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[Q] HD Playback issues - H/W or S/W related

Guys,
Can someone enlighten me on whether playing HD 720p hi profile H.264 files are a h/w issue (Tegra 2 limitation) or a s/w issue (Honeycomb drivers/video player app limitation)?
I keep hearing it's honeycomb (and hence s/w issue which should be fixable by s/w udpate) and then I hear it's Tegra 2 issue (and hence h/w issue which can only be fixed with Tegra 3 device).
If it is Tegra 2 issue, I am leaning towards canceling my order and waiting for Tegra3. I have a lot of videos which are H264 720p Hi profile that I was hoping to watch on the TF.
I currently have a SGT which will tide me over....
What I would like is some confirmation that is indeed h/w issue....
Here is a response from another thread from a member that thinks it is a h/w issue:
<quote>
Its not a honeycomb issue. Its a tegra 2 issue and it is not a software issue its hardware. H.264 does not work good or at all. You have to use MPEG4. I used a 720p video that plays great on my ipad 2 and had to convert to mpeg4. I tried to get good quality from MPEG4 and it increased the file size from 5.6 to 9 gigs. I swore to never buy a tegra 2 device again after testing other tegra 2 tablet & phone but I keep getting sucked back in by the hype. I hate apple but I have nothing but good things to say about the ipad 2. Everything just works and its way way faster.
</quote>
But this says it is supposed to support hi profile 720p and base profile 1080p:
http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/item/21330-tegra-2-can-play-all-the-hd-you-can-imagine
Some think it is a s/w issue:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-968308.html
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=977100&page=2
Any definitive answer?
KG

As far as my understanding goes, there are 2 HD playback issues here.
1) Issue with choppy playback of HD video files 720p or 1080p, its a Tegra 2 hardware issue, not a Honeycomb issue.
2) Issue with choppy playback of Youtube HD 720p videos using Flash, its a Honeycomb issue, which is expected to be fixed soon via an update.

Srikar_NBK said:
1) Issue with choppy playback of HD video files 720p or 1080p, its a Tegra 2 hardware issue, not a Honeycomb issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And how do you know this? nVidia itself has stated that Tegra 2 is able to play up to 1080p main profile, let alone 720p main. If it can't, then the most logical reason is software not taking advantage of this. I highly doubt nVidia is shipping the Tegra2 with chip features turned off.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but isn't it a codec issue? I know moboplayer has codecs for the T2 but I'm not sure which codec to use since they have a bunch.

Srikar_NBK said:
As far as my understanding goes, there are 2 HD playback issues here.
1) Issue with choppy playback of HD video files 720p or 1080p, its a Tegra 2 hardware issue, not a Honeycomb issue.
2) Issue with choppy playback of Youtube HD 720p videos using Flash, its a Honeycomb issue, which is expected to be fixed soon via an update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Srikar,
I am only talking about 720p Hi profile movie files that I will want to copy to the transformer for playback while traveling etc.. I am NOT talking about playing youtube HD playback in browser or via youtube app.
I know this is HC issue and will be fixed with the new Adobe bundled into next version of HC.
So we are only talking about issue 1 here...

It reference to the Ipad, its easy for Apple to optimized the OS to be very efficient because they control the hardware, they dont need to make the OS compaitible with different hardware, they can tailor the OS specifically for a processor to get the best performance
While on the other hand their is android, and Honeycomb was also rushed out, it may not have the best optimization for Tegra
I'm just speculating,
I am going to see what is announced at google IO in the couple weeks
Nvidia said the first Tegra 3 tablet is going to be coming out this August, and i have not heard anything yet, so my guess is we might see a Tegra 3 device towards 2012
Also note that performance can vary depending on software
On the MoDaCo ROM you can get over 3000 in quadrant, while stock Transformer from Asus can get around 1900
http://android.modaco.com/content/a...-custom-rom-for-the-asus-eee-pad-transformer/
Overall, i think the Tegra 2 is capable of playing HD video quite well, it is just the lack of optimization in the OS

edge929 said:
And how do you know this? nVidia itself has stated that Tegra 2 is able to play up to 1080p main profile, let alone 720p main. If it can't, then the most logical reason is software not taking advantage of this. I highly doubt nVidia is shipping the Tegra2 with chip features turned off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is exactly what I have been thinking, according to the fudzilla article I linked earlier, it clearly is supposed to be able to play 720p Hi profile..
Nvidia's own specs page doesn't give details on profile:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html
but the wiki says 1080p main is supported, which I take to mean anything UPTO 1080p Main. (which includes all 720p), maybe that's where I am wrong?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra

Tegra2 can't decode main profile 1080p. It can decode files encoded with SOME of the main profile options though. What that means? That you can encode a video using specific options from main profile that are compatible with Tegra2 and it will play. The problem is - most of the videos available are not even main profile - the are all high profile. And on high profile Tegra2 just chokes.
Motorola had a fine specification what Tegra2 allows and how to encode videos for it. It's probably it: https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63258/kw/video/p/7901,7906

Magnesus said:
Tegra2 can't decode main profile 1080p. It can decode files encoded with SOME of the main profile options though. What that means? That you can encode a video using specific options from main profile that are compatible with Tegra2 and it will play. The problem is - most of the videos available are not even main profile - the are all high profile. And on high profile Tegra2 just chokes.
Motorola had a fine specification what Tegra2 allows and how to encode videos for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Magnesus, understood on 1080p, but I am mainly concerned with 720p hi profile. i can live without 1080p until Tegra3. As you said, most available videos are hi profile.....

I'd love to see what the CPU and GPU usage levels are when playing back 720p main/high profile. Is there a widget that shows this?
I will experiment with the existing Handbrake profile to get the best performance/quality/file-size tonight based on that Xoom article. 4GB for a 1.5 hour 720p baseline is horrible. I have many 720p high profile 2 hour movies under 1GB, MP4, H.264, 2chan AAC, subs.

I'm pretty sure it is a hardware related issue. It's has been how many months now that Tegra 2 devices have come out? Nvidia would have release an update by now if it was software related. Also, look at the tegra wiki page, isn't it pretty obvious the tegra 2 has no high profile and neon support. If it did it would have been listed like in the Tegra 3 section.
From what I gather around the net, the problem seems to point at the weak GPU found in Tegra 2.

High profile HD videos yet?

Has there been any progress with the tegra2 limitations on high profile HD videos, especially with 3.2 or will this never be fixed?
there are way too many high profile hd videos out there for this to not work on any name brand tablets (except Archos ironically and jailbroken ipad1/2).

For 720p try diceplayer. Works for most MKVs and is the best we'll get probably...

akaria said:
For 720p try diceplayer. Works for most MKVs and is the best we'll get probably...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is it hardware acceleration for high profile 720p videos?

superflysocal said:
is it hardware acceleration for high profile 720p videos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. It is. There's a thread in the app section somewhere where the dev is actively talking to people on xda. It's worth the $4. I play 720P high profile videos often, but it takes either a really good SDcard, or use the internal memory. A slow (aka <10 mbps I think...my 6mbps usd card doesn't play well) card will make it not work. For obvious bandwidth issues.

superflysocal said:
is it hardware acceleration for high profile 720p videos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi I just installed it and it works!
My high profile 720p mkv files are playing very smooth.
But I cannot understand WHY this the DicePlayer is the only player
that can play such files smoothly. Maybe it uses hardware decoding for video and software decoding for audio?

chaykee said:
Hi I just installed it and it works!
My high profile 720p mkv files are playing very smooth.
But I cannot understand WHY this the DicePlayer is the only player
that can play such files smoothly. Maybe it uses hardware decoding for video and software decoding for audio?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats exactly what it does.

darkhawkff said:
Yes. It is. There's a thread in the app section somewhere where the dev is actively talking to people on xda. It's worth the $4. I play 720P high profile videos often, but it takes either a really good SDcard, or use the internal memory. A slow (aka <10 mbps I think...my 6mbps usd card doesn't play well) card will make it not work. For obvious bandwidth issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
class 10 is 10 megabytes per second... in order for video content to exceed that bandwidth, it'd be 600 megabytes per minute of video, or 36gb per hour of video. Bandwidth is not an issue.
also keep in mind classes are WRITE speeds, not read, read is almost always faster than write.

I can't get the demo to play without sticking after a few seconds. Tried various 720p MKV's. Running off a class 6 MicroSD.

