Database Users

BEST MOVIE CONVERTER OUT THERE!! Guaranteed!

In 2 weeks I've tried it all. 8 converters to be exact. The best one out there worth anyones time is a converter call AVS Video Converter 6.3(not free but reall worth it trust me). It has it all! It's pretty quick compare to the rest, but most importantly pumps out excellent video quality with smooth framerate. There's a few that's faster but most of them has bad famerates, bad quality, or both. Yes bad framerate playing on my super computer. The best settings that work for my TP2 is the following: M4V ipod h264 at 415 bitrate, 24fps, 640X384. Plays smooth looks great can't ask for more!
Converters I Tried: Handbrake 9.3 too slow
Handbrake 9.4 got sound no video?
Iwisoft choppy framerate looks very promising waiting for a newer version
Ultra mobile 3gp not enough settings file comes out to big and to slow
Any Video Converter when it works it very good, freezes to often during conversions plus to slow.
And a few others I don't remember.
Thanks hope I can help.

did you try the free encoder specifically for our phone?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=467112
it works well for me, very simple, just pick 800x480 and go. try that and let me know if you still think AVS is way better, then i'll give it a shot

Handbrake 0.9.4 works fine. You just need to use "MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)" and not "H.264 (x264)" as the phone does't natively support X264

Personally I like mediacoder.
The phone DOES support x264. My current settings on MediaCoder (free by the way) are x264 baseline profile, level 4.1 using 1183kbps and 800x448 resolution. The audio is AAC mpeg4 at 128kbps. I haven't had a chance to find the perfect settings but at those settings it provides me with great looking video and only very occasional stutter (the stutter happens in the same place and it isn't necessarily a high action sequence so I am not sure as to the cause, but in a nearly 5 minute video it stutters once, maybe twice, so it's not that bad).
I don't like the encoder specifically made for our phones because it doesn't offer a high enough bitrate and the end result is a blurry picture if you have higher resolutions and not the neat defined lines one wants with higher res. Also I had tried Super video encoder which I generally like but the downside to it is that at least with me it seems to treat the bitrate chosen as average, resulting in various moments when the phone can't handle it while media coder you can choose between average or constant. Choosing constant means your phone can handle it always or ast least should be able to.
Handbrake didn't work for me for some strange reason. It worked, but barely used my CPU. It would use 1% at most which means it was processing at .1fps and projected the video to be done in 3 or 4 days. I might give it a go sometime. I think I tried AVS but didn't like it because it wouldn't let me set the profile or level for h.264 (there was something about partition which might have been the level setting but it wasn't as precise nor was I sure that that was what it was) and I couldn't find where to choose between baseline, main, and high profile. The best way to get good video on a specific device with limited horsepower is to have each of your settings at the best level. Which is why programs which offer you that level of control are the best ones in these cases.
Though one thing I dislike about MediaCoder always opens up a page. When I chose for it not to do it anymore it still does it. Maybe that option will work for someone else.

dindin223 said:
did you try the free encoder specifically for our phone?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=467112
it works well for me, very simple, just pick 800x480 and go. try that and let me know if you still think AVS is way better, then i'll give it a shot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i often end up with audio sync issues when i use that. files usually play fine on my computer but are out of sync when played on the device.
i've probably tried around 10 different encoders. so far, for me, the best is dvd catalyst free version. i'm always looking for something free. there is a paid version for $10 with more options. looks good with divx player. doesnt look as good with coreplayer 1.3 for some reason.
i'll probably try playing around with the other encoders again. the files usually play fine on my computer but i almost always end up with the audio out of sync when played on my phone. really frustrating. my settings are probably wrong somewhere.

i use divx converter and use divx mobile to play on my phone.. works good enough for me

I use Mp4forHD, it seems slow but the end result is perfect to me.

I ended up buying DVD Catalyst 3 for $9.99 USD. It takes a while to encode but little to no settings are involved. Very easy, and it even has your device in a drop down menu to ensure that it will play properly on your device. I was able to convert the new Star Trek DVD and playback video quality is very good.

solsearch said:
My current settings on MediaCoder (free by the way) are x264 baseline profile, level 4.1 using 1183kbps and 800x448 resolution. The audio is AAC mpeg4 at 128kbps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you post your preset XML file? I've been playing around with MediaCoder for a few days now and can't get a stutter free result above 480x270.
Also, by encoding at 800 pixels wide, aren't you distorting the original, which is presumably 720 pixels wide?

videora htc touch pro2 converter
i use the converter found on this site http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/htc-touch-pro2/ its made specifically for the touch pro 2 i have had great video results with this. i also use their other customized converters for my ps3 and my psp.

