Database Develop

Best Video Media (Movie) Player - Must be optimized for Nvidia Tegra Processor

I have installed the ROM Mod(s), Flash & Market but still have not found the ultimate Media Player app that has been optimized to run on the Nvidia Tegra Dual Core processor.
Still working with RockPlayer and have yet to optimize their settings but there should be other candidates that are a must try too. I am looking for an Android Client that will play all the major Codecs (including Blue-Ray) and will automatically keep them updated so it is seamless to the end user.
Please post your Pros & Cons of media player Apps that you have tried. Also, looking at Google TV, Hulu and other streaming IPTV apps that are a must have. Any availble that take advantage of the Nvidia Tegra hardware?
Once the docking station is available (which includes HDMI connection), you will be able output to your 1080P large screen. This is going to kill cable TV and make the GTablet even more useful around the house.
EKS

let me know if you find anything I would be interested as well.. xy player I tested on my phone.. the qual wasnt great

So here is what I found out so far. The Nvidia Tegra 2 processor has video encoders built into its chip. These are the specs from their Web site.
Specifications
Processor and Memory Subsystem
Dual-core ARM® Cortex-A9 MPCore™ processor, up to 1.0 GHz
32-bit LP-DDR2, DDR2
Ultra Low Power NVIDIA Graphics
OpenGL ES 2.0
Programmable pixel shader
Programmable vertex and lighting
2x 3D graphics performance of previous generation Tegra
Full High Definition Multimedia
1080p H.264/VC-1/MPEG-4 Video Decode
1080p H.264 Video Encode
Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA, and MP3
Upgraded JPEG encode and decode acceleration
Rockplayer media player "hardware mode' does not activate on the Tegra 2 when I try several different video formats. It is rumored that Rock Player is working on a beta release that will be optimized for the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor.
From their Web site:
"...RockPlayer support two playback mode: Normal Mode and System Mode. The Normal Mode means RockPlayer will use the playback engine coming with the player, which supports almost all video formats with good enough performance. System Mode means RockPlayer will invoke the playback engine built-in Android system, which support very limit formats but may take advantage of hardware acceleration, which means saving battery. By default, RockPlayer use Normal Mode for playback. You may long press on the file in file list view, touch "Choose playback mode" in popup menu to switch the mode. You may also change the default mode in settings...."
From Rock Player Web Site:
Support Types
Version ARM V7 ： Google Nexus One, HTC Desire Incredible EVO , Moto Milestone XT800, Droid Series,Acer Liquid, Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Ericsson X10 ,Dell Thunder Streak, LG LU2300 .ect
Version ARM V6 VFP： Samsung SHW-M100S GT-i5700 ,HTC Legend ,etc.
Version ARM V6 ： All models left running Android support ARMv6 instruction set.
Nothing yet for the Tegra 2 - Dual-core ARM® Cortex-A9 MPCore™
==============================================================
EDIT: Rock Player runs on the Toshiba Fiolo 100 (a Tegra 2 platform) but it is NOT "hardware" optimized. Early reports are that it works but still a little slow. The stock media player on the Toshiba is also not hardware optimized, runs only a few of the available video codecs and seems to function well.
Edit: From Android Market the most curent version of RockPlayer is 11.47 optimized for ARMv7VFPV3D16 processor. Nothing yet for Tegra 2 as of 12/01/2010.
Rumor is that Nvidia is developing an integrated media player optimized for the Tegra2. Not too sure how far along they are on the project or if it is just talk.
From their Developer's Web Site:
XBMC
XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is available for Linux, OSX, Windows, and the original Xbox. Created in 2003 by a group of like minded programmers, XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers located around the world. More than 50 software developers have contributed to XBMC, and 100-plus translators have worked to expand its reach, making it available in more than 30 languages.
Sooner or later there s/b an optimized Tegra 2 media player that seamlessly utilizes all the encoder/decoder functions this processors offers.
It appears that the most recent version of FLASH (version Adobe Flash Player 10.1.120.1.apk ) may be optimized for this processor. I do know it works quite well.
EKS

Give mvideoplayer a try from the market it works ok on my other tablet. Haven't tried it on the grab yet.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

amathophobia said:
Give mvideoplayer a try from the market it works ok on my other tablet. Haven't tried it on the grab yet.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works fine here too... but it's Not tegra optimized... though doesn't seem to need to be...

