I used the latest VEGAn-ge-7.1.0 for the 1.2 bootloader on my gTab with CWM the other day. First time ever flashing a rom and everything went great! The problem I'm having is that the built-in video player in VEGAn will no longer play my mpeg4 movies/TV shows. With the stock ROM on the gTab I never had any problems with the built-in videoplayer OR mVideoplayer. They both worked just fine. Once I flashed VEGAn my movies wont work.
I can only assume it has something to do with hardware acceleration.?.?.?.? I have over 5tb worth of movies and tv shows already ripped from my collection, I will NOT re-encode anything at this point!
99% of what I use my gTablet for is watching movies while I'm at work(I'm on call with lots of down time) I would love to use a better ROM then the crappy TnT stuff Viewsonic shipped this thing with. But I cant NOT be able to play my mpeg4 movie files.
Is there a good ROM that will let my mpeg4's work like the stock ROM does? I dont care about any fancy features or anything in the ROM, I only watch movies on this thing and play the occasional game. But if I had a better ROM I'm sure I'd use this thing for more then what I do now.
My mpeg4 encode settings used in DVDFab are as follows:
848x480 resolution
3000kbps fixed bitrate(less then this movies can get pixelated)
128bit DolbyPrologic2 audio
FastEncoding 1 pass
These are the best settings for mpeg4's that I have found while testing out various settings when I bought the gTab. From the looks of the settings could it be that I need HW accel video playback instead of SW?
Any of the Froyo based roms such as Beastly-Clemsyn (my favorite, very fast and stable), Frankentab, BC, etc all have working hardware acceleration, as does the new ICS beta. You are probably right about the hardware accel. being the problem, this is the same reason I always end up back on a Froyo rom. I have encoded a lot of video that I stream from my main PC, and there is almost always skips, freezes or audio sync problems on roms w/o hardware acceleration.
You can also try on your current rom, MXPlayer and Mobo Player have versions that are optimized for ARM v7 (Gtablet). In the players settings, change from hardware to software video and audio decoding. Most of my videos play alright with MXPlayer on software decoding using CM7, which doesn't have hardware acceleration.
Last, you could try Qloud Media, if you have a pretty fast PC. Qloud will re-encode and stream your video from the PC, optimized for the target device. It works very well on every device I have tried it on, and can even work beyond your network, but it consumes my entire 4 CPU cores in bursts of a few seconds while it is re-encoding, so no intense PC usage while it is running.
Thank you! I'll try and stick with the Froyo based ROM's. I've DL'd quite a few different ROM's but I have yet to install any of them other then the latest VEGAn one.
Related
I have an issue that after searching the forums, could not find anyone reporting this issue.
I am trying to use MediaFly application that provides access to Video Podcasts. One of the Podcasts I wanted to view is "NBC Nightly News" this is a HD video podcast that is in .m4v format and when it tries to play I get Video tearing (Reminds me of old TV with bad Horz adjustment). I then used the Download option to get a LOCAL copy of the Podcast file and tried playing it with RockPlayer. When asked by RockPlayer if I wanted to use HARDWARE or SOFTWARE decoding, I selected hardware and it started to play and has the exact same video tearing. I then went back and tried Software Decoding and it plays fine (No tearing). I have tried a number of methods to resolve this and searched my brains out trying to get Rock Player as the Default video player (No luck). In some applications it asks me what player I want to use (File Manager) and if I choose Rock Player, It will play fine but for others I still get tearing.
I have tried both versions of Mediafly with no luck.
I am running Vegan-Tab GingerEdition 7.0.0
Any help is appreciated..
brookfield said:
I have an issue that after searching the forums, could not find anyone reporting this issue.
I am trying to use MediaFly application that provides access to Video Podcasts. One of the Podcasts I wanted to view is "NBC Nightly News" this is a HD video podcast that is in .m4v format and when it tries to play I get Video tearing (Reminds me of old TV with bad Horz adjustment). I then used the Download option to get a LOCAL copy of the Podcast file and tried playing it with RockPlayer. When asked by RockPlayer if I wanted to use HARDWARE or SOFTWARE decoding, I selected hardware and it started to play and has the exact same video tearing. I then went back and tried Software Decoding and it plays fine (No tearing). I have tried a number of methods to resolve this and searched my brains out trying to get Rock Player as the Default video player (No luck). In some applications it asks me what player I want to use (File Manager) and if I choose Rock Player, It will play fine but for others I still get tearing.