When I am in a hurry I use Winavi converter, very very fast and the result is ok.

shawndh said:
I ended up buying DVD Catalyst 3 for $9.99 USD. It takes a while to encode but little to no settings are involved. Very easy, and it even has your device in a drop down menu to ensure that it will play properly on your device. I was able to convert the new Star Trek DVD and playback video quality is very good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
gonna give this a whirl. thanks for the recommendation.

If you want a nice converter with a ****load of options that handles anything you throw at it, try "Super" (yeah, the name sucks and their site is a horrible nightmare to navigate, but it's a great and free piece of software)

GamerGuy80 said:
i use the converter found on this site http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/htc-touch-pro2/ its made specifically for the touch pro 2 i have had great video results with this. i also use their other customized converters for my ps3 and my psp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks dude...this is a pretty slick app...even the ads are nicely placed...
converting "School of Rock" now...

Interesting no one mentioned Xilisoft video converter ultimate. It allows you to create custom profiles to get the video you want.

Badaboom
Recently I have been using Badaboom. It uses the Nvidia Cuda software on your graphics card. when converting Year One "1 hour and 40 min", took 31 minutes to convert.
Pros:
1) VERY fast
2) no glitching in the movie
3) tells you how big the file will be before you convert it
4) tells you the file size as your adjusting the settings
5) accepts dvds, video_ts folders, and video files
6) smooth black interface with control, but without clutter
Cons:
1) not freeware
2) not effective unless you use a Nvidia card with Cuda
3) only outputs to .mp4 files "coreplayer struggles with, but wmp plays flawlessly"
4) feels like there should be more...but there isn't
http://www.badaboomit.com/
if you want the settings/ TP2 picture I used for my setup, send me a PM

GamerGuy80 said:
i use the converter found on this site http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/htc-touch-pro2/ its made specifically for the touch pro 2 i have had great video results with this. i also use their other customized converters for my ps3 and my psp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this nice app link!!!! Converting music videos and loving it!

mm1453 said:
i use divx converter and use divx mobile to play on my phone.. works good enough for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on that! CorePlayer plays these with amazing clarity. Also the most easily found and downloadable (ehmm) so never any converting required! But seriously even easier to actually torrent the movie even if you own it. These guys are pros at finding the best settings to produce the best quality at around 650 to 800 mb for your average movie. I have like ten of them on my 16gb card.
On the HTC TP2 the latest CorePlayer must be used for no lag and very little cpu usage. Great mp3 player too.

videora converters
to the guys who have thanked me for the link to the videora touch pro 2 converter you are very welcomed. also just wanted to let you guys know if you visit their main site which is here : http://www.videora.com/ you can see all the customized converters that they provide. there are plenty more for other HTC devices as well as for gaming devices as well like the wii and ps3 and psp.

Is there one that's super easy to use?
I'm looking for a video converter for my dad to use. I need something that can handle a lot of input formats and is super easy to use.
Any recommendations?

Playing 1080p H.264

As a proud owner of both a HD2 and a GoPro Hero HD helmet cam, I was wondering whether there's a WM video player that can handle 1080p H.264 encoded mp4 files.
I'm not asking for fluid playback, obviously, just a stuttering preview of picture quality while I'm away from a real computer.
Coreplayer has a 1008p limit hardcoded into it, from what I understand, so that's not an option. TCPMP didn't work either when I tried.
Any thoughts?

Forget it straight away. Even a 1.2GHz core 2 duo (which is already easily 10 times more powerful, if any comparison is possible) can't even play 1080p h264 at half speed...
The HD2 can barely play DVD res MPEG2.

1080 on HD2? useless... nonsense
as kilrah said... forget it
but one point is not true u can run 1080p X264 movies smooth on a pc with 1.2Ghz Dual Core.. now comes the point! IF... u have a graficcard that supports VDPAU. so even a loosy GeForce 9400 can do that.
XBMC installing as OS. turn VPDAU on.. e voila. smooth HD movies.
on my mom's AsRock ION330 (Atom CPU) with ION GPU (Equal to GeForce 9400M). 1080p movie with x264 in MKV container run's smooth.
and CPU usage is at 12-40% depends on.
have fun

Have you try the "Remote Desktop Mobile" feature....? Which is not "directly" playing on HD2...

I'm not sure if you fully read my original question:
I don't want smooth playback, I know I can't have that,
but simply a way to view stills out of a large h.264 file.
I don't care if rendering one frame takes several seconds.
Have you try the "Remote Desktop Mobile" feature....? Which is not "directly" playing on HD2...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the video files are on my phone, I don't see how Remote
Desktop Mobile is going to help me. Or did I misunderstand
what you are saying?

