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Poor video playback - solutions?

Hy guys,
Just to know, I'm coming from my trusty Eten M700. I bought the HTC Touch Pro about one week ago here, in Romania.
And I must say the video playback seems way too sluggish for a phone like this. On the M700, with same coreplayer version (latest), with raw frame buffer and medium quality and no other modification I could play every video I wanted. Including 720x576 xvid clips.
On this one...no matter what I set (QTV, raw frame buffer, direct draw), everything seems a little too sluggish compared to M700.
do you have the same impression, or is it just me?
I just read another thread here about video performance but it had too much dissipated info.

Gigs said:
Hy guys,
Just to know, I'm coming from my trusty Eten M700. I bought the HTC Touch Pro about one week ago here, in Romania.
And I must say the video playback seems way too sluggish for a phone like this. On the M700, with same coreplayer version (latest), with raw frame buffer and medium quality and no other modification I could play every video I wanted. Including 720x576 xvid clips.
On this one...no matter what I set (QTV, raw frame buffer, direct draw), everything seems a little too sluggish compared to M700.
do you have the same impression, or is it just me?
I just read another thread here about video performance but it had too much dissipated info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is why it's great that you started a new thread to dissipate the info further. Read the other thread(s) again, this has already been answered and solved within coreplayer.

P0ll0L0c0 said:
Which is why it's great that you started a new thread to dissipate the info further. Read the other thread(s) again, this has already been answered and solved within coreplayer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
which topic is it? i have smilar issues

Untill now I have found that QTV with Medium acceleration, and dither on has the best performance, anyway less than m700. Setting the buffer to 8000 kb did not had any effect. Still want to hear from another pro owners what they think about this.

I agree, video playback just sucks! I hate Qualcomm processors, Xscale rulezzz!
However when I put QTv, my screen goes black and there's only sound.
How did you achieve to run it on QTv???

krabicka3 said:
I agree, video playback just sucks! I hate Qualcomm processors, Xscale rulezzz!
However when I put QTv, my screen goes black and there's only sound.
How did you achieve to run it on QTv???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on what kind of file you want to play with it. On mine, some 3gp and some clips compressed for mobile devices don't show anything on screen. Try to switch to raw frame buffer, and restart core player, maybe it helps?

Unfortunately the HTC Touch Pro is not the mulitmedia phone you want if your looking to run your non-mobile encoded videos. However it still can be a awesome video player if you encode videos to the right dimension and specs.
I took this past Sunday to play around with finding just the right video format and encode settings to play video as close to vga as possible. Unfortunately the Touch Pro can't play videos in full-vga resolution. HOWEVER, it can perfectly play videos in 480x320 which when you compare to a 640x480 video on the touch pro's 2.5inch screen there is no difference in quality what so ever.
When you play small videos on such a small screen you wont notice the difference in the resolution, however comparing a qvga (320x240) to the half vga 480x320 resolution you can definitely see a difference.
I use two different encoders, one being pocket divx encoder and the other videora iphone converter.
I encoded a bunch of animes and movies using pocket divx set to 480x320, 2-Pass, vhq enabled, around 850 video bitrate and 128kb stereo bitrate and all my videos look crisp on the Touch Pro and plays smoothly.
I suggest others to try it out and benchmark the playback yourself and you'll see it'll run at a easy 135%+ which is perfect for 100% smooth playback.

Gigs said:
It depends on what kind of file you want to play with it. On mine, some 3gp and some clips compressed for mobile devices don't show anything on screen. Try to switch to raw frame buffer, and restart core player, maybe it helps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1.) I suggest check two things, one be sure you are running the latest build which I assume you are,
2) under preferences and under the Qtv page look to make sure "Tytn 2 driver mode" is enabled.
3) some builds have a issue of zoomed in pictures to a an extreme amount that only a black screen shows when first installed, set the zoom to 50% and then reset to the normal or best fit.
Hopefully those changes should help you out
UPDATE: Also there is one bug I know of with Coreplayer. When coreplayer is launched and left running in the back (or if still active on screen) should the device go into sleep mode and then come back you will not be able to see any video playing when choosing to start. You'll have to close coreplayer and reopen again, I noticed this the other day and just came into mind when experiencing just now again.