I have tried both versions of Mediafly with no luck.
I am running Vegan-Tab GingerEdition 7.0.0
Any help is appreciated..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a wonder you got it to play at all with HW acceleration, as that is broken in VeganGinger.
MediaFly must use its own built-in player, if so you have no control over it. Your best bet is local download, or wait for better drivers supporting HW decoding, or switch to a Froyo based Rom which fully supports HW decoding.
That is what I was afraid of. I was hoping there was a way to disable Hardware Deconding so that whatever Player an App uses to play video, it would just use software decoding (At least Until newer drivers are available).
it isnt just veganginger, any rom based on GB does not support hardware video, you need a froyo based rom for hardware video.
at least thats what i have been reading here on the forums.
pretty sure rockplayer has a setting that you can tell it software only.
Dave
Yes, Rockplayer does support Software deconding and it works great! The problem is I have no way to tell some apps (MediaFly) to use ROCK PLAYER as the video stream renderer and even when I can specify Rock player, I sometimes defaults to Hardware decode.
My uderstanding is the the App "Galary" is the default player and it does not appear to ahve a way to setup for no hardware decode.
I really like Vegan-Tab GingerEditon and do not want to go back to Froyo and thiis issue is not enought of a problem to consider reverting.
brookfield said:
Yes, Rockplayer does support Software deconding and it works great! The problem is I have no way to tell some apps (MediaFly) to use ROCK PLAYER as the video stream renderer and even when I can specify Rock player, I sometimes defaults to Hardware decode.
My uderstanding is the the App "Galary" is the default player and it does not appear to ahve a way to setup for no hardware decode.
I really like Vegan-Tab GingerEditon and do not want to go back to Froyo and thiis issue is not enought of a problem to consider reverting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think Vital Player defaults to Software decoding, you might want to try that player. I have both Rock and Vital on my gtab. I switch from time to time based on performance on a certain video file.
Also, do you have a custom kernel installed on your gtab? I thought pershoots kernel had some form of hardware decoding. You might want to give that a shot too.
xmr405o said:
I think Vital Player defaults to Software decoding, you might want to try that player. I have both Rock and Vital on my gtab. I switch from time to time based on performance on a certain video file.
Also, do you have a custom kernel installed on your gtab? I thought pershoots kernel had some form of hardware decoding. You might want to give that a shot too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I download the Vital player and it works, but so did Rock Player. Has anyone used Pershoots Kernel with Vegan-Tab GingerEdition. I tried last week, and the WiFi stopped working and I had to re-install GingerEdition.
I know I should just shut up and wait for updated kernel Hardware drivers, but I like having a challenge to keep me busy.
Again thanks everyone for their input and suggestions.
Well, I just could not deal with the limited video rendering. I switched back to Vegan Tab 5.1 Really miss the VTLauncher
Thanks everyone for you support
Look for the link in apps or just buy it in the market and support GoJimi. I run it on my Droid 1
brookfield said:
Well, I just could not deal with the limited video rendering. I switched back to Vegan Tab 5.1 Really miss the VTLauncher
Thanks everyone for you support
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed - you can install VTL Launcher 1.6.2 on anything. It is the best launcher for tablets
Suggest you buy it or at least dump off a donation on his site...
I've had a look around and this issue has been brought up a few times, but then just brushed over without a concrete answer.
I have a few MKVs that I want to play on my phone, but that don't have sound.
I've tried with the stock player and with Mplayer.
I've spent the last few hours googling how to convert MKVs to AVIs and whatnot and tried a few times all unsuccessful.
I don't really want to covert them anyway, they all work fine, just not on the phone.
The video plays smoothly, and subtitles show up if it has them, just no sound.
How can I fix this?