Yes we did fully read... But do you really think a developer would spend time making a WM program to open and decode a format that no existing device could play?
It's actually something the WM port of vlc could do, if it hadn't been discontinued in 2006 before it could play h264... It had the same capabilities as on other platforms.
@jisin: Of course if you cheat with hardware acceleration But my example was meant to put things on the same level, as the HD2 has none.

Nobody is talking about a seperate program - at least I wasn't. I would think
any player capable of decoding h.264 should handle 1080p, at least in theory.
For example, I don't understand why CorePlayer has a limit at such an arbitrary
number built into it, otherwise it would probably work just fine for my purposes.
TCPMP is witchcraft, as far as I'm concerned, so I don't readily know why it
won't play HD videos.

AFAIK the profiles used to encode HD h.264 are different from the simple ones used for SD videos, and thus need explicit support. The difference between AVC and AVCHD.
For example in VLC, support for HD h.264 has only come last year, long after SD one. Before that, trying to read one would just give you a couple of crippled frames and crash the player.

Just to clarify, AVC and H.264 are the same, or rather AVC is part of H.264.
AVCHD is an extension of H.264/AVC. That's what you meant, right?
In any case, my videos are AVC and not AVCHD encoded.
I really don't see how decoding a higher definition variant of a video codec can
be any different from standard definition, other than the stress on the hardware
of course.

If not coreplayer, then I think nothing.

bayowar said:
As a proud owner of both a HD2 and a GoPro Hero HD helmet cam, I was wondering whether there's a WM video player that can handle 1080p H.264 encoded mp4 files.
I'm not asking for fluid playback, obviously, just a stuttering preview of picture quality while I'm away from a real computer.
Coreplayer has a 1008p limit hardcoded into it, from what I understand, so that's not an option. TCPMP didn't work either when I tried.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coreplayer's limit is 1008 horizontal pixels, I think, so it can't even play 720p, let alone anything higher.
I have a 720p video clip on my phone which will play in HTCAlbum or Pocket Media Player. It's jerky as hell and completely unwatchable, but it does play. You might find a 1080p clip would play in it too, I don't know. But it wouldn't give you any kind of meaningful preview.

I dont understand why you would want to try and view the image quality of a 1080p file on a 800 x 480 screen? It's never going to look any better than a similarly encoded 480p file. I would agree that it's handier to not have to re-encode files, but most 1080p files are downloaded as mkv anyway, which means that you would need to reencode into MP4. You may aswell reduce the resolution to 800 x 480 and save loads of memory while your at it.

Ad-james said:
which means that you would need to reencode into MP4. You may aswell reduce the resolution to 800 x 480 and save loads of memory while your at it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You didn't get the point. He has a camcorder that doesn't have a screen. He wants to put its memory card in the HD2 and have a glimpse of what he just shot could have been like.
But yes, it would only allow checking framing if it took several seconds to load each frame, not much more...

WMP plays the sound, not the video, HTC Album came up with an error I think.
And yes, kilrah, that's exactly it. Should have mentioned that the camcorder
doesn't have a screen.

Shasarak said:
Coreplayer's limit is 1008 horizontal pixels, I think, so it can't even play 720p, let alone anything higher.
I have a 720p video clip on my phone which will play in HTCAlbum or Pocket Media Player. It's jerky as hell and completely unwatchable, but it does play. You might find a 1080p clip would play in it too, I don't know. But it wouldn't give you any kind of meaningful preview.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the main problem is the lake of drivers in windows mobile 6 series as hd2 processor is mentiond to support 720p videos at 30 frame /sec

kilrah said:
Forget it straight away. Even a 1.2GHz core 2 duo (which is already easily 10 times more powerful, if any comparison is possible) can't even play 1080p h264 at half speed...
The HD2 can barely play DVD res MPEG2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think it depends on the codec and bitrate... i can run 1080p h.264 fine on my 1ghz athlon using coreavc

Is there any codec which make possible to view h.264 stream in windows media player?
I can get stream from my internet aceess box which are very smooth with CorePlayer but I would like to know if there is any codec which make it possible with the native multimedia player!
Thanks

i downloade ttansformers hd (1080p) from youtube and coreplayer played that completely O.K. but i couldn't got it to play almost most .mp4 ones. it plays some .mp4 but doesn't many. also plays raw 640x480 videos from my digital camera not smooth but acceptable.

