any movie on any TV or PC in my house.
Any DLNA equipped device works too... except for the Atrix of course.
I was able to play a 700+ MB avi file.
I was able to play tron in 264 mkv fine here.
yiyo said:
I was able to play tron in 264 mkv fine here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you let me know how large the file was?
diablo009 said:
I was able to play a 700+ MB avi file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yiyo said:
I was able to play tron in 264 mkv fine here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be nice if you could post what method you used and the steps you took to get your Atrix to play so that we too could enjoy videos.
eatkabab said:
So far I haven't gotten the phone to play any of its said supported videos. I too had the captivate and am now very disappointed in the Atrix codec support. Maybe we were spoiled with the captivate?
Only AVI's play. Nothing else. Hopefully this will be remedied by Moto before anyone else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah right. Motorola will fix it.
I bought a Tegra 2 device that can't play my 720p mkv movies. Perfect.
edgeicator said:
mp4s work for me, but not mkvs with the same settings. Tegra 2 only supports baseline H264.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mkv is a container, h264 is a codec
almost all phones can decode h264, xvid, divx, x264, etc, BUT in MP4 container.
just remux your files without recompress, its very quickly, just a few seconds using some program like YAMB or staxrip's just mux option.
if I have an avi file compressed with xvid my x10 can not play it with hardware decoders, but if I mux this avi in an mp4 file my x10 can play it very smooth, and remux its just take a half minute.
http://yamb.unite-video.com/
btw, if you want test, put any HD youtube video (MP4 high profile, wich is playable on atrix) and remux into MKV without recompress, I mean just mux, and try to play on atrix.
Chinese tablets and some branded phones can recognize MKV container, but it doesn't make a difference because make a playable video for your mobile it will take just a few seconds
Alejandrissimo said:
mkv is a container, h264 is a codec
almost all phones can decode h264, xvid, divx, x264, etc, BUT in MP4 container.
just remux your files without recompress, its very quickly, just a few seconds using some program like YAMB or staxrip's just mux option.
if I have an avi file compressed with xvid my x10 can not play it with hardware decoders, but if I mux this avi in an mp4 file my x10 can play it very smooth, and remux its just take a half minute.
http://yamb.unite-video.com/
btw, if you want test, put any HD youtube video (MP4 high profile, wich is playable on atrix) and remux into MKV without recompress, I mean just mux, and try to play on atrix.
Chinese tablets and some branded phones can recognize MKV container, but it doesn't make a difference because make a playable video for your mobile it will take just a few seconds
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to see some proof that high profile plays on the atrix currently. Main profile with tweaking plays choppy, but high profile in my experience does not work at all. Also as a clarification, x264 is a fully functional h264 encoder, and can be used to create bluray quality video
There are a few video containers supported by the player shipped with the atrix.
*.avi
*.mp4
*.3gp
Having said those, the codecs that can be inside an AVI file are as follows:
Video: xvid/divx (h.263)... owait noone cares about the other ones. At any res 1080p and lower resized to MOD16
Audio: mp3... again noone cares about the other ones
Inside the MP4 you can have the following:
Video: xvid/divx/h263/h264 (in BASELINE or HIGHLY MODIFIED MAIN profiles only) at any res 1080p and lower resized to MOD16
Audio: AAC (LC or HC; avoid multichannel as it creates an annoying echo) /AMR
*.3gp is the format that a lot of current handheld devices can capture in. They have their own specific codecs depending on the device, but video that I captured with my old sony ericsson s710a plays flawlessly on all my newer devices.
As for MKV... I wish it supported it. I started using QQplayer for MKV with very low bitrate xvid/mp3 combos for subtitles and they play OK, just not well. Settings I have found that work well with QQplayer and xvid for MKV is any flavor of 480p mod16 resized @~1500kb/s, and mp3 of an ABR of 112 downsampled to 44.1khz. h264 inside mkv though... not happening.
Care to explian where's the "mux" option in the program you linked?
Firstly, I use mVideoPlayer pro (an excellent video player) which doesn't include any software decoding. The player only uses the soc codecs but adds subtitle support and it recognizes the .mkv extension.
The latest version now supports:
- srt, ssa, ass, sub/idx, mpl, smi, txt, sub, sami.
- Internal MKV Subtitle (srt, ssa, ass)
Anyway, I have 2 identical video samples (.mkv), but only one of them will play. (using mvideo or stock player).