jtbnet said:
It works fine here too... but it's Not tegra optimized... though doesn't seem to need to be...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What video formats did you try? It does not run the following formats for me:
IMAX 1080p BluRay DTS x264
720p BluRay a264 DTS WiKi * (played first time but when stopped and restarted software would not play)
H264
avi
* Not sure why I have the error. Maybe I need to reinstall and try it again.
I do like the mVideoPlayer database and the way it catalogs your videos along with a Poster image.
The RockPlayer will play all of them but all in software encoding mode. RockPlayer plays the avi file ok but the other formats are still a bit clunky.
All my movies play on the Windows PC configured with either (1) windows media player or (2) Classic Cinema Player AND the K-Lite Codec package (all freeware).
The Nvidia Tegra solution s/b a general video media player that loads the K-Lite Codec package but optimized to take advantage of the built in encoders in the processor.
Flash 10.1 seems to have optimized their apk to certain processors (I think the latest update recognizes the tegra).
It's probably still a bit early in the development cycle and we will see these types of players soon.
Over all, I am very satisfied with the Gtablet but a bit frustrated that I can not take advantage of the excellent processor.
EKS

mvideolayer - alternate file location
I am running tnt lite 2.02. I can't get mvideoplayer to look for the files on scard2. Any tips for changing this?
Never mind; I had a typo. Mvideoplayer found the sdcard2 once I added it andspelled it correctly. My bad.

so far, my fav is rockplayer....use it on my DINC too

has anyone had any luck with this, Im really hoping to rip my blu rays to an external drive and play them off of this thing

Nsato said:
has anyone had any luck with this, Im really hoping to rip my blu rays to an external drive and play them off of this thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a thought... if you're ripping your Bluray collection, why not encode them to fit the device? Make perfect 1024px wide MP4 files... No scaling, no extra CPU cycles wasted.

I originally posted this in Roebeet's thread:
I'm on 2.0.4, and the tab has been rock solid stable for me (I think maybe only 1 force close total over 2 full days). I've rebooted it many times, installed apps/games from market/etc. I don't use BT though.
Regarding videos (I'm using rockplayer), they're a little choppy for me on the more processor intensive codecs. I copied an mpeg2 VOB file to test, and it plays a buttery smooth 30fps. Also, I reencoded toy story 3 (movie only, to about 1.5GB) w/ the xvid codec (don't have the damn specs unfortunately, but it was about 1.4GB's), and it plays at a smooth 30fps as well. Comparing the stream to the mpeg2 original dvd, there's a very clear loss of quality here, so I'm thinking the xvid codec isn't very efficient.
Moving onto more processor intensive codecs (read: efficient), the fps drops. I reencoded toy story 3 again using handbrake and h264 w/ a set file size of 1.5GB, and fps can drop down to as low as 15fps during scenes where there's motion (probably due to a higher bitrate). This encode looks VERY clean/pretty much indistinguishable on the pad to the mpeg2 stream to my eyes, whereas the xvid had a lot of artifacts in the stream. Youtube framerate clearly drops at times like the h264 encoded stream I made, but both are certainly bearable.
Seeing as how the Nvidia drivers are seemingly new, and it isn't even using hardware encoding for these videos (the tegra2 is stated to have hardware decoding of various mpeg4 formats), it seems pretty good to me. That's what has me wondering exactly what the changelog is for these Nvidia "experimental" drivers. I'd love to see higher framerates on the more processor intensive codecs, and I'm sure we will in time. We just need better drivers from Nvidia and more app devs to enable hardware decoding on the tegra2 chipset. We all just need to be patient here.

To add to this, I was tinkering w/ the tab some more tonight, and am still on 2.0.4.
After trying to play the videos, I tried playing the toy story encodes in the default "video player" and "Movies" and they both appear to have a better frame rate than Rockplayer. Anyone have any idea why that would be? I'm going to assume they decode the codecs differently, but is it possible the "Movies" video player uses hardware encoding? I can't get the framerate to pop up like in rockplayer, but it appears to be smooth and doesn't drop any frames.
Oh ya to add, the movies I reencoded are dvd quality and I help the same resolution.

Is anyone having problems with tnt (v2.2) and no sound in the built in players?

joedhimself said:
Is anyone having problems with tnt (v2.2) and no sound in the built in players?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. No problems here.

Has anyone tried vplayer? I am using the stock ROm with the mods to get AngryBirds working and adding in market and I get an FC when I try.