OGG Vorbis audio track? Try Moboplayer. I just found out it'll read and play it, subs included.
That's what I'm using, Moboplayer and the stock player.
No sound from either.
I just noticed Moboplayer has a bunc of codecs in the market, do I need to install one of them? Which one?
well i have sound with stock player and mkv.... what sound is it ? DTS, DD ?
i use Vplayer, works fine for me. shows picture sound and subs
SuperTheMando said:
I've had a look around and this issue has been brought up a few times, but then just brushed over without a concrete answer.
I have a few MKVs that I want to play on my phone, but that don't have sound.
I've tried with the stock player and with Mplayer.
I've spent the last few hours googling how to convert MKVs to AVIs and whatnot and tried a few times all unsuccessful.
I don't really want to covert them anyway, they all work fine, just not on the phone.
The video plays smoothly, and subtitles show up if it has them, just no sound.
How can I fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most mkv's contain an ac3 soundtrack.
The SII doesn't like that.
I convert mkv's to mp4 now with avidemux.
With these settings:
- video: copy
- audio: AAC
Works like a charm!
Edit: it's a 'cheap' conversion, it goes very fast because only the audio track is converted.
SuperTheMando said:
I just noticed Moboplayer has a bunc of codecs in the market, do I need to install one of them? Which one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Mobo Player app should have an option to point you to the correct codec.
If you don't install the codec then it will only play the same formats as the stock video player.
I use mVideoPlayer, works fine for all of mine.
But I think DicePlayer has the best support for audio codecs, though it's only free for a trial period and doesn't support embedded subs (AFAIK).
I have these installed permanently as one of them usually does the job, I usually try stock first followed by mobo, then rock with Act1 and QQ as backups.
Dice is probably the best but isnt free.
Dice
mobo
rockplayer
act1
qq player
I have tried pretty much all other players, honestly dont waste your time or money on any of the others.
EDIT - sorry I forgot, since moving to this Phone I hace scrapped qq for everything and rock for HD stuff as it doesnt seem to decode as well as stock or mobo, always try stock first.
On my GS2 I do not see any option Mobo Player to point me to the correct codec, any clue?
MyrddinLXXIIX said:
Most mkv's contain an ac3 soundtrack.
The SII doesn't like that.
I convert mkv's to mp4 now with avidemux.
With these settings:
- video: copy
- audio: AAC
Works like a charm!
Edit: it's a 'cheap' conversion, it goes very fast because only the audio track is converted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like this idea best, it means I can play through the stock player, so I don't need to have unnecessary apps. I do like the stock player.
Is there any quality loss when doing this?
Will embedded subtitles carry over?
Edit: I just tried this, and the file it pushed out had a really low framerate. I could see jaggeddyness in frames.
Mobo is good. it's free.
Mobo's ffmpeg codec support almost all codecs.
but ffmpeg sw codec use CPU more than HW codec.
when playing 720p H.264+DTS mkv. mobo ( or rock ... ) sw codec use almost 100% CPU power.
Stock Player and DicePlayer use only 20-40% of CPU power. ( Audio codec use cpu.. )
SW codec players use lossy color convert and resize routine.
dithering or color loss will occur. ( you can see when playing dark scene )
HW Codec's Pros.
1. Performance ( Can Play 1080p )
2. Battery
3. image quality
Cons.
1. Codec compatibility ( but SGS2's HW codec is AWESOME. )
2. not supported codecs ( RMVB, VP6/7.. )
** dice player 1.1.2 add mkv embedded subs.
SuperTheMando said:
I like this idea best, it means I can play through the stock player, so I don't need to have unnecessary apps. I do like the stock player.
Is there any quality loss when doing this?
Will embedded subtitles carry over?
Edit: I just tried this, and the file it pushed out had a really low framerate. I could see jaggeddyness in frames.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally I get good results, but haven't tried it with movies yet.
Only 720p series with 25fps, no subtitles.
Back at my desktop tonight I will try a movie with subs.
The file I tried was a movie, 720p, no subs.
I don't know what it's framerate was, but it's pretty damn high. It looks seamless.