I am wondering if this is a software bug and if anyone has had the same issues?
The samples are both H264 MPEG4 AVC, 23.97 frames with DTS Audio (no audio is expected). One video is 1280x544 and the other is 1280x532. The only difference is that one has internal subtitles and the other does not.
Any info would be appreciated.
I'm having similar issues . One video will play audio just fine but will freeze playing the video a few seconds in but continue with audio. The other video is just extremely stuttery. I don't have codec specifics or video specifics at the moment but it is an issue .
Grrr!
Animatorman said:
I'm having similar issues . One video will play audio just fine but will freeze playing the video a few seconds in but continue with audio. The other video is just extremely stuttery. I don't have codec specifics or video specifics at the moment but it is an issue .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny enough, some of my videos start off blocky or have that green video effect for the first 2 seconds, but then play fine afterwards. I don't get any freezing during play. If a video starts to play, it continues fine for me. (Although, I haven't watched a full length movie as yet).
Did you get the 2 HTC updates? I did a check for HTC updates and factory reset my phone as soon as i got it. (lost the stupid hornet movie)
I am downloading more 720p video samples for testing. it may be the internal subs causing my issue, which would be strange.
(EDIT: xvid has the same problem, some video plays some don't)
1Ghz hummingbird puts all of these dual core ***** SOC's to shame. Long live Galaxy Tab 7 and Galaxy S!
Wow, this app seems really nice. I was using the latest rockplayer because it had hardware decoding, but I noticed that it wouldn't play audio on any of my 720p mkvs. This app looks much more polished, and the video plays back every bit as smoothly, but it appears to have the same problem of not playing any audio along with the video. God, we're so close!!
Oh, I tried samples with DTS and some that were just 720p rips from broadcast tv, and neither had audio. For that reason, I didn't test enough of the video to verify your issues, sorry for the threadjack.
Junon said:
Wow, this app seems really nice. I was using the latest rockplayer because it had hardware decoding, but I noticed that it wouldn't play audio on any of my 720p mkvs. This app looks much more polished, and the video plays back every bit as smoothly, but it appears to have the same problem of not playing any audio along with the video. God, we're so close!!
Oh, I tried samples with DTS and some that were just 720p rips from broadcast tv, and neither had audio. For that reason, I didn't test enough of the video to verify your issues, sorry for the threadjack.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wont play DTS audio and that is expected. Only my Archos 101 could play DTS audio out of the box, but Archos added that decoding feature.
Try encoding with Handbrake, the default setting will convert the DTS audio to MPEG AAC stereo.
So I tried more random MPEG4 AVC with DTS videos and I am very confused:
video #1 1280x720 had subs, didn't play
video #2 1920x800 no subs, video played
video #3 1280x534 no subs, didn't play
video #4 1280x720 no subs, video played
More tests:
I used mediainfo and compared codec data between several video files that played and some that didn't play and they all look the same.
I even used mkvmerge GUI to remove the audio and subtitles out of some of the videos just to see if that would work, but they still didn't play.
try dice player.
diceplayer can play 720p H.264 High + DTS +MKV flawlessly.
with gesture control ( brightness / volume ) + external subs + embedded subs
Hey guys, just got a few 720p high profile mkv files which reviews claimed could be played with the stock video player. All 3 files currently do not. Dice player works in trial but when i try to buy it gives me not found in the market. I'd rather usethe built in player personally but has anyone else had any luck either way?
EDIT solved with bs player
Try moboplayer its free.
Sent from my Galaxy S2
or MXPlayer I have used that on many MKVs
compuw22c said:
Hey guys, just got a few 720p high profile mkv files which reviews claimed could be played with the stock video player. All 3 files currently do not. Dice player works in trial but when i try to buy it gives me not found in the market. I'd rather usethe built in player personally but has anyone else had any luck either way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got same problem,but i used mx player and upnp , works flawless
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
erick0423 said:
I got same problem,but i used mx player and upnp , works flawless
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use the exact same
mx player works well but there's no hardware decoding available in any of them. Very disappointed ( though I know the hardware is capable of it). I know anandtech? Or one of the reviews did a blu ray rip and it played great so I'm guessing I'm missing something, an update broke it or if will be fixed in ics. Is also possible they just need hardware drivers for tegra3. I'm optimistic, is launch week, well have awesome devs, it'll get sorted eventually. Even software decode stutters just a bit ( I'm a video perfectionist). Also peeved at xda app FCs but again, brand new device. Just let me know if anyone (particularly those who didn't update) has any better luck.