Just an update.
On TNT Lite 2.2, Rockplayer seems to work now with Hardware decoding, and mpeg4 seems to play smoothly now, no longer dropping frames.

has anyone tried vplayer?
i tried a 720p mkv file but it wouldn't play. it just kicks me back out to the app. it doesn't work for an mp4 file that i converted either. the mp4 file works on other players though. the mkv also works on other players but its laggy and theres no audio.
was really hoping i could play 720p mkv files without having to convert them. wanted to be able to just drag and drop files onto the gtab and play it.

picked up my tab yesterday, have loaded several movies in several formats. both rockplayer and mvideoplayer are force closing right and left. I have tried avi and mpeg-4 and i have tried using both side loading vias mass storage as well as sdcard2...what am I doing wrong?
when rockplayer goes to playback screen... is says "please" und/und and wants me to pick one
and mvideoplayer says "no videos found" although i added sdcard 2 folder and even created a subfolder under "movies" to reduce load time.

nickalfano43 said:
picked up my tab yesterday, have loaded several movies in several formats. both rockplayer and mvideoplayer are force closing right and left. I have tried avi and mpeg-4 and i have tried using both side loading vias mass storage as well as sdcard2...what am I doing wrong?
when rockplayer goes to playback screen... is says "please" und/und and wants me to pick one
and mvideoplayer says "no videos found" although i added sdcard 2 folder and even created a subfolder under "movies" to reduce load time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used mp4/m4v and it played with the stock Android movie player. Great quality...

nickalfano43 said:
picked up my tab yesterday, have loaded several movies in several formats. both rockplayer and mvideoplayer are force closing right and left. I have tried avi and mpeg-4 and i have tried using both side loading vias mass storage as well as sdcard2...what am I doing wrong?
when rockplayer goes to playback screen... is says "please" und/und and wants me to pick one
and mvideoplayer says "no videos found" although i added sdcard 2 folder and even created a subfolder under "movies" to reduce load time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had same issue with stock firmware, neither rockplayer or mplayer work.
Installed TnT-Lite or Zpad firmware, ... both players + stock movie player work fine & smooth.
Hope this help.

[Q] NC: xvid, Rockplayer and quality?

Can anyone with a *rooted* NC tell us a bit about video quality on the device. Basically, I am curious about the capabilities to play "scene" quality xvid/classic divx materials. Ie conforming to specs.
I kind of guess that the processor would hold up, but I am not sure.
I am only interested in locally stored content, ie on sd card (for simplicity's sake, let's assume that we have a plain vanilla SDHC card).
Cheers,

My experience with Rock and other players except the standard one (and that was for MP4 only) has been less than stellar.
Like other users on here, I am getting audio-visual lag, leading to me having to pre-convert everything for the device in order to get a working copy. The lag is slight on AVI files and MKV files grind down to a slideshow while the audio stays straight on, leading me to believe that whatever back-end conversion is being done on-the-fly is killing the processor.
My guess is that once we have Froyo (or god willing, Gingerbread), we'll have much better MKV and AVI playback. Until then, I suggest conversion if you've got the time or Rockplayer if you don't mind a bit of lag on AVI files. Hope that helps!

An unrooted NC plays my AutoGk 480p rips in the built in player if you remux it into an .mp4 file with AAC audio.

I get lag also. Weird thing is if you stream a video from the twit app it looks really good and no lag at all.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

Ok guys, great, I appreciate the info - thanks!!!

ThePettyTyrant said:
An unrooted NC plays my AutoGk 480p rips in the built in player if you remux it into an .mp4 file with AAC audio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is something most people don't realize you can do. The video stream in an xvid/divx avi CAN be read by most mp4-friendly devices. But it's in a container they don't know how to read, and may have an auto track they can't read.
You can remux is with any one of a number of tools to drop it into an mp4 file without reencoding the video (and, depending on the source material, possibly reencoding the audio, which is super-fast on any modern machine).

Since the stock NC has no frame buffers enabled video performance will suffer ... when it is eventually enabled (it will be) performance should be good.

I was going to start a thread similar to this but more asking what format is best on the NC.
I've tried some standard xvids in rockplayer, and there is a slight lag on the audio. But enough that makes it annoying to watch.
When rockplayer first opens a video, I get a prompt on hardware or software decoding, I tried hardware and obviously that fails.
So does the NC support hardware assisted format? if so, what format exactly? What codec, bit rate limits, accepted resolutions etc. And not only for smoother playback, but I assume hardware assist would save (a lot?) on battery performance.
I used it encode a lot back in the day, using tmpgenc, virtualdub and avisynth, but I haven't touched any of that in ages. Has someone wrote a guide regarding this specific to the NC?