When I tried loading it with the app, I got this error. Maybe it is actually important and not to be overlooked?
I answered no.
SuperTheMando said:
The file I tried was a movie, 720p, no subs.
I don't know what it's framerate was, but it's pretty damn high. It looks seamless.
When I tried loading it with the app, I got this error. Maybe it is actually important and not to be overlooked?
I answered no.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I answered no every time without much problems. Forwarding in the stock player seems a little slow sometimes but that might be normal.
25 is pretty standard for series I believe.
Converting gives the advantage of hardware acceleration and I do not want to loose that.
MyrddinLXXIIX said:
I answered no every time without much problems. Forwarding in the stock player seems a little slow sometimes but that might be normal.
25 is pretty standard for series I believe.
Converting gives the advantage of hardware acceleration and I do not want to loose that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Diceplayer give you hw acceleration without converting.
As promised...
Promised a follow-up with an mkv with subtitles.
I must admit I didn't get it to work yet.
Unclear to me if it is even possible, I found some info that the stock player will accept separate subtitles like .srt but I have not confirmed that yet.
Ran across another problem that put me off track.
Tried a conversion to mp4 with a movie but didn't think about the size restrictions.
Could not connect in Storage mode for some reason, so I tried to use SD-cards / usb-otg. No succes with 4 Gig+ files yet ~ using windows which has exFAT and NTFS, neither is working.
Possibly there is a filesystem that will do the job on Win7 and Android 2.3.3?
My research tells me that exFAT is not really available for Android, too tired atm to look for alternatives from the Win side.
Like USB-OTG very much, would like a way to get 4G+ files to my SII that way!
As I said, got sidetracked seriously ~ apologies if I got too far offtopic.
I know this was mentioned before in some sense but want to get some opinions on what to do to get the best video playback.
Right now I am on Honeycomb Illuminate 1.6 and overclocked to 1.5ghz
This seems to work decent with software decode of the video. At the very least better then stock with hardware decode.
But for some reason the subtitles seems to lag out a like 1 second. And I don't know why...it could be that the video is still lagging by a few frames and I just don't notice it or maybe it loads video first, then subtitles so they don't sync correctly by a few microseconds I am not sure...
So I am at a standstill..should I go back to a Froyo based rom with hardware decode but 1 core and try overclocking that 1.5ghz. Or stick with my honeycomb with software decode and 2 cores clocked at 1.5ghz...
As for media players I tried:
Moboplayer (is what I am using now, subs lag a bit)
Vital Player (crashes on software decode in honeycomb, havent tried on froyo)
mvideoplayer (subtitles too small, and didnt work in honeycomb)
rockplayer (also subs lag a bit)
yxplayer (unusable)
Also these players cant seem to display multiple lines of overlapping subtitles for some reason(like top and bottom)..anyone know if a player can do that?
Anyone have any suggestions? (I don't want to trans-code the videos)
So..no one has an answer to this?
first off. people here do a hit a run. posting a rom and not supporting
second
honeycomb doesnt have full hw accelaration. i compared using froyo and hc. hc just lags horribly bad. both sofware and hw.
i think its partial hw accelaration. but still has time rendering stuff.
and dont know your subtitles solution
cheers
I have gotten HD playback on my G tablet Honeycomb using Flashback 7.1 overclocked to 1.4 ghz
I got it working by downloading MX video player and its codecs to play videos
I downloaded a bunch of 720p movie trailers, the ones I tried for the youtube video (I'll upload tomorrow, phone is dead) were Avatar (2009) and The Darkest Hour (2011).
Now I know stock g tablet 2.2 can play 1080p hd videos, but the fact is, even if you can play the 1080p movie on the g tablet, that doesn't mean it will have 1080x1920 pixels on the g tablet, it will downscale the 1080p video into the maximum resolution on the g tablet that is 1024x600. That means that it also scales 720p videos. So in reality, its not even worth trying to play 1080p videos on the g tablet.
But as far as playing the video, its acceptable, there is a little choppiness that you can see here and there.