Camcorder that doesnt have a screen???
720p dont play in hd2 forget about 1080, it cant handle the resolution or the bitrates.

I don't know why Microsoft/HTC didnt done things right.
I have HD2 dual boot with Android.
where WM unable to play 720P but Android on same HD2 play 1080 smooth and crisp with out any frame delay/skip.
I think Microsoft has to optimize there graphics driver to come at par with Android.
Thanks
Pawan

high def movies

with the x10's huge screen, i'd like to know where i can get high def movie files to put on my sd card.
anyone know?

u cant play high def movies... the highest resolution is 854x480!

oneonezerosix said:
with the x10's huge screen, i'd like to know where i can get high def movie files to put on my sd card.
anyone know?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats illegal sir

Even if you buy the blueray disk and reencode them?

tuxStyle said:
Even if you buy the blueray disk and reencode them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
he asked for "download"
if you are to encode movie for x10, I think there is no point encoding it more than the screen's res, cuz it will look the same anyway

i didn't say download. look again. but even with a redeem code with dvds and blu rays, the file formats are mpegs

they don't have to be high res. just decent quality so i can enjoy movies on the x10

oneonezerosix said:
i didn't say download. look again. but even with a redeem code with dvds and blu rays, the file formats are mpegs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nah I was just kidding
I guess hd mp4 from youtube would work, not sure though, I'll try and report back

For encoding, try Handbrake. It works really well using the iPhone preset (just make sure to adjust the video width to 854 pixels).
A Blu-ray rip of an episode of Dexter I have looks amazing.

what is handbrake?

Google it!
http://handbrake.fr/ it's a free Windows app that allows you to re-encode video files.

Anyone try and encode an HD movie on handbrake ?
I convert a 8gb 720P movie, set the bit rate at 1500...The vid took about 8 hours convert, and ended up being 3gb when done...set at 854x480...I also tried designating the output file size to 1.5gb, still took 8 hours...Been using Handbrake for a while now, quite familiar with the "advanced" settings, but taking so damn long to convert 720p movies. Love it none the less...

What site can you get movies for the x10 on?

What site can you get movies for the x10 on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
... non warez site; )
Sent from my X10i using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

SmokinSteveO said:
Anyone try and encode an HD movie on handbrake ?
I convert a 8gb 720P movie, set the bit rate at 1500...The vid took about 8 hours convert, and ended up being 3gb when done...set at 854x480...I also tried designating the output file size to 1.5gb, still took 8 hours...Been using Handbrake for a while now, quite familiar with the "advanced" settings, but taking so damn long to convert 720p movies. Love it none the less...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My conversions of BD rips of 1hr TV shows seem to take a bit over 60 minutes each. That's using the iPhone preset with an 854 width setting.

SmokinSteveO said:
Anyone try and encode an HD movie on handbrake ?
I convert a 8gb 720P movie, set the bit rate at 1500...The vid took about 8 hours convert, and ended up being 3gb when done...set at 854x480...I also tried designating the output file size to 1.5gb, still took 8 hours...Been using Handbrake for a while now, quite familiar with the "advanced" settings, but taking so damn long to convert 720p movies. Love it none the less...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i concur, the X10 is capable of 720p playback. I've converted my own AVCHD 720p files and they play perfectly fine on the X10....which is AWESOME.

gr00vy0ne said:
i concur, the X10 is capable of 720p playback. I've converted my own AVCHD 720p files and they play perfectly fine on the X10....which is AWESOME.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Technically, it's not playing 720p. The 720 refers to horizontal lines of resolution, not the vertical lines. 1280x720 is the resolution of 720p.
The X10 is capable of playing what YouTube and other sites call "480p", which is pretty much what DVDs are encoded at.

this is great guys. thanks alot, im going to try to download handbrake and convert my mpeg movie files

i agree, x10 can play some really HQ files though i find little use of it, a "normal" 350mb episode or 700mb movie will do fine when coverted to .mp4
it's a pitty x10 doesn't have TV-out capability...i had X2 and it worked pretty nicely
is there any way that picture from the x10 could be sent over wireless or am i just talking nonsence maybe an app that would show on your PC the screen which is on X10

saltorio said:
Technically, it's not playing 720p. The 720 refers to horizontal lines of resolution, not the vertical lines. 1280x720 is the resolution of 720p.
The X10 is capable of playing what YouTube and other sites call "480p", which is pretty much what DVDs are encoded at.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is incorrect. Yes, the X10 is capable of playing 480p, but you make it sound like it can't play anything above that resolution because the screen itself is 480p.
If you play a 720p video on the X10, it will be downscaled to 480p, but the X10 is still decoding the full 720p video which takes quite some horsepower. I used Handbrake to convert a 1080p Youtube trailer to 720p, which the X10 plays, but not without some stutter. Maybe my bitrate setting were a little high and the X10 could play it smoothly on lower encoding settings, but the fact that it plays a perfectly fine quality 720p even with some dropped frames is still pretty impressive.
And no, it's not really usefull to playback any video with a greater resolution that the X10's native screen resolution, but it's fun to play around with IMO. I do wonder if the media player has GPU acceleration. If not, that these results are all the more impressive.