If you look at the Nook Color spec sheet, one of the supported video formats is H.264. I've gotten hardware-assisted playback of H.264 on my Nook - plays and looks great.
However!
The Nook only supports H.264 baseline profile. If you use Handbrake to encode, use the iPhone/iPod preset as a starting point. Then you can up the bitrate, resolution etc from there.
Another note: I've found the built-in player does not know about anamorphic ratios, so the videos are scaled incorrectly.

sark666 said:
So does the NC support hardware assisted format?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Sort of.
The OMAP3621 does have dedicated video decoding hardware. Unfortunately, it's pretty well locked down by the manufacturer. You don't get access to the hardware without a license, which means most (all?) 3rd party players aren't going to be able to utilize it. It sucks, but it seems to be par for the course for smartphone/tablet chips these days.

Another note: I've found the built-in player does not know about anamorphic ratios, so the videos are scaled incorrectly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OMAP3621 does have dedicated video decoding hardware. Unfortunately, it's pretty well locked down by the manufacturer. You don't get access to the hardware without a license, which means most (all?) 3rd party players aren't going to be able to utilize it. It sucks, but it seems to be par for the course for smartphone/tablet chips these days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I was going to say I'll use rockplayer so I don't have to add borders or something to force aspect, but then I read no one else can access the hardware encoder and this is typical?!
Sigh.. It never ends the way they try and lock these devices down. This sure ain't the pc world (which it should be, but they are trying to get it 'right' this time.)
So you refer to the TI, is this also true of the Nook Color?
At any rate, I'll remuxing as suggested earlier in this thread to mp4 container. What the best (hopefully free/open source) remuxer these days?

I used YAMB but I don't know if something better exists. If you use YAMB, you'll have to convert any AC3 audio to AAC ahead of time. I didn't test if MP3 audio is supported.

Hopefully VLC will be ported to Android too, would seem to be a more "natural" fit than the iPad it currently runs on!

sark666 said:
but then I read no one else can access the hardware encoder and this is typical?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, very.
If it's any consolation, it's not the device manufacturers or android team that is to blame, it's the chip manufacturers. The SoC in the NC is made by TI, who licenses all the different cores they stick in their chips. In this case, the video decoding hardware is part of the SGX530 GPU core licensed from PowerVR. While TI pays for the right to use the core in their chips, any software dev who wants to actually take advantage of the decoding hardware has to pay PowerVR for the drivers that allow them to do so. It's pretty crappy from our perspective, but it is their IP so it's their prerogative. I'm sure the chip, device and software makers would all prefer to use open hardware, but there are not currently any open GPU cores out there. At least, none that come within a mile of the "locked down" ones.

The M4V fileformat plays awesome on the NC and the quality is exceptional even with smaller filesizes (370ish megs for a full length movie) No lag at all.
The player I use is: mVideoPlayer (Free)
search for “mVideoPlayer” without the quotes in the android market.
PS It can play most (if not all) formats supported by Android/NC.

OMAP 3621 has a C64x+DSP
The OMAP 3621 has a C64x+DSP. That should be usable for hardware video decoding. In fact I beleive that TI has made video codecs available for their DSPs in the past, and there was even a Google Summer of Code project to create a Theora codec for the DSP.
This TI page tells you that the 3621 has a C64x+DSP: http://newscenter.ti.com/Blogs/news...ers-costs-for-ebook-manufacturers-305022.aspx

Droidish said:
The M4V fileformat plays awesome on the NC and the quality is exceptional even with smaller filesizes (370ish megs for a full length movie) No lag at all.
The player I use is: mVideoPlayer (Free)
search for “mVideoPlayer” without the quotes in the android market.
PS It can play most (if not all) formats supported by Android/NC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll second that. mVideoPlayer is the best thing going, also does subtitles if you've got them (use same filename, eg. MyVid.m4v + MyVid.srt)
If you end up converting videos I have had success with Handbrake (nightly build) using the iPhone profile, 720px width, 2 ref frames. Video bitrate at 900kbps seems to be enough (650kbps for Pixar films).

I think the B&N website explicitly states that the hardware video decoder renders everything to 854x480 and upscales all video to fit the screen. If you're converting just for the NC, it might be a waste to go above that resolution.

testulous said:
I'll second that. mVideoPlayer is the best thing going, also does subtitles if you've got them (use same filename, eg. MyVid.m4v + MyVid.srt)
If you end up converting videos I have had success with Handbrake (nightly build) using the iPhone profile, 720px width, 2 ref frames. Video bitrate at 900kbps seems to be enough (650kbps for Pixar films).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yeah about the subs... In mVideo If you long press on any movie in your list one of the options is to download subs for that movie (there are some other things hidden there as well). It doesn't always find them but the option is there.