I tried this and now about 1/2 to 3/4 of my 720p files can be played smoothly.
Wondering though, the ones that do play, have a slight pixelated appearance to them, I was dissapointed in its visual appearance. I don't think its related to this player but the Tf in general? Perhaps bitrate is not high enough and that's why it was able to play?
The thing is if I play this on my archos 70 or ipad1 with XBMC, the picture quality is perfect, HD looking.
Anyone noticing this?

I find that curious as well. Noticed the same thing which wonders me since 720p should be mapped 1:1 on the transformer screen. But you can really notice the difference to a (baseline) encoded 1080p Video!

Can Dice Player play movies from NAS drive? And if you need thread about dice I think it is this one: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=16273817#post16273817

superflysocal said:
I tried this and now about 1/2 to 3/4 of my 720p files can be played smoothly.
Wondering though, the ones that do play, have a slight pixelated appearance to them, I was dissapointed in its visual appearance. I don't think its related to this player but the Tf in general? Perhaps bitrate is not high enough and that's why it was able to play?
The thing is if I play this on my archos 70 or ipad1 with XBMC, the picture quality is perfect, HD looking.
Anyone noticing this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I played Rango in a 720P DiVXHD the other day (in MoboPlayer I believe), and I was really impressed with the quality (playing over the network nonetheless)... I'l have to go back and try it again and really pay attention to the visual quality of it. Overall though, I thought it looked great, and noticeably better than any of the 480p videos I play on it.

When I was saying that video playback gets stuck I meant I was using the Diceplayer 3 day trial version. Everything I played that contained a AC3 or DTS track caused the video to freeze after a few seconds of playback. FF a bit and it plays then freezes again.

deadman3000 said:
When I was saying that video playback gets stuck I meant I was using the Diceplayer 3 day trial version. Everything I played that contained a AC3 or DTS track caused the video to freeze after a few seconds of playback. FF a bit and it plays then freezes again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because the player is only using the cpu to decode the ac3 audiostream. Combine this with the load from the video-decoding and there is not enough cpu power. Even at 1500Mhz i have not enough power for all my mkvs.

I tend to forget that when I ran a 2.4Ghz AMD CPU on my desktop the highest res I could play were 720p MKV's most of the time. I am guessing some sorta hardware acceleration needs to be achieved in the codecs for it to play them smoothly?

I recorded a Full HD MP4 video with my Samsung Galaxy S2, where I can play back it absolutely smoothly. Then I copied it to my TF's internal SD card and it stutters like hell with the same player.
I would never have expected this, because both devices should have pretty similar performance hardwarewise.

Aymara said:
I recorded a Full HD MP4 video with my Samsung Galaxy S2, where I can play back it absolutely smoothly. Then I copied it to my TF's internal SD card and it stutters like hell with the same player.
I would never have expected this, because both devices should have pretty similar performance hardwarewise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full HD is not good.
Tegra 2 only supports Baseline for Full HD. You should check the video and which profile it has.

sontin said:
Full HD is not good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it should be. If you search Google for "Tegra 2 Full HD Video" you'll find several hints, that it should work like a charm, like in THIS product presentation video. I wonder, which player they are using in this demo.

Aymara said:
But it should be. If you search Google for "Tegra 2 Full HD Video" you'll find several hints, that it should work like a charm, like in THIS product presentation video. I wonder, which player they are using in this demo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tegra 2 is able to play Full HD but (and this is a big but) only Baseline Profile.
And that's the problem: Baseline is dying which makes Full HD on Tegra 2 a useless feature.

I think it's this device/Honeycomb. I had no issues playing main profile with B-frames (no CABAC/Weighted-P or B-frames) on my Elocity A7 (Froyo). Same files do not play on Transformer.
I could never get CABAC to work, but even 2.35 cropped 1080p files played.
I'm really impressed that Dice can do mkv. It's very computationally intensive as far as containers go. Might have to give it a try.
Something's jacked up and one day it will magicly fix itself.
The main info thread said that 3.2 was supposed to have better media support. What works better?

[Q] Sending my TF back :(

Well, had the thing for a few weeks, and I just can't find a reason to keep it. I wanted to stream videos from the net - but I can't as it stutters and doesn't play 720p smoothly at all (Not Youtube), and the amount of tablet software is pretty woeful to be honest.
Unless someone can persuade me to keep it, I will have to say byebye... and I am quite sad about that
And no... I'm not getting an iPad either

Do some searching, this question comes up all the time.
My 2 cents is that if you want a table for playing videos the iPad2 is your best choice.