My testing from last Sunday, as well as Edirector's tests in teh Illuminate thread did show that it was possible to play HD video downloaded from Youtube usign software decoding. I tested with Flashback and could play everything he was playing, including the Bluray ruality rips he kept talking about.
What I was able to show was that hardware decoding was still not possible on HC roms, meaning that hardware acceleration was not working, and can not work unless drivers are obtained.
I went back to Calk/Clem Froyo rom and am able to play videos using hardware decoding. the quality is a "bit' better, but nothing to write home about. The difference come when viewing on the TV via the dock. Hardware decoding does improve the picture.
Any rom, with the right video applications can view videos using software decoding. Oveclocking isn't even necessarily needed to do so.
This was why at the conclusion of my testing, I questioned the need for hardware acceleration at all. If the HC and GB roms can watch HD video using software decoding, and the difference with the hardware decoding on Froyo roms is minimal, then why is hardware acceleration the deciding factor when going to an HC rom? For me, personally, it's because I use the dock. Hell, my famly just watched 3 movies today on the TV through the dock...
I just need to find a video player that supports AC3 audio in hardwae decoding mode.
Battery Life
Two main reasons to choose Froyo over GB or HC for the hardware acceleration are that with the HDMI cable and dock if the video isn't hardware accelerated, it looks crappy on the TV. Also, and more importantly, is BATTERY LIFE! Hardware accelerated decoding uses MUCH less battery. So if you were on an intercontinental flight like I was last month, you can hardware decode 4 movies and still have about 35% battery, where as you might be able to squeeze out 2.5 movies using software decoding. To each there own...but I bought the Gtab to watch videos mostly, so I want to use the hardware optimized for it.
TJEvans said:
I just need to find a video player that supports AC3 audio in hardwae decoding mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heck yes! That's the one thing that burns me up...how the Tegra 2 doesn't decode AC3. We need a video player that will hardware decode the video stream, but software decode the audio. Shouldn't be to hard to do right?
I copied a couple of 720p videos to my Galaxy Tab 10.1. The native video player says it can't play them. I tried a couple of other video players that generally do a good job and were able to play them using software decoding, but one had a really poor frame rate, the other ran in super slow motion.
Seems like the hardware isn't up to software decoding HD video and hardware decoding is finicky about formats?
These movies were both mpeg4 video, aac audio in a mp4 container.
When I copied them over it offered to convert them for me, but if I let it do so it seems to be very slow and would take over 9 hours. I'm sure I could do better using handbrake or something similar to recode as necessary.
But can someone summarize the requirements to get hardware accelerated decoding (or sufficiently fast software decoding) of 720p/1080p video?
Thanks.
Did you try Diceplayer and BS Player? Both are available from the Market for free (ad supported) and played all my 720p videos (most were .mkv).
I'd suggest giving them a try (you also have to download the tegra2 plugins for both players).
As for 1080p its a far cry - depending on the specific encoding options it might work fine or be really crappy. Best bet would be to re-encode the 1080p videos you want to watch on your tab, but 720p is usually manageable (and more then enough for our tab, since it's basically the resolution of our screen)
nightmarebadger said:
Did you try Diceplayer and BS Player? Both are available from the Market for free (ad supported) and played all my 720p videos (most were .mkv).
I'd suggest giving them a try (you also have to download the tegra2 plugins for both players).
As for 1080p its a far cry - depending on the specific encoding options it might work fine or be really crappy. Best bet would be to re-encode the 1080p videos you want to watch on your tab, but 720p is usually manageable (and more then enough for our tab, since it's basically the resolution of our screen)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like how they say the tab can handle 1080p video's, But forgot to mention "it would lag like ****" Youtube apparently get's played in 720p HD whereas getting a 1080p video to play is far from possible, perhaps ICS would make it possible, for now the stock decoders are horrible, HORRIBLE. Use the stock Movie Player/Video and it's like watching Lego or Minecraft graphics. Dice Player Ad is the best out there, and the only video player I use.
Just don't forget to download the Tegra2 plugin with it (Free ofcourse).
Thanks guys. I'll give Dice Player a try and see if it does a better job. I don't usually use 1080p so as long as it can decode 720p smoothly I'd be happy.