[Howto] Video watching on Nook Color

As you may know, the Nook color has PowerVR SGX530 Graphics chip, which is also available on Droid 2 and Droid X.
This chip is pretty good when it comes to medium 3D performance and video playback. It can play videos quite nicely, but only the formats that it knows. Other formats will need to be played using software, which will give you medicore level playback.
If you have an MP4 files (which are encoded with H.264 Base level encoding), those files will play with hardware decoding great. However, if you have other video content (episodes, both in AVI/XVid or MKV/H.264 format), Nook will play them badly with 3rd party software (rock player, vplayer, etc).
Thats where FFMPEG could help a lot, if you're using Linux, all you need to do is install ffmpeg and run the following command:
Code:
ffmpeg -y -threads 8 -i myvideo.avi -b 800k -bt 1000k -vcodec libx264 -vpre default -vpre baseline -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -ar 44100 -ab 128k mynewvideo.mp4
the "myvideo.avi" is your original AVI file, and "mynewvideo.mp4" is the new MP4 file which could be played nicely on the Nook Color. Please note: if your video is bigger then 854x480, then you need to add the -s XxY where XxY is the width:height of the video (example: 640x352). If your video needs a new aspect ratio, you can use the -aspect parameter (example: -aspect 16:9)
If you're using a mac, then handbrake is your friend, as other tools which are based on ffmpeg.
On Windows you can either install FFMPEG for Windows, or you can use An application called "Any Video converter", and simply select your original file name, Select X264 as video codec, and convert. The output file should be played well.
No matter what conversion software you use, make sure that the H.264 profile that you use is set to base-level (or "base"). Anything higher cannot be played by the nook without frame skipping.
If you want to test if your video can be played with hardware acceleration, upload your video to your Nook (or to the Micro SD card), open any file manager and click on the mp4 file. Try to play the video with the "Movies" built in app. If the app will recognize your video, it will play it without any issues or frame skipping.
Good luck
Hetz

HandBrake can be used on Windows also

I read there are aspect ratio issues with the built in player. But I also read that even in mp4 base other video players can't take advantage of the hardware playback accel (proprietary drivers). Is that correct?

Handbrake doesn't work for windows?

triggrhaapi said:
Handbrake doesn't work for windows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Handbrake works great on Windows. Encoded a few this week for the Nook and ran like buttah.

Out of curiosity, why not just use RockPlayer. I'm yet to get an NC so I may be missing something.

It runs kind of choppy on video files encoded with anything other H.264/MPEG4 and the audio seems to get out of sync quickly

Mikey1022 said:
HandBrake can be used on Windows also
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And linux.

the latest version of rock player seems to have a lot better handle on audio sync...

we can never watch the avi videos without converting ?

Maybe
yemin88 said:
we can never watch the avi videos without converting ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really depends how the official Froyo update (coming in January) will improve performance.

rock player works fine... the problem is that you cant have above a 480p video. the reason is its not the audio thats lagging its the video studdering and thats whats causing the lagg

The topic title should read "how to watch videos on your nook if you run Linux"
You added all the settings you need for it, but not for the other operating systems lol You can run the file through any of these programs, (speaking Mac/Win) but just because you encode it with H.264 doesn't mean its going to play smoothly. If your source file is 1080p, this obviously isn't going to work.
My source file is:
H.264
Deinterlaced
720p
30fps
VBR 1 pass
AAC. 192kbps 48kHz, Stereo
So far Im at a video file @ 1024x576 at 15fps (tried to pull the Consistent Quality slider to 100%, but didn't see much differance) thats had the smoothest playback.
Now Im pretty much brand new to video editing and making, are there any settings I could be useing to make this file more smooth using Handbreak....or even more so In Adobe Premiere?
Im basically trying to see what the highest quality the Nook can take. Not to mention a continuous video of my coral reef while Im at work sitting next to me on my NC would b kinda epic

I use DropFolders. It uses HandBrake & you set it up with a watch folder & a destination folder. All you do is drop a video in the watch folder & it converts the file & puts it in your destination folder. You set up the HandBrake arguements in Drop Folders. Works like a charm.
Cheers,
kev

