Database Users

FLAC playback?

I heard a while back that Android 3.1 was supposed to include native support for FLAC playback, but today when I attempted to play .flac files from an external hard drive and a microSD card, most of the songs refuse to play, with it saying "Error playing selected track." The files play just fine in Rhythmbox on Linux Mint 10 and foobar2000 in Windows 7.
Has anybody else tried this? It seems FLAC support is somewhat incomplete or broken, and that the TF may require very specific settings on the encoding for the files to play correctly. I've occasionally had issues like this before on a few music player applications in Linux and Windows, and I'm just wondering if I'm going to need to re-encode most of my music collection in order for it to play.

By the way, I can confirm that I can get working FLAC playback by running the problem files through Sound Converter in Linux Mint, using the default .flac settings. It's just a pain to do that, especially with a large collection of files.

Try another player from the market, for example poweramp (claims to support flac)?
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA Premium App

There is a player in Market that claims to play flacs but it doesn't work for me. I didn't found a way to play them. Frustrating.

The FLAC on my microSD finally showed up in the stock player after I did a factory reset. I am still on leaked 3.1. They play fine. It's a slick interface. FLAC with MoboPlayer required turning on an expermental feature (soft decode), but then worked.
Would be nice to have DLNA supported by stock player though.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

mike5065 said:
The FLAC on my microSD finally showed up in the stock player after I did a factory reset. I am still on leaked 3.1. They play fine. It's a slick interface. FLAC with MoboPlayer required turning on an expermental feature (soft decode), but then worked.
Would be nice to have DLNA supported by stock player though.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For Dlna, you can use Plex for android and see how that works for you.

It appears support for Flac was added to 3.1? I can play my flacs now in WinAmp (but the stock player doesn't see them). Sound quality on my stereo is not bad but a little muddy (in comparison with my old SB Live!). I hope one day Android will work with USB sound cards (or maybe HDMI sound output could be used... hm...).

Atrix & PS3 Media Server (DLNA)

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone around here is using PS3 Media Server with their Atrix?
Specifically, be able to play movies (mostly MKVs, some High Profile) from the PS3 Media Server (currently running 1.30.1, also tried 1.40 beta 2)
I keep getting some invalid stream messages from all the players and UPNP/DLNA controllers I tried (BubbleUPNP, UPnplay) using Video players MoboPlayer and MX VIdeo Pro.
AVI files work just fine. But MKVs just don't work. I didn't try any other formats (MP4 for example, I would assume it works as it's natively supported on the Atrix)
Has anyone managed to make a Renderer .conf for PS3 Media Player that works well with the Atrix ?
I searched the forum and couldn't find anything. I also searched PS3MediaServer's and couldn't find anyhting that worked. (except one thread from someone asking the same question as I do, with no answers)
Thanks for any feedback you may have.

Noone?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

As far as I know. The Atrix won't play any high profile mp4, or mkv. I have used your exact setup. The only thing I can recommend is that you try to have the settings so that it transcodes the videos in a 720p main to low profile that the Atrix can render. I've noticed it doesn't like videos with ac3 5.1 audio. Only aac. Its funny, so many people trash the iPhone 4 but it plays almost all the videos I've tried, whether I'm streaming over DLNA or streaming over the web.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

Try Summer Player! It has not let me down yet!

[Q] watching movies on the nook

hi,
I want to know whats the best way (format & quality, an app) to watch some movies on the nook. It no need to be in best quality but it should work.
;-) just for my wife to kill time before getting the baby in the hospital ....
do you have any suggestion?
thanks for your help!

My wife uses netflix, works great. What is the status of your nook? Stock or rooted?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk

If you're running CM7...
I just did a lot of this for my wife who was convalescing...To covert to a format I can watch on the NC, I use AVS Tools video converter, but any converter will work fine for media you have rights to; there is an M4v* conversion preset for the iphone (720p) which works great on nook color (I run CM7 & use standard movie player). NO tweaks really needed, but I set the frame rate to 29.97 to match the source. Smaller video sizes don't seem to make much difference in file size. With CM7 the google videos you can dnload work great on Nook Color.
For loading, I suggest transferring via your SD card, wireless transfers of movies takes forever.
* Nice format as I can then load same files on my wife's ipad. Yeah she gets the cadillac tablet, I get the tweakers tab...

If running CM7 -
I suggest mobo player with the moboplayer codec for armv7vfp3 (two separate apps on Google Market). I've had extremely smooth playback with software decoded files that I was too lazy to convert to a supported format.
If encoding for Nook Color in general (CM7 or stock):
MP4 container, H.264 baseline profile, up to 854x480 resolution. Technically the screen is 1024 x 600 but NCs have a hardware limitation for decoding higher than 854x480, YMMV with that.
I use DVD Catalyst 4 (paid software, was $10? I think) which has several Nook Color presets (and updated recently for Nook Tablet) as well as other tablets and phones, such as the Xoom. Just easier to click the preset, adjust for subtitles/alternative voice track if needed, then set a whole batch of videos to recode.
I've used free applications like Handbrake, for which you can get a preset profile for the Nook Color. I just like the ease of DVDC4 for converting both digital and hard media.