Unbelievable , this still not resolved after the Tegra 2 debacle.
i've played a couple mkv's just fine with the stock player and mx player. the only issue i've had with them is if i skip around, the video never picks back up, works fine in software though.
but if i just watch the movie through without skipping around, it plays perfectly.
as you can see here ICS has added support to the Matroska format, so hopefully the default player will be handling it smoothly in ICS.
hXXp://briefmobile.com/android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich-announced-feature-list
replace hXXp with http in link.
That's good to know. Was thinking of cancelling my preorder once I heard people having problems with mkv's & diceplayer being unavailable
compuw22c said:
mx player works well but there's no hardware decoding available in any of them. Very disappointed ( though I know the hardware is capable of it). I know anandtech? Or one of the reviews did a blu ray rip and it played great so I'm guessing I'm missing something, an update broke it or if will be fixed in ics. Is also possible they just need hardware drivers for tegra3. I'm optimistic, is launch week, well have awesome devs, it'll get sorted eventually. Even software decode stutters just a bit ( I'm a video perfectionist). Also peeved at xda app FCs but again, brand new device. Just let me know if anyone (particularly those who didn't update) has any better luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How were these files encoded? Because in order to take advantage of hardware decoding a file has to meet a certain standard. If it deviates even a tiny bit, it will not work.
Go and Download BSPlayer lite from the market. It has the same funtionality like Diceplayer. Tegra 3 can nearly play all 1080p vids.
RussianMenace said:
How were these files encoded? Because in order to take advantage of hardware decoding a file has to meet a certain standard. If it deviates even a tiny bit, it will not work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well its h264 high profile, which tegra 3 plays. Tegra 3 isn't picky, as long as its less than a 42mbps bitrate the hardware will handle it. The only standard it must meet is 1080p and less and 42mbps or less in h264 anyways. For tegra 3, i'm sure software is the issue.
Files came from my media server which are also hw accelerated with an nvidia graphics card via vdpau. never even have to check, just always plays (h264 anyways)
Again, i'm sure they'll fix it eventually,I know the chip does it, still annoying., its why I never bought tegra 2. And for those suggesting software decode, battery life PLUMMETS and the performance we would have with hw decode would be as good or better than blu ray with no stutter.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5163/asus-eee-pad-transformer-prime-nvidia-tegra-3-review/5
EDIT:BS player appears to work WITH hardware acceleration. Every other app told me "not supported by system player, using software device" including dice
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Prime will handle highprofile mkv just fine if you use a other media player like mxplayer, diceplayer The problem when you can't play with the stock player is that it for the most times can't handle the audio.
Just give them some time to update there players to full Tegra3 support. The device have only been out some days and I think the developers also would like to have a device to test on.
I have posted this in a other thread, but I will repost it here to. From swedroid.se test, and translated into English.
"As is the case for the music player, Asus do net onclude their own video players, but instead uses default player that comes with Android. This is a rather rowdy players who only manages one of our clip in the table below (# 9), but without any sound, because support for AC3 missing."
"The third-party video player dice player or MX Video Player, both of which are available in the Android Market, it is however full marks. ASUS Prime plays everything we feed it with, whether it is DivX, XviD or MKV / h (x) 264-films with soundtracks in DTS or AC3 format."
Resolution / Codec / Profile / Container / Bitrate / Audio / Results (MX Video Player
640x352 XviD / [email protected] / AVI 1 Mbit/s MP3 2.0 OK
576x320 XviD / [email protected] / AVI 1,4 Mbit/s MP3 2.0 OK
720p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 3 Mbit/s AC-3 5.1 OK
720p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 9 Mbit/s AC3 5.1 OK
1080p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 14 Mbit/s DTS 5.1 OK
1080p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 19,2 Mbit/s AC3 5.1 OK
1080p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 22,8 Mbit/s DTS 5.1 OK
1080p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 25 Mbit/s DTS 5.1 OK
1080p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 30 Mbit/s AC3 5.1 OK
1080p h.264 / [email protected] / MKV 42 Mbit/s AC3 5.1 OK
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda premium
@OP
Have you tried a straight MP4 (H264/AAC) with standard Android player? You do realize that it's not just the video track that kicks the (3rd-party) player into HW or SW mode, right? Subtitles, for instance, will invoke SW mode. Chapter tracks will also probably cause SW.