MrOtsKrad said:
The topic title should read "how to watch videos on your nook if you run Linux"
You added all the settings you need for it, but not for the other operating systems lol You can run the file through any of these programs, (speaking Mac/Win) but just because you encode it with H.264 doesn't mean its going to play smoothly. If your source file is 1080p, this obviously isn't going to work.
My source file is:
H.264
Deinterlaced
720p
30fps
VBR 1 pass
AAC. 192kbps 48kHz, Stereo
So far Im at a video file @ 1024x576 at 15fps (tried to pull the Consistent Quality slider to 100%, but didn't see much differance) thats had the smoothest playback.
Now Im pretty much brand new to video editing and making, are there any settings I could be useing to make this file more smooth using Handbreak....or even more so In Adobe Premiere?
Im basically trying to see what the highest quality the Nook can take. Not to mention a continuous video of my coral reef while Im at work sitting next to me on my NC would b kinda epic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the published specs for the NC, the default app will not play video above 854x480. If you want to use hardware decoding through the default app, you'll need to scale that down from 1024.
I have several videos encoded using one of the latest nightly builds of handbrake for NC, and with the constant quality set at 20, playback is flawless. You can use the "Apple Universal" setting to get the required baseline profile for MP4 and then adjust the video size as you like.
You can also use the "High Profile" and change some settings and per HERE. I was, however, able to set the max width above 720, unlike the third poster.

Innnnnnteresting! Thank you! I will give this a shot and see what I come up with

I posted a handbrake preset here. It works well for me.

Hi why can you try rockplayer for play video like divx
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App

triggrhaapi said:
Handbrake doesn't work for windows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't worry, I found an easy way to convert videos for nook color, read the article "Nook Color Video Converter Review – easy play any video on Nook Color"
from
Code:
icamcorder.net

Got a Nook Color over the weekend, and video looks great using the Handbrake preset posted here... I'm using Autonooter, and the built in Gallery app to play it. However, I'm curious, if I decided to try out Honeycomb, will other video player apps use hardware decoding with files encoded with the Handbrake preset, or is it limited to the stock Nook app? Thanks!

What is the current status of video capabilities with rooted CN, esp 720p?

With all the new roms forcolor nook out what is the status of its ability of playing videos, especially 720 mp4 and mkvs downloaded from the internet without having to reencode the files?
Which rom/player combination is best for this?

I'd like to know also. Currently using Rockplayer on HC from the EMMC, and videos from my camera shot at 640x 480 and esp 848x480 are quite slow and jerky. Definitely not something to show someone else.
Anyone have recommendations?

DSP/HW accel is not working in all non-stock roms and is being worked on, but even in the stock rooted, I doubt it plays 720p well enough, unless it's been encoded into an mp4 or something that's natively supported.

timekeeper said:
DSP/HW accel is not working in all non-stock roms and is being worked on, but even in the stock rooted, I dou
bt it plays 720p well enough, unless it's been encoded into an mp4 or something that's natively supported.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not true. Hardware decoding works in Froyo, just not in CM7 or HC.
It is true that files need be rencoding in compliant MP4 files for them to work. You need a dual core tablet for downloaded mkv support.

poofyhairguy said:
That is not true. Hardware decoding works in Froyo, just not in CM7 or HC.
It is true that files need be rencoding in compliant MP4 files for them to work. You need a dual core tablet for downloaded mkv support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My bad - I only tried nookie froyo on the SD and used it for less than 10 minutes.

I can't get hardware to work in Froyo on either Vital player or Rock Player. Anyone getting hardware decoding to work on Froyo?
How are you doing it?

no hardware accceleration on nookie froyo either for me. Able to play 720p AVI smoothly by using vital player neon on software decoding.

If working hardware decoding means that mp4 can be played with standart Movies application, than yes, it works for me in Nookie Froyo on eMMC.

Sounds like Nookie Froyo is the one to get (for now) if you want h/w acceleration for video.

I've been trying to get high quality video to run on my 2.1 NC for a few days and can't seem to get the audio to match up with the video. mp4 video, 800x480, 1200 bitrate, 25 gps looks great but the sound is off. Pissed.
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App

Paul Paulson said:
I've been trying to get high quality video to run on my 2.1 NC for a few days and can't seem to get the audio to match up with the video. mp4 video, 800x480, 1200 bitrate, 25 gps looks great but the sound is off. Pissed.
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App
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That bitrate is slightly too high.