I almost agree with you puerrican but I think it's such a burden to reencode....I managed to get easy after I saw that everything encoded with h264, mkv and encoders like this can't be played in the pro. However, everything I had in my computer encoded in divx, xvid, normal things works just fine with the settings I put in some posts above. I just tried 700 MB DVDrip(around 1000 kbit/s and 640x272) and some videoclip(624x352 vbr around 2300kbits) both xvid and they worked ok. 688x400 AVC1 (h264) killed the pro.It's not just the resolution but also the encoder used.
EDIT: just saw the update and I wanted to mention that I'm also using the 1.2.5 build 4506 with tytn 2 mode enabled and qtv on medium selected. And touchflo3d is disabled and I'm using the spb shell (or something like that with icons on screen).
IDEA: I think it would be interesting playing back xvid 640x480 and h264 640x480 to test this idea of mine

Definitely it is pain to go and do that. Plus reencoding speed relies heavily on your pc specs, on a high end specs your looking at around 4-5 mins for a 2-pass encoded video of 24 min length. While a movie length of 90 mins or so your looking at at least 16-22 mins.
So expect much longer wait on a lower end thats not even dual core or lower clock rate.
Until pdas start sporting dedicated gpus from nvidia or other names windows mobile wont ever benefit on being a media playback alternative which is a nice plus for those not looking to carry 2-3 devices for music, pmp, pda, and phone. Wish HTC would look into intel processors for their next unit and possibly throw in a nvidia mobile gpu like the 5500 with a decent amount of video memory. I mean at this point in the technology chain its not even remotely impossible to do so... so whats the hold up with companies???

yeah, i have no problem with mp4 at 640x480 (640x360 widescreen). mkv at high res (above 640x480) is a little juttery. my movies are usually 24fps, 1000kbps, 640x360
got same settings as gigs
coreplayer is working on fix for v1.3

I'm at a lost, I tried playing 640x480 videos on my touch pro and it stutters way too much, how are you guys managing to have to it playback flawlessly?

I dont really get whats good about watching movies on a 2.5 inch screen...do you do that on such a regular basis that this is so important ?
Regarding Video, i just watch some short youtube clips and stuff like that...
Ever tried to watch a full length movie on such a small screen ? I did that on holiday on my ipod and its really hurting the eyes to concetrate on such a small screen for 90+ minutes... not really anything you want to do regularly...besides not reencoded videos take up alot of space on your memorystick...
i dont have a problem with reencoding some videos and stuff, full length movies arent meant to be watched on a phone anyway

Well, a 2,5 inch screen is a bit too small, but our Touch Pros have a 2,8 inch screen

I have a zune and it has a 3 in screen and was perfect for watching tv videos or movies, and thats half the resolution then a TP. Cant wait to get my hand on the TP !!!

To each his own, some ppl like being able to watch videos whenever the call comes. Sometimes when I have to wait for something like a class to start or I'm away from my pc, or even on a airplane or public transportation I like to be able to watch few episodes easily and clearly. A full blown movie yea its gonna be a nuisance for a long time depending on the person. But some are accustomed to it, I for one can easily watch 4-6 episodes in a row without getting any kind of headahce.

yep, its quite convient. all in one device. it has tv out as well, so since it is simalar res to tv, it looks great
music + movies on phone, no ned for mp3 player. plus i can stream movies off my pc

yeah i see that there is room for this, but i dont think many people use this so regulary that converting a few movies is that much of a pain. You will save a lot of space on your memorystick as well.

I have modifying 2 regentries and the video is now much better.
Look here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=438318
Using CorePlayer the benchmark was before 75-95%,now 145%. on same videofile - Uncompressed VGA XviD.
Edit... I am sorry. It wasn't working. I just forgot,that I set the video quality to medium before.