Handbrake Settings Test

I have been running a few tests on Handbrake transcodes for my G2, and I wanted to share my results for anyone who doesn't wish to invest in 9 hours of transcoding/CPU time, just to get sub-par results.
My test file was Dexter S05E01 in the form of a 720p mkv. I tried 4 different settings, and here are the results:
1.) 1280x720 mp4 at constant RF 20. The picture is very sharp, but the playback stutters. Audio is fine, but the phone can't keep up with the video (when played in the stock player, doubleTwist, Vplayer, and QQplayer).
2.) 1280x720 mp4 at constant 2550 kbps. The picture is also very sharp, but the video playback still stutters, even when played in each of the alternate players listed above.
3.) 800x448 mp4 at constant RF 20. The picture is still sharp, yet it STILL stutters. The phone just isn't keeping up with the video. This one confuses me, since it's less than the phone's screen resolution.
4.) Handbrake iPhone/iPod Touch settings at 480x320, with constant RF 20. This is the only one that plays without stutter, but it is noticeably less sharp than the previous three tests. Played on my 3rd gen iPod Touch, this encoding looks fantastic. However, my goal was to maintain the HD feel of the source, and this was not achieved.
I will continue to experiment with different file-types and report back here if I succeed at finding a crisp, yet playable transcode for the G2.

Are you playing the videos using the built in media player? If there's lots of stutter I would try rockplayer. Don't download rock player from the market, its the universal version and is very slow and stuttery. Go to the website for rockplayer and download the version specifically for the cortex A8. I can play 1080p downloaded youtube videos with that.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 running Cyanogenmod.

^^^^^This^^^^^
I use Rockplayer for all my movies without having to transcode ever!

Am I missing something? I went to the rockplayer website but only see versions for arm7 and arm6.

It's ARMv7.
I downloaded it, but I'm still getting stutter, even on the 800x448 file. h.264 is the right codec, right?

Perhaps it's because I haven't rooted my G2. Maybe 800MHz isn't fast enough to decode 720p. Are you running CM at 1.4GHz, to get your 1080p videos playing with no stutter?
Also, to be more clear, it's not a huge stutter - only very subtle. However, it's enough to really bother me, because the video is never really smooth.

I'm running CM7 at 245 - 979 mhz ondemand with the UV kernel. Have you tried playing a 720p youtube video downloaded with something like tubemate?
I did notice when I played a converted version of inception once that it stuttered, yet youtube 720p videos didn't stutter at all.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 running Cyanogenmod.

I guess you're right. There is a small stutter... but its much less then when I was trying to use handbrake and convert full movies...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 running Cyanogenmod.

Yeah, I tried a 720p youtube video in RockPlayer, and there was still enough stutter to bother me. I guess I'll just stick with my iPod Touch for watching videos on the go.

I used a guide for HandBrake with G2-optimized settings based on the iPod Legacy preset and the mVideoPlayer app. I also have the G2-Fast kernel and overclocked to 1516 with SetCPU. It works fine enough, but the files it generates are only marginally smaller than the source. What is the homepage of RockPlayer? The first result on Google is broken.

The first Google result works for me.
http://rockplayer.freecoder.org/index_en.html

Hopefully the next iteration of Android (Honeycomb) will be able to use it's gpu acceleration features on videos?

ARMv7neon, ARMv7vfp, or ARMv7vfpv3d16? They're all ARM7, whats the difference?