on cm7
moboplayer decodes and smoothly plays back every movie I've ever "obtained" from the internet
no need to convert anything

The vlc beta works really well. I like mobo too, just had some syncing issues with a few of my xvid avis.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

Thanks for all the feedback. I have some DVDs she would like to see (means converting?) . I use the NC with CM7 (1 month old NL version) from SD.
So what's the best way?
Thanks!
Sent from my HD2 using XDA Premium App

Handbrake is definitely the best for DVD conversion. It has easy to use presets. I'be had good luck with iPod touch preset. Reasonable file size and decent video quality.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

I use Rock player to play my avi's
http://www.appbrain.com/app/rockplayer-lite/com.redirectin.rockplayer.android.unified.lite

Zirus69 said:
Thanks for all the feedback. I have some DVDs she would like to see (means converting?) . I use the NC with CM7 (1 month old NL version) from SD.
So what's the best way?
Thanks!
Sent from my HD2 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FREE: Handbrake with some preset profile, there were a few here. For a basic, no-frills, very customizable encoder, it's very good. And it's free.
PAID: IMO, DVD Catalyst 4. $10. I'm in no way affiliated with the company, just have been a very happy customer with the ease of use/results. With minimal tinkering I've gotten better results for some tricky conversions (e.g., multiple episodes, multiple sound tracks/subtitling options, widescreen) than with Handbrake. For me it's worth the money not to have to spend time tinkering with test encodes, tweaking settings, etc. so I can just batch jobs up and do other things.
YMMV, of course.

spr8dogg said:
Handbrake is definitely the best for DVD conversion. It has easy to use presets. I'be had good luck with iPod touch preset. Reasonable file size and decent video quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Handsdown the WORST dvdripping software (experience) on the market, I have no idea why everyone reccomends it. I use Magic DVD Ripper. Simple easy to use interface, with advanced options if needed.

streaming videos from share to Nook Color
I "stream" all my videos to my Nook Color via 802.11g using CifsManager and VitalPlayer software decoding. Occasionally the video I'm watching will be hardware decoded by VitalPlayer if the codec is correct. And occasionally, if watching a big .mkv file I get a little chatter with only 54Mb 802.11g, but that's very rare.
It beats the hell out of copying video files to /mnt/emmc or /mnt/sdcard over wireless.
1) grab VitalPlayer from the Market (free version is OK, the ads only show up when the controls are visible)
2) grab CifsManager from the Market.
3) Configure your share on any old computer/NAS and put video files in it. Know these things: the workgroup, the share perms (username/password) and leave the NTFS perms at Everyone Full Control.
4) on your Nook Color, use Terminal to create folder /mnt/cifs
5) fire up CifsManager and connect to your share point, mounting it to /mnt/cifs, remembering to specify the path, workgroup, username and password. When the dot in CifsManager is green, you're mounted.
6) using File Explorer, or Root Explorer on your Nook Color (any Android file manager will do) browse to /mnt/cifs/[share name] and browse your video files. Select the video to play.
7) Select VitalPlayer if asked, and set to default if desired.
8) Wait a few seconds for VitalPlayer to start your video. Usually it will display "Software Decoding" before it starts playing.
I've never met a codec that VitalPlayer didn't like.

OR you could just download ES File Explorer and Rock Player from the market, and browse your Windows Media Server(s) on your network, playing files through Rock Player (which supports almost any file type for wireless streaming).

I use Mobo for the NC.
However, I do have a strange problem. On my Xoom, I can reach my NAS using ES File Explorer and it will stream to the Xoom.
If I use the NC to the exact same file, it will try to download the file and play it locally. I'm assuming that it will also only work for files that are re-encoded for the NC format and if its not, it will just simply chock on playback.
How does an app like Netflix do it? Do they have various encoded versions or is there some transition layer within the Netflix APK?

al mon said:
I use Mobo for the NC.
However, I do have a strange problem. On my Xoom, I can reach my NAS using ES File Explorer and it will stream to the Xoom.
If I use the NC to the exact same file, it will try to download the file and play it locally. I'm assuming that it will also only work for files that are re-encoded for the NC format and if its not, it will just simply chock on playback.
How does an app like Netflix do it? Do they have various encoded versions or is there some transition layer within the Netflix APK?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure - I have used ES File to access movies, and they stream. If it's the wrong file format though ES File will open a browser window. So make sure it's a m4v of the right dimensions etc & it should stream.

The player is what supports the streaming Not the file explorer. Rock Player is the only one I've used that worked for streaming. ES media player would try and cache the file locally first.
Sent from my NookColor using XDA Premium App

unsivil_audio said:
The player is what supports the streaming Not the file explorer. Rock Player is the only one I've used that worked for streaming. ES media player would try and cache the file locally first.
Sent from my NookColor using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, makes sense...I was using Mobo when streaming.

viewing really wide screen movie
For those born before 1970, there's a great movie called How the West Was Won (HWWW). The aspect ratio is wider that 16:9. When I play on NC, the aspect ratio is wrong. Yet viewing the m4k file with VLC on my PC, the aspect ratio is correct.
TV shows and other movies display correctly on NC.
Why does the native movie player or the ES Explorer view change the aspect ratio. Any suggestions?