You have to chose Medium Quality on Video Settings (with Qtv selected), otherwise it lags so much ..
Even on medium on motion scenses some frame drops
Video used for tests: RL_XQ_640x480_1500_128.avi (found somewhere here on this forum.. can't remember the topic name )

Identify CM7 HD Recording issue and need help to modify libcameraservice.so

This post is better to be in xt720 Dev board. But it is a pity that I don't have the privilege to post in that board now. So anybody who kindly help forward to the dev board would be great appreicated.
For quite a long time, we sufferred to HD record issue in CM7. And I spent some days inveistigaing this issue and fortunatelly got some interesting findings to share.
1. 720p HD recording fail becasue of wrong width and height parameter pass to function createOverlay in libsurfaceflinger.so.
02-13 17:38:12.030: D/TIOverlay(1876): overlay_createOverlay:IN w=768 h=432 format=99
02-13 17:38:12.030: I/Overlay(1876): v4l2_overlay_init:: w=480 h=854
02-13 17:38:12.030: I/Overlay(1876): v4l2_overlay_init:: w=768 h=432
02-13 17:38:12.030: I/Overlay(1876): v4l2_overlay_init:: w=768 h=432
Here we see, the paramter passed to createOverly is (768,432). And in comparison with 2.2 stocked Rom, the right parameter should be (1280,720) for HD recording.
2. The wrong width/height parameter is set in libcameraservice.so. Perhaps CM7 forbids HD recording...
02-13 17:38:12.030: D/CameraService(1540): Changing overlay dimensions to 768X432 for 720p recording.
And double check by open libcameraservice.so, we found the matched words in the above at the address of 0x000ae00h. The very possible guess is CM7's libcameraservice.so check width/height parameter, whenever it detect the parameters are for HD record, it reset the paramter to (768,432)!!
Proposed solution:
If someone could kindly help modify the code to comment the piece of code and build a new libcameraservice.so, we may have chance to bring HD recording back.

I forwarded into developpement thread but I don't know if it is the only problem because librairies from 2.1 to 2.2 and 2.3.

Great thanks!
libcameraservice.so is the current blocking issue I have identified. Certainly, there are possible some issues come out after we solved this one.
BTW, I've enabled 720p hardware video decoding in CM7. The phone could now play 720p video smoothly. This should be a good basie to fix HD recording issue.

Interesting. I don't have much to say about this at the moment, but for now I can point you into the source (Line 767):
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...ces/camera/libcameraservice/CameraService.cpp
These commits seem relevant (from the "blame" view):
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...mmit/a930c3c872cf6eaa57bfdddc923132cf0d48564b
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...mmit/cf997d0147228ece729ceb95745d20905664426d
Edit: So, it looks like to set the overlay size to whatever we want, we just change line 74 of CameraService.cpp to put the desired resolution. The other part of the puzzle is to adjust media_profiles.xml to add the HD profile. I had done that in the past by copying settings from decompiled MotoCamera, but the screen would go black and get weird or cause a reboot when the camcorder was switched to HD. I think your finding about the overlay resolution might explain why.
FYI: *Temporarily*, I don't have access to an XT720 (due to a laundry incident that took out both my second XT720 and my wife's Nexus S--so she's using my primary XT720 and I'm luddite mode until we sort out what to do about her phone--surprisingly they both may have survived--they power on, the XT720 boots all the way but no touch (when the screen is on you can see some streaking under the screen so I think possibly some residual moisture is interfering with capacitance so I'm going to let it dry some more--I tore a different XT720 into tiny pieces recently and there's a whole stack of paper-like pieces under the screen and I think they're still somewhat wet) and the NS turns on but get's stuck at the Google logo even when trying to enter recovery so I think it needs to be reloaded, I've only made it as far as fastboot mode on that one due to only having a power-only usb cable handy at the time).

what you mean by 720p playback?
i have tested with youtube videos (searched for 1080p hd
what other test can be made?
btw, hope you will be able soon to post in the devel section

Hi peshovec, I also read your reply in dev board.
As you got the same finding and have already fixed the code, could you please share the new built libcameraservice.so? I don't have CM7 source code at hand, and it will take me several days to sync. Last month, I spent near two weeks to sync CM9 code ...
And one important thing, we might need to keep libcameraswervice.so compatible with old 2.2 driver libcamera.so. libcameraservice.so from other 2.3 Rom contains a new function "_HAL_Camerainfo" ( sorry, did not remember clearly) that does not implemented in old libcamera.so. The trick I saw in the code is to "#define BOARD_USE_FROYO_LIBCAMERA".
I am quite interested to follow-up on this HD record issue with all of you help!