Personally I wasn't able to get Rockplayer to work on my G2 for some reason. I tried both versions of the ARM6 and the ARM7 version as well so I'm unable to view any videos at the higher quality. But here are my settings that I use.
Picture: I keep these at DVD quality, so my width is always at 720 and I have the box checked in "Keep Aspect Ratio"
Video Filters: I have all of these to off.
Video: Video Codec is at H.264 and Framerate(FPS) is set to "Same as source". Quality I have set at 60.78%RF:20
Audio: Source=Automatic Audio Codec=AAC9(faac) Mixdown=Automatic Samplerate=Auto Bitrate=160 DRC=0
I don't touch the "Advanced" box
I also have the "Container" box set at MP4 with the Web optimized and iPod5G support boxes checked.
Lastly I change the .mv4 to .mp4 at the end of the file.
These are pretty much the same settings at the iPhone & iPod Touch presets with just a few differences.
I've never had a problem viewing any movies with these settings and the quality, I feel, is excellent. I've converted hundreds of movies using these settings ever since I've had my G1. The only difference is the Video Width. The G1 I had set to 480. Hope this helps.
One other thing to add. These were all either direct DVD or Blu-ray rips so I've never seen any real loss in quality.

Thanks, darkjuan. I'll give those settings a spin and see if I have more luck with them than I did my original settings.

[Q] Xoom HD playback capability

There are a lot of MP4 video clips that I cannot get to play on Xoom smoothly but they play back really well on my HTC Desire.
On Xoom the video is laggy while the audio is audible. This happened to both 720p and 480p videos. I used both the default player and Moboplayer to ensure I am using the hardware acceleration.
Strangely on my Xoom the Moboplayer can soft-decode 480p MP4 with ffmpeg and playback without any problem. 720 is smoother but the decoding was too slow which resulted in A-V async.
Again, all those clips play really well on my HTC Desire. Tegra 2 should be able to handle them.
Anyone knows anything?

Please search the forum before asking questions. This has been asnswered.
The problem you're having is to do with the clips using high profile encoding.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=968640&highlight=video
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=968308&highlight=video
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=972812&highlight=video
There's lots more. All I can say is, learn to love Handbrake and be prepared to have your computer running all night every night if you ever want to watch HD movies on this thing.

I dont agree; I have transcoded 2 blue rays, hellboy and start trek 2009 in about an hour each, using my imac and handbreak
Oh, and download Vitalplayer from the market for the best hd video playback..

wase4711 said:
I dont agree; I have transcoded 2 blue rays, hellboy and start trek 2009 in about an hour each, using my imac and handbreak
Oh, and download Vitalplayer from the market for the best hd video playback..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, well, I don't agree.
I converted 2 720p mkv 90 minute movies and a 40 minute 720p mkv TV show last night and it took 6 hours. This was done on an Intel Core 2 duo P750 2.26GHz
Not everyone has the same hardware. I suppose I could run out and buy an i5 or i7 for the sole purpose of encoding video for the XOOM.
Maybe Motorola can partner with a PC company. How about 20% off a new laptop when you buy a XOOM that way you will be able to take advantage of its HD video capability in 2 hours instead of six.

Digital Man said:
Yeah, well, I don't agree.
I converted 2 720p mkv 90 minute movies and a 40 minute 720p mkv TV show last night and it took 6 hours. This was done on an Intel Core 2 duo P750 2.26GHz
Not everyone has the same hardware. I suppose I could run out and buy an i5 or i7 for the sole purpose of encoding video for the XOOM.
Maybe Motorola can partner with a PC company. How about 20% off a new laptop when you buy a XOOM that way you will be able to take advantage of its HD video capability in 2 hours instead of six.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It all depends on your settings, and keep in mind that the imac is going to have similar hardware to your machine. The recommendation is to set max width to 1280, set B Frames to 0, turn off CABAC, 8x8 Transform, and Weighted P frames. If you do that, you'll find fairly consistent encoding times even with older hardware. Also, keep in mind that encoding is entirely processor bound and will do better the more cores you can throw at it.

mcnutty said:
It all depends on your settings, and keep in mind that the imac is going to have similar hardware to your machine. The recommendation is to set max width to 1280, set B Frames to 0, turn off CABAC, 8x8 Transform, and Weighted P frames. If you do that, you'll find fairly consistent encoding times even with older hardware. Also, keep in mind that encoding is entirely processor bound and will do better the more cores you can throw at it.
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Been there done that. There are no shortcuts. Good quality takes time or more cores. Or harness the GPU ie CUDA but that causes horrendous macroblocking in bright scenes.
No matter how you sugar coat it, re-encoding video is a time consuming pain in the ass for most people.
I also seem to remember there are multiple versions of the imac, with variable hardware specs, from dual core up to quad core 3.6GHz - so your claim of similar hardware seems unlikely.