You will have to wait but for video the archos tabs seem to be really good and they are easily unlockable. The next generation is gonna be released soon and the specs look good.

Kaltern said:
Well, had the thing for a few weeks, and I just can't find a reason to keep it. I wanted to stream videos from the net - but I can't as it stutters and doesn't play 720p smoothly at all (Not Youtube), and the amount of tablet software is pretty woeful to be honest.
Unless someone can persuade me to keep it, I will have to say byebye... and I am quite sad about that
And no... I'm not getting an iPad either
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you updated to latest firmware?
720p works fine. Mkv with ac3 audio won't play audio in stock player but will in moboplayer or dice player.

jerrykur said:
Do some searching, this question comes up all the time.
My 2 cents is that if you want a table for playing videos the iPad2 is your best choice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not disparaging the ipad, it is a very well built device that IF it does what you want is a great choice, however you're recommending it for 720p playback when it doesn't even have a 720p display.

I don't want an iPad mainly due to lack of Flash - I have various sites I use with flash video streaming and the TF simply cannot play any of them - and I have rooted and tried Revolver 2.1.2, which is great - but makes no difference to flash videos.
MKV video plays fine btw - that's not what I was after
I'm thinking the next gen of tablets may be worth waiting for - the current crop simply are not up to the task - and simply seem to be made to contend with the iPad 2 - which isn't exactly a great choice anyway.

mine streams fine, better than my ipad, i watch tv shows and films no problem over wifi, even on a slow 1mb connection, try istreamnet.net and see if they stream using the standard player.

Kaltern said:
I don't want an iPad mainly due to lack of Flash - I have various sites I use with flash video streaming and the TF simply cannot play any of them - and I have rooted and tried Revolver 2.1.2, which is great - but makes no difference to flash videos.
MKV video plays fine btw - that's not what I was after
I'm thinking the next gen of tablets may be worth waiting for - the current crop simply are not up to the task - and simply seem to be made to contend with the iPad 2 - which isn't exactly a great choice anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if what you are having an issue with is flash video then I would suggest installing the hack that enables hardware acceleration. A quick search will turn it up. Flash is pig, it's nice to have support for it but flash is really suited only for real PCs and it will never be a real priority for tablets.

Video Formatting - What works for you

Hey guys, I'm waiting on my tablet to come in from best buy. In the mean time I'm getting ready to start converting movies to be ready to throw on when it gets in and I get a 64gb card for it (hope it works without too much fighting). So I'm hoping some of you guys can help me out with video settings. I want a balance of size/quality. and to keep size as far under 1gb each as possible for a standard 90 minute movie. I'm also a huge Futurama/American Dad/ Family Guy/ Simpsons/Southpark fan so obviously lower quality can be used, so if you have converted this type of animated stuff, what settings seemed to give the smallest size while retaining quality for the TF700? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Chief Geek said:
Hey guys, I'm waiting on my tablet to come in from best buy. In the mean time I'm getting ready to start converting movies to be ready to throw on when it gets in and I get a 64gb card for it (hope it works without too much fighting). So I'm hoping some of you guys can help me out with video settings. I want a balance of size/quality. and to keep size as far under 1gb each as possible for a standard 90 minute movie. I'm also a huge Futurama/American Dad/ Family Guy/ Simpsons/Southpark fan so obviously lower quality can be used, so if you have converted this type of animated stuff, what settings seemed to give the smallest size while retaining quality for the TF700? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IMHO even for animation thats way to low a bitrate. I would go with handbrake high profile, shoot for 3-5mbps 720p if they are HD originals. If they are 480p originals then maybe you're ok with that bitrate.
Personally i shoot for 4gb movies.

gottahavit said:
IMHO even for animation thats way to low a bitrate. I would go with handbrake high profile, shoot for 3-5mbps 720p if they are HD originals. If they are 480p originals then maybe you're ok with that bitrate.
Personally i shoot for 4gb movies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This isnt going to be my sole movie experience device. This is my travel and work companion. 1-1.5 is where I stick for a good action movie. But comedies and such I go lower. Animation I stick around 700mb. When im getting drunk on an airplane, I want to make sure my movies arnt blotchy and pixilated, but they dont have the be blue ray quality. I run a media server at home (plex) and that's where I keep the levels far higher.
I may have to give hand brake a try, I have been using format factory for years because I can make so many adjustments and chose the containers and formats.