And for 720p playback, I mean to hardware decode some 720p video.
Xt720's CPU is able to support h264 baseline profile, but could not support H264 high profile. So I am afraid for 1080p video and H264 high profile 720p on youtube, our phone still could not play with hardware decode.
The trick to fix 720p hardware decode is to use old xt720 2.1's codec: lib\hw\*, and libOMX.TI.*. The existed libOMX.TI.720P.Decode.so in CM7 support other phones (e.g. Defy) well, but not support xt720.
I tested my phone after the fix of 720p HW decode with one 720p video, and found my phone could play the video smoothly with either Moboplayer or Moto Videoplayer. And before the fix, the playback could only use SW decode, and even overclock to 1GHz, the pictures was still lag behind of voice.

Hi Mioze7Ae, I also did investigations on media_profiles.xml and build.prop.
Acutually, stocked 2.2 xt720 Rom is not necessarily to rely on those settings in either media_profiles.xml or build.prop. As you observed, all resolution parameter was set in Camera.apk. I tested xt720 2.2 Rom without media_profiles.xml and none of related settings in build.prop, 720p HD video still work fine. And for xt711 phone, it even don't have media_profiles.xml in the official Rom.
Ah, 5 post now. Still need 5 other post ...

hhcat said:
Hi peshovec, I also read your reply in dev board.
As you got the same finding and have already fixed the code, could you please share the new built libcameraservice.so? I don't have CM7 source code at hand, and it will take me several days to sync. Last month, I spent near two weeks to sync CM9 code ...
And one important thing, we might need to keep libcameraswervice.so compatible with old 2.2 driver libcamera.so. libcameraservice.so from other 2.3 Rom contains a new function "_HAL_Camerainfo" ( sorry, did not remember clearly) that does not implemented in old libcamera.so. The trick I saw in the code is to "#define BOARD_USE_FROYO_LIBCAMERA".
I am quite interested to follow-up on this HD record issue with all of you help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here is it (attachment)
also here is the mediaprofile.xml (which i use), with high and wide working
https://github.com/CyanogenModXT720...la_sholest/blob/pesh-modif/media_profiles.xml
can you try to search in youtube for 1080p hd videos and try to play some of them? i am curious if they will play on your setup (`couse in my test build i am able to play them...)

Thanks for the attachment! I will have try and give update later.
I tried to play some H264 high profile video: voice only and no pictures.
xt720's CPU fail to HW decode thoese video.
The workaround solution is to download the video, then we could choose SW decode in mediaplayer ( I used moboplayer). But the video play is very terrible, the picture play frame by frame, even though I have overclock to 1GHz.

Haha, the quick update is HD 720p recording preview work fine! Verly clearly and smoothly view from preview window!!
On the way home now, will do some more tests later.
Mark: 9 post now

Yeah, 720p HD recording is perfectly fixed!
Now we could enjoy HD recording in CM7!
BTW, I didn't tested your media_profile.xml. Now I used the one in 2.2 stocked ROM.
10 post now, heihei...
I will packed my Rom and share in Dev board tomorrow.

Great job, it's awesome and sweet.
I‘m looking forward to it!

omg, lol, so can someone confirm that hd video really work on any cm7 ? =)
well, afaik good that you have fixed preview.
Problem now in hd encoder...
Well.. we don't have it.

my fast testing doesn't seems good...
preview ok, but can't focus well (after try-ing to focus, the focus is set to the minimum distance), recording seems to start, preview display freeze. some file is generated trough.....
but that should be just my setup (is motoroi with the moto froyo able to record 1280x720p ? , if yes we can find way*)
p.s. *remark. in my opinion 1280x720 recording is just marketing, also it is not job for the phone to record at this resolution, working wide 848x480 is more than enough...

My phone is able to HD recorde in 2.1 and and 2.2 Rom, but lose this ablity when upgrade to CM7 2.3 Rom.
Not sure whether our phone have some HW difference.

I am uploading my Rom to DEV board.
Have a try.