I tried all the video players I could grab from the market with my rooted NC.
Rockplayer actually doesn't seem to be very good. It lagged at times. I'm not sure it's using full hardware acceleration, or maybe it's not able to fully use or is not recognizing the NC's hardware acceleration.
The best player for getting finicky files to work was vPlayer. It has a "high quality" mode which I'm guessing supplements the hardware acceleration with software decoding to make up for features which the hardware doesn't support. It was able to play video files that the stock video player and others refused to play. I think it was playing them slower than full speed though - was hard to tell with the video samples I used.
It is a pay app with a free trial. When not in "high quality" mode, it would still play the finicky video files, but with visible errors in the decoding. A couple of the other players also did this. I guess instead of refusing to play, they just throw the file at the hardware and display whatever comes out. But vPlayer was the only one with an option to "fix" the errors. If you're not encoding your own videos, definitely give this one a shot.
I'm using mVideoPlayer for now. It's limited to the same file formats the stock player can play, but I really like the interface (swipe to seek forward/back, long-press in corners to adjust volume/brightness). And it automatically generates lists of videos from a customizable directory list. No more having to search through a file browser - my videos on both the emmc and microsd now show up in one big list.
The main problem is you need a back button to use it. If you don't hit back to stop playing a file, the next time you try to play any video file, it resumes playing the old file where you left off. But if you use softkeys to give you a back button, it puts an ugly circle on top of your video...

poofyhairguy said:
That is not true. Hardware decoding works in Froyo, just not in CM7 or HC.
It is true that files need be rencoding in compliant MP4 files for them to work. You need a dual core tablet for downloaded mkv support.
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Not really true. My Samsung galaxy plays 720p mkv's without issues. That's a single core phone.
I think in reaility we just have to wait for hardware decoding to be ported over.

really hope dev can get h/w acceleration going for custom rom, especially cm7. On related issue, my NC with cm7 can play flash video and frame rate is low though (looks like slide show with 360P video).

Not NC related (haven't rooted yet), but having just played with (thanks to this thread) vPlayer, I can say it is definitely the superior program. My EVO handled a 720p .mkv file that rockplayer gave 6-10fps on, it was watchable and had no sync issues besides the occasional slow-down.
+1 for the tip.

I believe hardware decode works on Android 2.1 Auto Nooter 3.0. I have that installed and it works in rock player and vital player.
One thing to note is the hardware decoder can only decode a max width of 854. So your 720p files will not work with hardware encoding. You will have to re-encode the files.
I used this guide http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...using-handbrake-convert-video-nook-color.html and it seemed to work fine.

NVIDIA Tegra 2 optimized Video Player

Found this at the transformer forum..
*Phi* said:
Just thought i'll share,
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad&feature=more_from_developer
its a multi-format player called MX videoplayer(in case the market link doesnt work).
so far seems good, comparable to mobo player
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Couldn't agree more.
regards

Thanks! Best player so far!

Wish there was a no-ads option, but it's good.

ZanshinG1 said:
Wish there was a no-ads option, but it's good.
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I'm going to send a note to the Dev telling him he should make a Paid, No-Ads option. A while back someone posted a ~95MB .mkv of Planet Earth in 1080P, and while MX player doesn't play it in any usable FPS, no other Xoom player I've seen will even attempt to touch it.
I'd pay $5 for this one. I'm just surprised how limited the Tegra2 HW codecs are; so many of the videos I have play in SW mode (but then again, maybe NVidia hasn't released all the specs necessary to take advantage of them?)

I really don't get why anyone wants 1080p playback (unless it's for HDMI of course) since it's a 16:10 1280x800 screen, which is 720p (plus the extra 80 rows of pixels for the menu bar).

kcrudup said:
I'm going to send a note to the Dev telling him he should make a Paid, No-Ads option. A while back someone posted a ~95MB .mkv of Planet Earth in 1080P, and while MX player doesn't play it in any usable FPS, no other Xoom player I've seen will even attempt to touch it.
I'd pay $5 for this one. I'm just surprised how limited the Tegra2 HW codecs are; so many of the videos I have play in SW mode (but then again, maybe NVidia hasn't released all the specs necessary to take advantage of them?)
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really nice player indeed.
...but would even kill for a player with playback rate control and pitch correction through... (any dev listening? =] )

brandogg said:
I really don't get why anyone wants 1080p playback (unless it's for HDMI of course) since it's a 16:10 1280x800 screen, which is 720p (plus the extra 80 rows of pixels for the menu bar).
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because no one wants to reencode before watching.

I tested with 720p mkv movies and not work. Screen remains black, but is not running. Any tip? Mobo Player run 720p, but slow or dropping frames.