[Q] Playing m4v Videos on ICS9 on my Nook Color

I have been using my Nook Color to play converted DVD's (using Handbrake...to m4v format), without problems using CM7 for almost a year.... and CM9 (up until nightly 20120126)... Now any recent nightly update produces green diagonal lines through the screen when I try to play. Doesn't matter what player I use...Mobo, Doubletwist, stock player (that comes with CM9)...sometimes I get a error that says "unsupported format". If I convert back to build 20120126, everything is fine... Is it just me? am I missing something? Is m4v no longer supported out of Handbrake? I would appreciate any help!!

I'm no longer able to play m4v videos either. I don't use the nook to view videos often, but I am on cm9 and tried to run a m4v within the last hour. It didn't work. I'm guessing there may have been an issue with the new kernel.

I am on the ICS nightly from 2-20 and I can confirm that a Handbrake converted m4v does play correctly using MX Video Player. (At least for me!) hth
Sent from my CM9 NookColor using Tapatalk

hi all,
I have the same issue as the OP. Does anyone have a solution for this.
thanks.

Simple Solution - Work Around
Please see my later post...easy solution
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25688396&postcount=2
~Dave

[Q] Best solution to play media stored on Windows?

I read and read and still not sure what the best approach is for streaming media (mp3, flac, mkv) to the N7 on the LAN from a Win7 PC. Any server software you could recommend that could potentially do transcoding on the fly if needed, with caching so that it happens only the first time a file is played and then maybe even be able to copy the transcoded/cached file to the internal N7 storage for offline playback?
And is MX Player the player to use on N7?
Thanks for your help recommending an end to end solution.

sirxdroid said:
I read and read and still not sure what the best approach is for streaming media (mp3, flac, mkv) to the N7 on the LAN from a Win7 PC. Any server software you could recommend that could potentially do transcoding on the fly if needed, with caching so that it happens only the first time a file is played and then maybe even be able to copy the transcoded/cached file to the internal N7 storage for offline playback?
And is MX Player the player to use on N7?
Thanks for your help recommending an end to end solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried iMediaShare? MX Player is probably the best player out there right now.

From the description of the app, I'm not sure how iMediaShare helps me. I'm looking to stream media files stored on a Win7 PC to my N7.

BSplayer has lan function and will stream any videos from any windows shares.ESfile explorer will let you veiw,stream or edit any files on your window shares.You don't need anything on your computer as long as it is setup for sharing on home network.Both of these work great and have been updated for 4.2.

^^this. I use es file explorer as a back end to access my media on the PC. Doing it this way allows you to use pretty much any media player software for the nexus that you prefer.
My current favourite is dice player.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Using ES File Explorer I can only get my shares to appear if I turn off my firewall (zonealarm). Can anyone confirm what I need to change to allow my phone to connect with zonealarm on?
Thanks

bubble up you can change where the files are rendered . it will also push thru the network from the share thru tablet and play on tv . can play file formats on the tv its not compatible with

Thanks for the ES File Explorer + MX Player tip. It seems to work well enough.
Next hurdle: any apps on the N7 that could help me organize the media better, e.g. show thumbnails for the movies, links to additional info, etc. the solution above is very spartan, just file names. I read about XBMC running on the N7, or Plex, or tversity - any of these worth the hassle?

I use xmbc media player ..its just perfect and no one is even close..its same as pc version and you cam find it here on xda for free
Sent from my YP-G70 using xda app-developers app
---------- Post added at 04:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:03 AM ----------
sirxdroid said:
Thanks for the ES File Explorer + MX Player tip. It seems to work well enough.
Next hurdle: any apps on the N7 that could help me organize the media better, e.g. show thumbnails for the movies, links to additional info, etc. the solution above is very spartan, just file names. I read about XBMC running on the N7, or Plex, or tversity - any of these worth the hassle?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xmbc on N7 is just perfect ..i use it since i bought N7 ...my 1000+ movies perfecty organisle and always ready to play from pc on my n7
Sent from my YP-G70 using xda app-developers app

I recommend qloud media. It's free on the store and you can stream music pics and films from your computer. It works over 3g, local and remote wireless. Amazing I can watch my stuff at work during lunch and what not.
Highly recommended!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

sirxdroid said:
From the description of the app, I'm not sure how iMediaShare helps me. I'm looking to stream media files stored on a Win7 PC to my N7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, you're right crappy description of the app. The app does exactly what you want that's why recommended it. It's streams music and movies, using upnp servers on the computer side, like Windows Media Player and PS3 Media Server.

Next problem: any way to mount and play ISO files over the network? They are DVD rips and would like to avoid converting them. Any apps that act as a DVD player on the N7, able to mount the DVD ISO over the network?

Bs player can help you
Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

alterman666 said:
Bs player can help you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you saying BS Player can mount ISOs made from DVDs and act as a DVD player? If so, any pointers where to look? I tried it and it didn't seem to be able to do anything with ISO files.