..........

e.mote said:
>I converted 2 720p mkv 90 minute movies and a 40 minute 720p mkv TV show last night and it took 6 hours.
Suggest using 800 max width for substantially faster encode speed and smaller size. Quality diff is negligible on a 10".
If using 2-pass, switch to 1-pass for both faster encode time AND better quality.
Unfortunately, HB doesn't provide x264's speed presets. You can gain additional speed (at cost of some nominal size increase) with the faster presets. Hmm, I should update my HB script to allow "downloadables" as input.
>The recommendation is to set max width to 1280, set B Frames to 0, turn off CABAC, 8x8 Transform, and Weighted P frames. If you do that, you'll find fairly consistent encoding times even with older hardware.
Encoding to baseline profile (what the above basically means) gains speed by disabling more advanced "compression" features. The trade-off is significant size increase, about +30% vs high profile.
Using a lower res allows more efficient settings. At 800 width, you can use main profile. Speed diff between main & baseline is insignificant. Speed gain for the lower res is substantial.
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I appreciate that your trying to help, but those are the settings that I have been using already: 1280, set B Frames to 0, turn off CABAC, turn off 8x8 Transform, and turn off Weighted P frames....
and it is still taking well over 3 hours to re-encode a 1:30 movie.
I understand that lowering the resolution will decrease the encoding time, but I consider that a last resort compromise. In fact I would consider that basically a failure of the XOOM.
I have considered buying an i5 or i7, but I feel stupid buying a new laptop for the sole purpose of encoding for the XOOM, when I could just pick up my Galaxy Tab and just play these videos immediately. No encoding. Just copy them over and play.

I am quite sure those videos are not high profile. Their bitrates were around 2M, way below 20M.
And, as I said, I can even do soft-decode to play the 480ps which does not play well with hard-decoding.
480ps, man. 480ps. Stunning.

e.mote said:
Last edited by e.mote; Today at 10:19 PM. Reason: reply removed, as recipient can't read
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Your sarcasm needs work. It lacks creativity. And removing the original post is just immature.

Digital Man said:
Your sarcasm needs work. It lacks creativity. And removing the original post is just immature.
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I don't really care about the encoding stage, I have an i7-950 which encodes a blu-ray in handbreak in well under an hour.
What I'd like to know, is are the codecs really this lacking, and will we see a solution?
I, like the OP have a HTC Desire and I could be devastated to find the XOOM can't handle the videos my Desire can.
Does it natively support mkv? I like to watch TV episodes in mkv like the 86MB Big Bang Theory episodes.
All my non-TV stuff I rip myself so I'm not concerned. Other than the DRM wmv I buy. Which play back fine on my galaxy tab.

alias_neo said:
I don't really care about the encoding stage, I have an i7-950 which encodes a blu-ray in handbreak in well under an hour.
What I'd like to know, is are the codecs really this lacking, and will we see a solution?
I, like the OP have a HTC Desire and I could be devastated to find the XOOM can't handle the videos my Desire can.
Does it natively support mkv? I like to watch TV episodes in mkv like the 86MB Big Bang Theory episodes.
All my non-TV stuff I rip myself so I'm not concerned. Other than the DRM wmv I buy. Which play back fine on my galaxy tab.
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Most TV shows that are 720p mkv, and are privately enoded, and downloaded, average about 1.2 GB and will and not play. Support for MKV as a container isn't a problem, its the profile of the h264 video in the container that is the problem.
If the Video that you like to watch is only 86MB, that doesn't sound like high profile 720p. So it might play, only way to know is to try or download mediaInfo and check its properties.
Good to hear that the i7 that you have can do a blu-ray in an hour. That sounds like what I should do eventually. Wonder if an i5 will do as well. I've heard that the i7, though it has 4 physical cores, is seen as 8 due to multithreading, wheras the i5 is limited to 4.
I watched two re-encoded episodes of fringe last night, and the Video on the XOOM is really amazing. It actually is almost worth the wait.