As much as you sound you know, then you should also know that not every downloaded video is the same. If you have problems, SOP is first to provide specs (MediaInfo works), second is to provide a sample, third is to specify environment (which player you've tried, and their respective performance). Only noobs go "my vids don't work, now what?"
With the non-info you've provided, all you get is guesswork.
What do you mean by " files came from a media server"? If you are streaming to the device, expect skipping playback because WiFi can't handle hi-bitrate 1080p.
I have no issues running 720p or 1080p hi profile (locally) on my Transformer Prime in Dice player, even with DTS and multiple audio tracks.
people need to realise 3rd party players need to be optimised for tegra 3 for hardware acceleration. its not to do with type of file, as long as it does not have very high bitrate.
Everyone has to understand, that MKV is just a container. You can put almost anything into this container so therefore it is unlikely that the hardware can decode everything that can go into a MKV container.
The main thing about the Kal-El SoC, it is the first chip that can decode h.264 High Profile video. To see the supported codecs that Tegra 3 can decode in hardware see: http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-superchip.html
I've ripped hundreds of blu-rays. I've ended up using two sets of files.
Archive for playback on Samsung LED TV's and other high end DLNA devices:
Container: MKV
Video: H.264 High Profile 4.0 Constant Quality 18-20 1080p
Audio: AAC-LC 384 5.1 channel
Subtitles: sub format
Software: HD Decrypter, RipBot264 and Handbrake
Mobile Devices:
Container: m4v
Video: H.264 Base 3.0 Profile, 2-pass (1000kbps widescreen and 1200kbps for 16x9) qHD size (960x540),
Audio: AAC-LC 128 2 channel
Subtitles: Converted from the MKV
Software: Handbrake
I spend most of the time make the archive format looking as good as possible for it's size. Most files come out to 4-7GB per movie. There are exceptions depending on the quality of the movie. Movies with lots of noise in them come out to be much larger then one that is very clean. Computer Generated movies will come out to 3-4GB using CQ 18. The Prime should decode these just fine.
The mobile size I use for under powered devices and also to have as many movies as possible for it's size. qHD actually ends up looking very nice for it's size when down converted from blu-ray. A two hour movie comes out to be about 1GB. This way I can have on average 60-70 movies on 64B microsdxc card and about the same on the 64GB prime itself.
sorry, but I felt I provided all necessary info. The files are stored locally, mkv h264 high profile 20mbps streams with ac3 5.1 audio. They also have subtitles, though I don't need them.tpb was the source of all 3.
In any event, bs player works with hardware acceleration perfectly and I'm very happy. It also shows the hardware is fully capable of it, software will soon follow (ics)
compuw22c said:
sorry, but I felt I provided all necessary info. The files are stored locally, mkv h264 high profile 20mbps streams with ac3 5.1 audio. They also have subtitles, though I don't need them.tpb was the source of all 3.
In any event, bs player works with hardware acceleration perfectly and I'm very happy. It also shows the hardware is fully capable of it, software will soon follow (ics)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the Tegra 3 specs, AC3 is not supported in hardware.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-superchip.html
Can anybody confirm that 1080p MKV playback (I tried all players) over HDMI just gives a weird image, like if it was an old VHS with very bad quality? Software decoding (if selected in MX Player) works over HDMI but its too slow to play the movie smoothly...
720p movies work flawlessly. On the device itself, 1080p plays like a charm..
Not sure if this helps you, but I was able to get a 1080p h.264 file to play back smoothly over HDMI. I even pulled up the status on the monitor I was using to confirm it.
It was a pretty high-bitrate file, too. It worked in MX player and Dice Player.
I tried both players and also tried different files... I used MKV HD movies, what kind of movie file did you test, I mean in which container was it packed?
I bought the Nexus 10 mainly for movie playback, I have downloaded several 720p mkv files and 1080p mkv files. The 720p mkv works fine in MX Player, but 1080p mkv does not work at all. (not only the sound but also the video), Ive also tried VLC player , BS player, Dice player, nothing works.
Its weird because Ive seen several clips on youtube where 1080p mkv files do work, but I dont understand how.
Can someone please help me???
PetStore said:
I bought the Nexus 10 mainly for movie playback, I have downloaded several 720p mkv files and 1080p mkv files. The 720p mkv works fine in MX Player, but 1080p mkv does not work at all. (not only the sound but also the video), Ive also tried VLC player , BS player, Dice player, nothing works.