[TIPS]A/V out of sync when compressing 720p videos

I'm sure you noticed that when you record a 720p/1080p video with a smartphone, the bitrate will be pretty high, in the 10-15Mbps area.
This is not really necessary if you watch the videos just on your smartphone or on a limited size LCD TV, and you can just recompress it using x264 codec at about 2Mbps without severe quality loss (unless it's a sport video).
However you'll notice severe audio video out-of-sync issues if you compress both audio and video tracks and DON'T CHOOSE MP4 (which is the default container for the videos recorded by the smartphone) as default container for your x264 video.
Furthermore, if you want to compress and then JOIN different videos, you have to compress them one by one and THEN join them, otherwise you'll notice glitches in the playback.
I tried with mkv and avi but I kept having sync issues, so I thought that it was worth to share this tip.

SUPER @ video conversion program
Have you tried a video conversion program called SUPER @? Here's its link:
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
The program can be pretty intensive in terms of memory used but it usually does a great job for me and bitrates can be chosen for just any vid type you might want to save to. Usually, I turn off my internet connection prior to executing it (so it can't do an update check) and run it by itself.

Yep, I guess it's something similar to Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate, it's just that I prefer more control over encoding parameters (so I tend to use programs such as Avidemux)

flapane said:
Yep, I guess it's something similar to Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate, it's just that I prefer more control over encoding parameters (so I tend to use programs such as Avidemux)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You've probably already thought of this but you can load your video in virtualdubmod and have it change framerate so video and audio match perfectly.
No re encoding needed and even on large files it takes less than a minute or two.
If you find virtualdubmod won't recognise the video you can download a suitable vfw codec and it should then.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2

The problem is that vdubmod won't help, because framerate is not constant and it varies from some 19 to 30fps, at least on Vibrant.
In a lot of cases the fps number gets lost during encoding (and you'll obtain a video which has a constant framerate of 29.97fps), because softwares such as Avidemux doesn't have an option to leave the FPS untouched (or at least it seems that the fps number gets lost if you want to use MKV as container).

flapane said:
The problem is that vdubmod won't help, because framerate is not constant and it varies from some 19 to 30fps, at least on Vibrant.
In a lot of cases the fps number gets lost during encoding (and you'll obtain a video which has a constant framerate of 29.97fps), because softwares such as Avidemux doesn't have an option to leave the FPS untouched (or at least it seems that the fps number gets lost if you want to use MKV as container).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used it in similar situations so it might be worth a try as it doesn't need a constant framerate, it looks at the audio length then adjusts video framerate to match.
If it is just a problem created while actually recording, ie if the video itself records at varying framerates it would suggest that it can't write to storage quick enough and is dropping frames.
In that case you would need to record in lower resolution or perhaps find a replacement camera application and see if that could fix your problem as sometimes default apps are not all that good.
It also makes a difference if you can close un needed background apps to free ram if low on memory. That can cause frames to drop as well.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2

Actually it seems that the framerate is lower in case of dark scenes, which seems to be a behaviour found on other phones. I'm writing on the internal storage and I always kill everything before taking a video, so I gotta try another Camera app and see if anything changes.
I'll also take a look at that interesting vdubmod feature, I didn't know it.
Thanks.

flapane said:
Actually it seems that the framerate is lower in case of dark scenes, which seems to be a behaviour found on other phones. I'm writing on the internal storage and I always kill everything before taking a video, so I gotta try another Camera app and see if anything changes.
I'll also take a look at that interesting vdubmod feature, I didn't know it.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a setting where you can change encoding parameters of your x264 on your phone?
On a pc the codec has a feature that can compress more data per frame in darker areas, on a phone I don't know if that is active or not but might be worth checking. Sorry I couldn't help more but hope you find a solution.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2