From what I've read, it seems that Tegra 2 can't decode Mpeg4 High Profile, which probably explains why the videos I tried don't work well. I'll also try recoding them with standard profile and see if those work. But apparently, most HD video (including commercially downloaded video) is high profile encoded so the fact that the Tegra 2 can't decode those is rather pathetic. I don't want to have to code/recode everything specifically for the tablet so that's rather disappointing...
OK, gave those a try:
BS Player: Slow Motion...
Dice Player: BRILLIANT! Works perfectly!
Thanks for the tip!
tmagritte said:
OK, gave those a try:
BS Player: Slow Motion...
Dice Player: BRILLIANT! Works perfectly!
Thanks for the tip!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hence the name, BS player' It's BS cause they wanna market their stuff and make people pay, Their software acceleration is horrible. Dice player uses HW Accelerator which is why the video's are intensely smooth.
Misledz said:
Hence the name, BS player' It's BS cause they wanna market their stuff and make people pay, Their software acceleration is horrible. Dice player uses HW Accelerator which is why the video's are intensely smooth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BS player also uses HW acceleration. In my experience it worked fine with most video - it has some problems in the first few seconds which Dice doesn't (since it doesn't start the video until it's loaded) but after it "warms up" it seems to work just fine for most of the stuff.
BS Player has some nice extra features like LAN mode, automatic subtitle downloading etc. But yeah, Dice player is usually better for playing movies "locally" (I'm using CIFSmanager to mount my media folder over wi-fi).
Every now and then you come across videos that Dice has problems with however, and then BS usually works (once I had a video that played at like double speed in Dice player, while the audio was normal speed. Changing the 1.0x 1.5x etc. speed settings on the right had no effect. BS player helped then ), so I keep both on my device.
nightmarebadger said:
BS player also uses HW acceleration. In my experience it worked fine with most video - it has some problems in the first few seconds which Dice doesn't (since it doesn't start the video until it's loaded) but after it "warms up" it seems to work just fine for most of the stuff.
BS Player has some nice extra features like LAN mode, automatic subtitle downloading etc. But yeah, Dice player is usually better for playing movies "locally" (I'm using CIFSmanager to mount my media folder over wi-fi).
Every now and then you come across videos that Dice has problems with however, and then BS usually works (once I had a video that played at like double speed in Dice player, while the audio was normal speed. Changing the 1.0x 1.5x etc. speed settings on the right had no effect. BS player helped then ), so I keep both on my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would love to know how to get CIFSManager to work, Would be epic to sync music folders via Wifi without having to copy/update it often
Misledz said:
I would love to know how to get CIFSManager to work, Would be epic to sync music folders via Wifi without having to copy/update it often
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A simple search: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1468498&highlight=cifs .
Basically, you have to push the cifs.ko module and then insmod it. Some ROMs (like the 3G ICS KANG) have the module included in the appropriate folder, so you can easily just modprobe it (open terminal: write "su" and then "modprobe cifs").
Then you just install CIFSmanager and set it to the appropriate IP/folder (for instance something like 192.168.1.42/Media - this would go to the comp at 192.168.1.42 and try to load up the shared folder with the name "Media").
You'll probably want to set up your router so it always gives the same IP to your media computer, as you don't want to check it's IP and change the settings every time
PS: Using cifsmanager is not without it's downsides though. I've noticed that if I turn off the wi-fi without first unmounting through the manager, the tab freezes (for about half a minute or so) when you try to show the folder containing the networked files. Mind you, I say show, not open - even just trying to see how many files are inside can lock it.
I worked around that by creating a CIFS folder on the root of the "sdcard", then extra folders inside CIFS for each mount. So I have /sdcard/CIFS/XBMC and /sdcard/CIFS/Music. Now I can safely look at my /sdcard folder without my tab freezing up (if I forget to unmount) - but if I try to open the CIFS folder it'll freeze up for a bit, then it'll give me the option to kill my file manager.
So basically, don't put the folder into which you'll mount directly on the root of your sdcard, or it'll become unusable if you forget to unmount