Digital Man said:
Most TV shows that are 720p mkv, and are privately enoded, and downloaded, average about 1.2 GB and will and not play. Support for MKV as a container isn't a problem, its the profile of the h264 video in the container that is the problem.
If the Video that you like to watch is only 86MB, that doesn't sound like high profile 720p. So it might play, only way to know is to try or download mediaInfo and check its properties.
Good to hear that the i7 that you have can do a blu-ray in an hour. That sounds like what I should do eventually. Wonder if an i5 will do as well. I've heard that the i7, though it has 4 physical cores, is seen as 8 due to multithreading, wheras the i5 is limited to 4.
I watched two re-encoded episodes of fringe last night, and the Video on the XOOM is really amazing. It actually is almost worth the wait.
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That's correct, it's an 8 threaded processor, running on an Asus ROG III Gene.
As for the videos I'm watching:
Video
ID/String : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format_Profile : [email protected]
Format_Settings_CABAC/String : Yes
Format_Settings_RefFrames/String : 4 frames
Format_Settings_GOP : M=4, N=48
CodecID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration/String : 20mn 24s
BitRate/String : 465 Kbps
Width/String : 624 pixels
Height/String : 352 pixels
DisplayAspectRatio/String : 16:9
FrameRate/String : 23.976 fps
Standard : NTSC
ColorSpace : YUV
ChromaSubsampling : 4:2:0
BitDepth/String : 8 bits
ScanType/String : Progressive
Bits-(Pixel*Frame) : 0.088
StreamSize/String : 67.8 MiB (77%)
They're not 720, but they're nice enough on my Galaxy Tab. They are High Profile @ L4.0 though which I'v heard a lot of bad-mouthing about on the forum lately. I'm no expert on media codecs and frankly couldn't care as long as theyre watchable. I'd love to know I could rip my Blu-Rays at 720p and watch them on the XOOM comfortably though.

What you are posting is interesting. Its high profile, but low bit rate. Some of the early claims for the Tegra 2, which is used in the XOOM, said it actually could play high profile but only at a low bit rate, but I haven't heard it confirmed. I suspect this video will not play, but later on I will try encoding a video in a simliar manner to yours and see what happens.

Digital Man said:
What you are posting is interesting. Its high profile, but low bit rate. Some of the early claims for the Tegra 2, which is used in the XOOM, said it actually could play high profile but only at a low bit rate, but I haven't heard it confirmed. I suspect this video will not play, but later on I will try encoding a video in a simliar manner to yours and see what happens.
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Great, if you like I can dropbox the file I have and PM you the link for testing. These files playback flawlessly using the Galaxy Tab with every single player software I have tried, whether hardware or software decoding. FOr them not to play on the XOOM would be a killer.

Got your file. Sorry, it plays but with no sound. I tried RockPlayer and Moboplayer and the System Player and all play the same - silent.
The Video is actually pretty good. Smooth and very acceptable. So I guess it can technically play high profile, very low bitrate files - just not with sound. Have to Play around some more and see if I can learn anything else that might get this to play correctly or figure out what the problem is.
Edit: Actually, this is a Divx encoded file, not h264, so that is why it plays. So I am a little surprised about the lack of audio. And its only mp3 audio!!! This is really amazing. I can't believe the XOOM isn't playing this correctly. Has to be a way.
Update: Ok, success! It does play correctly in Rockplayer in software decoding mode. With sound. So it looks like you will have no problem.

Digital Man said:
Got your file. Sorry, it plays but with no sound. I tried RockPlayer and Moboplayer and the System Player and all play the same - silent.
The Video is actually pretty good. Smooth and very acceptable. So I guess it can technically play high profile, very low bitrate files - just not with sound. Have to Play around some more and see if I can learn anything else that might get this to play correctly or figure out what the problem is.
Edit: Actually, this is a Divx encoded file, not h264, so that is why it plays. So I am a little surprised about the lack of audio. And its only mp3 audio!!! This is really amazing. I can't believe the XOOM isn't playing this correctly. Has to be a way.
Update: Ok, success! It does play correctly in Rockplayer in software decoding mode. With sound. So it looks like you will have no problem.
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Interesting, if somewhat concerning that it won't play this in the standard players or with hard-decoding even though it uses mp3 audio.
How about VPlayer Advanced? I find this plays most of my videos nicely on the Tab.

Probably just lack of Divx support in hardware. Thats not a big deal, even a single core CPU of lower power can easily decode low res, low bitrate Divx. I don't consider that a flaw at all. Software decoding video like this with the XOOM's dual core A9's is trivial. Results are fine. Just need an app like RockPlayer that does it. XVID files will probably not work in hardware either.
From Motorolas website:
PLAYABLE FORMATS
AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, ACC+ Enhanced, OGG, MIDI, AMR NB, AAC+

Digital Man said:
Probably just lack of Divx support in hardware. Thats not a big deal, even a single core CPU of lower power can easily decode low res, low bitrate Divx. I don't consider that a flaw at all. Software decoding video like this with the XOOM's dual core A9's is trivial. Results are fine. Just need an app like RockPlayer that does it. XVID files will probably not work in hardware either.
From Motorolas website:
PLAYABLE FORMATS
AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, ACC+ Enhanced, OGG, MIDI, AMR NB, AAC+
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Yeh that's pretty fair I guess. How do you think it would manage if converted to MP4? I can do it on my 950 when I get home and send you it if you like? I'd not mind converting the whole lot if it played in the stock player.