Thinking through CM10 720p Video Recording

This first post from me is going to be short. I welcome additional thoughts, of course. Sorry if this isn't the best place to drop this, but it's not a question and it's not anything in development!
First, an observation: the problem with 720p in CM10 is not bright light, it's the camera's ability to adapt to bright light from low light. In other words, the problem seems to be related to the light sensor. Although this is not completely new, what I noticed from playing around with LGCamera is that if I turn UP the video bitrate, the flickering is not as sever. The flickering will stop and stabilize when filming in consistent light. Any change in light quality will produce more sticking. This makes sense since 720p requires finer adjustments to light and dark than 420p. The other part of the equation is the h264 encoder. I'm guessing that certain values in the light sensor need to match up with the h264 encoder...
Second, I was playing around with these settings today: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=17791551&postcount=20 I haven't had enough time to verify what makes a difference and what doesn't. I believe that some settings have helped a bit. Also, I felt that changing the ISO to 800 in camera and then switching to video improved the video, but that could be totally imagined! Essentially, what we need is ISO800 for the vidcam... I think!

Suggested fix that was here didn't work. I'm editing to see if I can correct the "Invalid User ID" error I keep getting on my XDA app. Started right after I went to correct this message.

if you think you have found a fix i'd suggest bringing it to the developer's attention, such as indeed posting this in the official thread.
Also your second post got chopped off lol

threi_ said:
if you think you have found a fix i'd suggest bringing it to the developer's attention, such as indeed posting this in the official thread.
Also your second post got chopped off lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just messing around right now. I don't think I've found a fix. A few things I've found: I can't find a way, using the included camera, to film above 25 fps. It doesn't matter what the settings are in media_profiles.xml, 25 is the cap. The cap should be a little above 30. I also can't force the camera to film above a bit rate of 6 Mbits/sec. I averaged around 8 Mbits on the stock camera and 10 in LG camera on GB. These settings will affect light responsiveness! Perhaps the oddest thing I've noticed is that the recording streams are inverted in JB. Everything I've filmed in GB has audio in stream 1 and video in stream 2. JB's streams are the other way around. EDIT: In fact, in GB 480p recordings use Stream 1 (or 0, depending on your player) for video and stream 2 for audio, but 720p recordings use Stream 1 for audio and Stream 2 for video. So, perhaps it's worth looking into the ways in which 720p recording is being "sent" to the codec.
In the process of sorting these things out, it would help if we could find out what the AVC h263 and MPEG4 profiles and levels were in GB. I'm not completely convinced that they are configured optimally for our phone.

[To Forum Mod: Is it possible to move this thread elsewhere? Possibly the Q&A section?]
I've spent more time on this than I intended today, so this will be brief(ish). I don't know if I've found a fix, but I may have discovered a good lead. This is definitely for people who can put together and test out kernel changes faster and more accurately than I can! The other day I thought I'd found something of use, a v4l2 driver modification for Crespo. I sent my findings over to Scotthartbti. The modification may still be of use, but there was an unanswered question: why is vidioc_dqbuf unable to to clear the buffer queue? If it's the preview screen size, the fix I discovered wouldn't repair everything. SO, when I read this morning that the kernel is actually based on a Rogers ROM with limited capabilities, I decided to run another diff on the JB kernel and the GB kernel from Samsung. What I discovered was that certain drivers s3c_bc.c and s3c_bc.h are absent from the JB kernel. These two files (?) contain information that sets screen and buffer size that I couldn't find replicated anywhere in the JB kernel. I don't think it's not there... so, in the process of trying to find out why these files might not be in the JB kernel, I discovered something better: the android exynos 3.4 Git. And surprise surprise! What is it that devs are fixing over there? Quite a few issues to do with s3c buffer size, particularly in s3c-fb, and the problem of the system ignoring preview frame size!
I suspect that some lingering bugs are being addressed here: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/exynos.git/+/android-exynos-3.4

keep it up.
Thanks for working at this. I just learned how to pull a logcat and I nabbed one while barcode scanner was on. I'm running CM10 now and I ran CM9 until July. I wish I could help, but alas I am merely a padawan.