I have only tested MxVideoPlayer on divx/avi files and it is very similar to Moboplayer. I'd pay for a paid app also without adds if they would add/fix a few things below..
- Auto Rotate option.
- video playback should have option of resume or start over. I found a few bugs playing/resuming on videos that were incomplete. MxVideoPlayer would then show Video Playing Error when clicking on play because video was stuck on that *end spot*. The fix was to reset counters in preference to fix.
- add next/previous video button to toolbar and auto play next video in preferences.
Fix the above and remove adds and then I'll pay for that app.

brandogg said:
I really don't get why anyone wants 1080p playback (unless it's for HDMI of course) since it's a 16:10 1280x800 screen, which is 720p (plus the extra 80 rows of pixels for the menu bar).
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Who wants 1080(p)?

1080p will be on the Xoom 2..the screen on that thing goes way beyond 1080p.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Well I guess I get it if you have a 1080p movie that you want to watch on your PC, PS3, etc, and don't want to download (or *ahem* re-encode) a 720p version. That makes sense then.

I'm intrigued by, and appreciative of, the suggestion. I did download and try it, but I don't see anything to tear me away from Act 1 (which I've been quite happy with). Probably, I don't understand which format to use - but, I tried re-encoding a movie at 1080 and MX Video wouldn't play it any better than Act 1. Which is to say, I got a "format not supported" message and no joy...

Any ideas why this app (MX videoplayer) needs our GPS location?

this app is cool.
Thanks for sharing.
REgards

you guys see a diff between s/w code and h/w codec. Seems the same

It is not working for me, are there requirements for specific mkv codecs?? my mkv files never worked proporly 3.0, 3.1 or 3.2 with mobo, rockplayer or this one (just tried with 3.2)

Nothing will play in HW, it all plays SW. Even when I uninstall and reinstall both the app and codec.
Thanks happened to me with Mobo Player as well.
Stock, non-rooted, US WiFi only on 3.2.
Any ideas?

Timbledore said:
Nothing will play in HW, it all plays SW. Even when I uninstall and reinstall both the app and codec.
Thanks happened to me with Mobo Player as well.
Stock, non-rooted, US WiFi only on 3.2.
Any ideas?
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What kind of files are you trying to play? HW mode means that the app will make use of the Tegra2 hardware acceleration.
That means it will be subjected to the limitations of the Tegra 2 chip. The Tegra 2 chip can only decode certain 720p h264 formats with certain profiles and up to a certain bitrate. Let's not even go into 1080p.
Not only that, the Tegra 2 can only decode certain audio streams as well, so if your videos are in AC3 audio, you have to reencode the audio to something like AAC.
You can use a program like Mediainfo to check what formats your video files are in.
Edit: I think some folks are still not familiar with video formats and what the extensions mean. Mkv is just a container format for video files, similar to Avi. What's important is what codecs are used to encode the video and audio streams.
For example Avi files usually have divx/xvid encoded video streams and mp3 audio streams, mkv files have h264/mpeg4 AVC video streams and AC3/AAC audio streams.
So 3rd party apps are just able to open up these video containers and attempt to decode the video and audio streams for your viewing.
But they will use the CPU to process them using the app's built in codecs where possible if the chipset doesn't support it.
You can refer to the official specs of the Tegra 2 to determine what kind of video/audio compression formats it can decode.
So technically, the Xoom can playback avi files encoded with divx but because using software to decode requires some licencing fee in certain scenarios so that's why Honeycomb has no basic support because being "open source", Google did not pay for the licenses to playback some of the supported video formats. I may be wrong about this but it makes sense.
If you see other tablets like the Transformer or the Acer Iconia, you will realize they can playback more formats because the manufacturers probably paid for extra licenses and added playback capability into the OS. At least that's what I figured out.

musashiken said:
What kind of files are you trying to play? HW mode means that the app will make use of the Tegra2 hardware acceleration.
That means it will be subjected to the limitations of the Tegra 2 chip. The Tegra 2 chip can only decode certain 720p h264 formats with certain profiles and up to a certain bitrate. Let's not even go into 1080p.
Not only that, the Tegra 2 can only decode certain audio streams as well, so if your videos are in AC3 audio, you have to reencode the audio to something like AAC.
You can use a program like Mediainfo to check what formats your video files are in.
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Thanks, these are mostly xVid with AC3.
Mainly TV shows that I have missed. I rarely have time at home to catch up and more time on the move.