Its weird because Ive seen several clips on youtube where 1080p mkv files do work, but I dont understand how.
Can someone please help me???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MX player and BS player are the best... try with sw/hw decode.
I don't know how relevant this is but...
I got "The Tunnel" free with uTorrent awhile back. Legally. I went to watch it on my older, last-gen A500 (720p mkv file) on MX Player. Didn't work with H/W at all. S/W, would play video and audio. Audio'd desync around 1 minute in with video slowing down. 2 1/2-4 minutes in, audio dies permanently. Didn't work through the HDMI or on-board screen. Could it be similar causes?
lKBZl said:
MX player and BS player are the best... try with sw/hw decode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesnt work.
lKBZl said:
MX player and BS player are the best... try with sw/hw decode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dibblebill said:
I don't know how relevant this is but...
I got "The Tunnel" free with uTorrent awhile back. Legally. I went to watch it on my older, last-gen A500 (720p mkv file) on MX Player. Didn't work with H/W at all. S/W, would play video and audio. Audio'd desync around 1 minute in with video slowing down. 2 1/2-4 minutes in, audio dies permanently. Didn't work through the HDMI or on-board screen. Could it be similar causes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesnt work.
Can only someone who owns a Nexus 10 reply.
Use dice player with the custom DTS plugin (guessing that's why its trying to force software playback). Its called libffmpeg.so - do a Google search for it, put it in root, then activate it in the settings menu in dice player. Should play in HW mode. No matter what peeps say, I keep using dice player (can stream over ftp shares!)
xrecartp said:
Use dice player with the custom DTS plugin (guessing that's why its trying to force software playback). Its called libffmpeg.so - do a Google search for it, put it in root, then activate it in the settings menu in dice player. Should play in HW mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isnt DTS only for sound? the problem is also the video, there is no playback at all, so are you sure it will work? what is "put it in root" ???
Never try a 1080p mkv
realpg said:
Never try a 1080p mkv
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why?
The mkv is made of two or more parts: the video, and the audio(sometimes multiple streams). If the audio is unsupported by the hw decoder, it will try to play via software (slower). Root directory /sdcard/
I recently started using dice player because it plays my mkv videos 1080p with dts sound.
Default settings used and no custom codecs.
Mxplayer doesnt support dts audio due to some licence issue otherwise I prefer Mxplayer
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
shahed26 said:
I recently started using dice player because it plays my mkv videos 1080p with dts sound.
Default settings used and no custom codecs.
Mxplayer doesnt support dts audio due to some licence issue otherwise I prefer Mxplayer
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You did that with a Nexus 10?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2156254
Did you try mxplayer with the custom codec from this thread? 1080p mkvs work for me with this. Using h/w+ decoder , s/w audio decode and 4.0 compatibility mode in the settings.
PetStore said:
You did that with a Nexus 10?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
BS Player works fine for me on my Nexus 10. Have you ticked the "Use alternate HW decoding mode" under playback preferences? Sometimes when I do get the odd 1080p MKV file not working with this, I swap it to software decoding which then works fine.
Dude, HW+ and Software Audio Decoding in MX Player does the Trick... I even created a 2560x1600 h.264 mkv video (25fps) with high preset, and it works smoothly - however, you must have the exact pixel count. If the Nexus 10 has to do rescaling, e.g. because of the navbar, you will get horrible stuttering. Nevertheless, this is pretty impressive. It is all about proper usage.
Edit: 1080p can be scaled up without stuttering, of course.
i don't know what it is you're doing wrong, but MX Player and BSPlayer both play 1080p perfectly fine as long as they're in HW decoding mode. I prefer MX Player since BS is having issues with A/V sync when playing a lot of the smaller 720p videos i have tried. make sure to enable HW+ decoding in MX Player, add the custom DTS codec for the current version and get some proper 1080p mkv files and it will play pretty much anything perfectly.
What is the bitrate of your mkv?
I encoded the video using Handbrake at High Profile (CRF20), which produced 19mb/s in average, with peaks at up to 70mb/s.
My source file was "Redwood National Park" by Jacob+Katie Schwarz (you can find it on YouTube). I avoided letterbox with a combination of cropping and resizing.
Keep in mind that you have to match the native resolution if you want to enjoy insane video playback like this without stuttering. If you create a 2560x1604 file for example, you end up seeing one frame every three seconds...