Thanks, reynaim. Yours looks pretty much like mine. It's useful to have that confirmation!
So, I've been working on this for awhile now, spending much more time than I ever thought I would. I'm not a developer. I taught myself html, css, and php and it looks to be following a similar route with c++ and python! I've learned a fair bit about how our phone works and I have some ideas about the problems with our camera. I'll list what I can here:
1. Google updated their camera code several revisions ago, but it appears Samsung either relied on aging code or has not released the actual code for the camera hal. Several commands that bind the driver layer to software are not up to date in our camera hal and may be part of the cause of the flickering. The way the camera works is that it calls up a preview, then dumps that information before it starts recording. I suspect that the camera is not clearing the buffer queue at that moment as it should. I am attempting to rewrite this portion of the driver, but it's laborious.
2. Let's be clear about what the problems actually are: Flicker in any transition of light conditions. I can get 720p to work in bright light if there are no shadows. The light sensor is not working with the camera correctly. Actually, the problem is the framerate. At the moment, the 720p stream is going through the wrong channel, as if it is running on a PAL device. Hence, not only is the datastream throttled, but the framerate is wrong. I tinkered a bit with the light sensor drivers - changed a few values here and there - but I haven't noticed a difference.
To note here: PAL = 25 fps, NTSC =30fps. Also, PAL = 50Hz, NTSC = 60 Hz. The Infuse may use a mixed mode that runs 30fps and 50Hz.
What you will notice as a user in addition to the flicker and stuck frames is that:
The video stream is stream 1. It should be #2 (you can check this most reliably in VLC on your computer or MX Player on your phone - VLC refers to the streams as 0 and 1).
FPS, despite media_profiles.xml demanding otherwise, will not rise above 25 and may drop to around 15.
Bitrate won't rise above 6Mbits/sec (interestingly, Android sdk has the bitrate capped at 8Mbits/sec). GB would ordinarily record at 10 - 11 Mbits/sec (there is a way to up the bitrate in JB, but it doesn't improve vid quality).
3. Some minor irritations can be corrected by adding the firmware packages back into the system folder. Add a directory called "firmware" to your system folder (so it should look like /system/firmware/), give it the permissions 754 (RWX,R-X,R-X), and add RS_M5LS_OI.bin, RS_M5LS_SI.bin, RS_M5LS_TB.bin (which you may find in an old GB backup). Give those the permissions RWX, R,R (or R-X, R-X for the last two - I'm not sure which is better!). Reboot. This gets rid of that odd lag you've probably noticed when you open up 3rd party cameras and they search for storage and sometimes crash as a result.
4. I don't think - I could be wrong! - that the problem is actually in fimc. Fimc is behaving normally. There are some curiosities in the current camera hal that fimc doesn't like.
5. In fact, it seems the camera hal was not written for an 8MP camera. Why doesn't Samsung release the camera hal? Does anyone know this? My best lead came when I bricked my phone and decided to take a couple of video logcats so I could at least pinch a few values and processes.