get dvdcatalyst to convert your movies. It has a few presets for all devices. they can range from 1 to 4gb, depending on the initial size of the movie and the quality you want. i highly recommend it.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

I appreciate the advice. I don't have an issue converting, I'm just trying to get some feedback as to the actual presets your using as to ratio, bit rate, file type and container types, so on.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

Here's what I personally use, you can set what you like otherwise...
For TV DVD sources, I convert them from anamorphic to square pixel, and then crop widescreen movies as necessary. 640x480 SD videos I use a bitrate of 1mbps. Widescreen stuff I give 1.5mbps. These are the copies I watch on the TV, tablet, phone, whatever and I can't tell any quality difference between the original and the h264 encode. At these levels I can fit all of Home Movies, Futurama S1-5, The Office S1-4 and all of ATHF on one 64gb card.
For movies, since these are just portable copies and not my full versions for home viewing, I use the same standards above for SD sources, and for HD sources I scale it down to 720p, crop if necessary, and use a 2mbps bitrate. (you could insist on a 1080p encode, but on a 10" screen are you really going to notice the difference and need to add in the extra bps?) You get a little more pixelation at times, but nothing unwatchable. This keeps it light enough to stream over my local network and small enough that you can fit a lot on while still being a good watchable version.
All audio I drop to a 96kpbs stereo mix.
This is what works for me. What works for any of you may be different depending on what you use it for.

Exactly what I was looking for.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

what are the appropriate codec (video & audio) settings to get hardware acceleration and native player support?

DarsVaeda said:
what are the appropriate codec (video & audio) settings to get hardware acceleration and native player support?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the native player you need h.264(avc) video and stereo aac audio.

i have movies that are h264 and DTS 5.1. I just drop them on my 64gb card (inserted into the doc) and they play fine, nice and crisp. No need to convert. They are about 4gb in size.

timrock said:
i have movies that are h264 and DTS 5.1. I just drop them on my 64gb card (inserted into the doc) and they play fine, nice and crisp. No need to convert. They are about 4gb in size.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your playing dts on the native player? Me thinks not. BS player will however,but asked about native

gottahavit said:
Your playing dts on the native player? Me thinks not. BS player will however,but asked about native
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, sorry, using BS. native will play the movie, but no sound.

playback 1080i mpeg2 choppy?

I had previously bought and returned tf700 because playback was choppy when playing my mpeg2 1080i video's. This is the format my videos are in and i dont want to re encode. I was also only getting 2 hr's. Battery life while watching my mpeg2's. Does that sound right? Ipickf i was to root and overclock would it make video playback much smoother? If so and im on ebay looking for tf700, do i need to ask anything to know its android compatible?

That doesn't sound right to me at least. Tegra 3 should support MPEG2 just fine (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=28677759), but I can't say for sure because most of my movies are encoded in H.264. If you have a sample video, I would gladly give it a double check. Btw, just to be thorough, what player did you use? Did you play your videos with hardware acceleration? You will definitely drain your battery faster if you use software decoders to play videos (using the CPU) instead of hardware decoder (offloading the task to GPU).

As far as i know mpeg2 does not support hw acceleration. i use mx player. Basically im looking for a 10 inch display for the cheapest i can find that can handle my 1080i mpeg's, taken from TiVo. I thought tf700 might fit the bill?

leif2 said:
As far as i know mpeg2 does not support hw acceleration. i use mx player. Basically im looking for a 10 inch display for the cheapest i can find that can handle my 1080i mpeg's, taken from TiVo. I thought tf700 might fit the bill?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you look at Tegra 3's spec sheet on Nvidia website, it is stated that Tegra 3 fully support MPEG-2 decoding, so I don't think what you say is true. Regardless, why don't you provide a sample video or at least other information regarding your videos like bit rates, formats, profiles, etc...? And btw, MX Player has its own decoder called "H/W+", have you tried it? You should also give Dice Player and BS Player a try if you haven't.
If all else fails, just get a Nexus 10, people have played really high bit-rate videos on the Nexus 10 that far exceed any videos you encounter normally.