Its seems very long since update on this thread
Whizzpopper said:
Thanks, reynaim. Yours looks pretty much like mine. It's useful to have that confirmation!
So, I've been working on this for awhile now, spending much more time than I ever thought I would. I'm not a developer. I taught myself html, css, and php and it looks to be following a similar route with c++ and python! I've learned a fair bit about how our phone works and I have some ideas about the problems with our camera. I'll list what I can here:
1. Google updated their camera code several revisions ago, but it appears Samsung either relied on aging code or has not released the actual code for the camera hal. Several commands that bind the driver layer to software are not up to date in our camera hal and may be part of the cause of the flickering. The way the camera works is that it calls up a preview, then dumps that information before it starts recording. I suspect that the camera is not clearing the buffer queue at that moment as it should. I am attempting to rewrite this portion of the driver, but it's laborious.
2. Let's be clear about what the problems actually are: Flicker in any transition of light conditions. I can get 720p to work in bright light if there are no shadows. The light sensor is not working with the camera correctly. Actually, the problem is the framerate. At the moment, the 720p stream is going through the wrong channel, as if it is running on a PAL device. Hence, not only is the datastream throttled, but the framerate is wrong. I tinkered a bit with the light sensor drivers - changed a few values here and there - but I haven't noticed a difference.
To note here: PAL = 25 fps, NTSC =30fps. Also, PAL = 50Hz, NTSC = 60 Hz. The Infuse may use a mixed mode that runs 30fps and 50Hz.
What you will notice as a user in addition to the flicker and stuck frames is that:
The video stream is stream 1. It should be #2 (you can check this most reliably in VLC on your computer or MX Player on your phone - VLC refers to the streams as 0 and 1).
FPS, despite media_profiles.xml demanding otherwise, will not rise above 25 and may drop to around 15.
Bitrate won't rise above 6Mbits/sec (interestingly, Android sdk has the bitrate capped at 8Mbits/sec). GB would ordinarily record at 10 - 11 Mbits/sec (there is a way to up the bitrate in JB, but it doesn't improve vid quality).
3. Some minor irritations can be corrected by adding the firmware packages back into the system folder. Add a directory called "firmware" to your system folder (so it should look like /system/firmware/), give it the permissions 754 (RWX,R-X,R-X), and add RS_M5LS_OI.bin, RS_M5LS_SI.bin, RS_M5LS_TB.bin (which you may find in an old GB backup). Give those the permissions RWX, R,R (or R-X, R-X for the last two - I'm not sure which is better!). Reboot. This gets rid of that odd lag you've probably noticed when you open up 3rd party cameras and they search for storage and sometimes crash as a result.
4. I don't think - I could be wrong! - that the problem is actually in fimc. Fimc is behaving normally. There are some curiosities in the current camera hal that fimc doesn't like.
5. In fact, it seems the camera hal was not written for an 8MP camera. Why doesn't Samsung release the camera hal? Does anyone know this? My best lead came when I bricked my phone and decided to take a couple of video logcats so I could at least pinch a few values and processes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi @Whizzpopper,
I was searching on Google for infuse 4g 720p recording on JB custom ROMs and found your thread,
it seems you had been gone throught very deep on this.
Have you found anything that help us on resolving this issue afterwards ?

yogi.306 said:
Hi @Whizzpopper,
I was searching on Google for infuse 4g 720p recording on JB custom ROMs and found your thread,
it seems you had been gone throught very deep on this.
Have you found anything that help us on resolving this issue afterwards ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=38355903
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

yogi.306 said:
Hi @Whizzpopper,
I was searching on Google for infuse 4g 720p recording on JB custom ROMs and found your thread,
it seems you had been gone throught very deep on this.
Have you found anything that help us on resolving this issue afterwards ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed, I did leave the Infuse. There are so many variables, it's hard to say. The problem could be in the codec or in the settings used to interact with the codec (the media_profiles.xml or media_codecs.xml) or it could be in the kernel as Scott Hart used to suspect (don't know what he thinks now!). As you know, Samsung did not provide an honest release of the source for the Infuse.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Thanks
Whizzpopper said:
Indeed, I did leave the Infuse. There are so many variables, it's hard to say. The problem could be in the codec or in the settings used to interact with the codec (the media_profiles.xml or media_codecs.xml) or it could be in the kernel as Scott Hart used to suspect (don't know what he thinks now!). As you know, Samsung did not provide an honest release of the source for the Infuse.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your updates,
Now Scott made a lot of improvement and fixed all most all the bugs for the kernel we are using in infuse 4g,
the only 720p recording and HDMi are not resolved yet, and i guess its not possible due to samasung not provided the source.
Thanks for your efforts on infuse.

High quality video has constant slowdowns

Hi Folks,
I got an mxiii 4k / k200c / 2g / 8g / arm-A9 / mali-450MP box that works rather well for moving around the box (very speedy) and works perfectly for streaming 1080p content over LAN with Kodi but for some reason, some apps struggle with high quality video. It's most apparent with the DirecTV app but it also happens with Youtube (although much less). It starts playback, works fine but then the video starts slowing down as if the CPU or GPU were overwhelmed. This condition lasts for 3-5 seconds and then it goes back to normal until it happens again a few seconds later. It can also manifest itself as lost frames with random skips.
Anything I can do to improve the performance?
Thanks

Sounds to me like a caching problem, but perhaps it's the codec

rhtizzy said:
Sounds to me like a caching problem, but perhaps it's the codec
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might be, it doesn't appear to happen with all videos. Any way to overclock de GPU, see if that helps?

I believe so, there are a number of apps in the playstore I once used but you'll have to search if they still exist, look for sysinfo apps
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk