[Q] Only Software Decoder for MKV Files? - MX Player

I love using MX Player to watch shows on my Android devices. However I'm watching Psycho-Pass right now and noticed that only software decoder works for .mkv files, probably because of the way fansub groups encode their anime. Are there any intentions to add in a hardware decoder support for .mkv files in the future? Would help a lot with regards to how smooth the show is when I try to watch it on my phone, especially if it is 1080P. Would also help with battery life too.
Or is this more related with Hi10P? It seems that way but I am not sure since I know some of the anime I watch encode using Hi10P while others don't.

.mkv is just a container. What matters is video codec. H.264 will be decoded using h/w decoder (unless something in f/w is badly broken), 10-bit H.264 ("Hi10P") can't be decoded using h/w decoder and nobody can do anything about it.
(you can check the profile using MediaInfo on PC)

Related

Viewsonic 720p MKV File Lags While Playing

Hello Guys,
I have used both Vegant and Latest TNT 2.2 and both lag while I play 720P .mp4 encoded videos downloaded from youTube, I'd like to know if its a software or hardware limitation? Does anyone else have the same problem with 720 .mp4 files from youtube? Does it lag (as in audio and video lose sync - audio plays faster than video).
ive incoded some 1080p bluerays using handbrake normal preset H.264. container mp4 also had to do this with 1080p .mkv files couldn't even get them to play otherwise. after that they played great on my tablet
The Tegra 2 chipset cannot handle h264 encoded as high profile. Main profile works fine. I know this confuses some people, but grab the excellent "mediainfo" tool (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en) and you can see how your file is encoded.
MP4 containers seem to work best, although I believe Rockplayer can play MKV's with hardware acceleration.

Hot to view MTS files (1080/50p) on TF??

Hello everyone. I would like to see the footage shot by my camera (Panasonic TM700) directly on the TF in order to get a larger preview of that offered by the display of the camera. The problem is that I have not found any player that would display the correct file type MTS shot in 1080/50p. I think this isn't a problem of processor (I have a media player with a sigma 800mhz and movies run fine), but a problem of proper codec ....... Do I have some hope that there is a codec for the development of this TF?
Maybe you could contact the developers of those video applications? Does ffmpeg read those files (does mplayer?) - if so, it should be easily doable. Does VLC read those files? There is supposed to be a version of VLC for Android one day but no one know when. Also keep in mind that decoding on your media player could be hardware accelerated and idependend of the processor while TF has to use software decoding.
MTS is part of the AVCHD video format.
I'm not sure if moboplayer will play this, and even if it does,
i doubt it will be without stuttering like crazy, but thats pretty much dependant
on the bitrate of your MTS files.
you could try to remux the audio and video streams from the MTS to an MP4 container or an mkv even.
Google for MTS2MP4 which might be of help.
Try XenonMKV or GOTSent for any mkv remuxing.
Or reencode the whole thing alltogether (which you are likely trying to avoid)
goodluck
Android 3.0+ supports mpeg transport streams with AAC audio only...
The native media player object of Android (hardware accelerated) does _not_ even play fluidly TS files. So you're out of luck for out-of-the-box playback.
I use Handbrake to reencode to MP4 container with AAC audio. Works fine on my TF, but a lot has to be lost in terms of quality to make it playable. Search the forums for the Handbrake 3.1 guide.
any news about an app that can play MTS files?
thnkx, Danilo
not for me
dice player with the tegra plugin works for me. mts m2ts
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
TGA_Gunnman said:
dice player with the tegra plugin works for me. mts m2ts
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
already talk with the developer about iisue of MTS h.264 720p files. these files will not work on dice player. he said it take some time to enable that...
...and i was searching for h264 mts 1080p!!!???....but tegra2 doesn't support it
kukky said:
...and i was searching for h264 mts 1080p!!!???....but tegra2 doesn't support it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its an Mkv right??
if im not wrong you can use some mkv player, but those are also hard to get

[Q] Video Hardware Decoder

Just wondering which codec does the HW video decoder support? The specs say this....
Video Player; Compatible Video Files, 3GPP, H.264, MPEG4, WMV; Video, Streaming
However, it does not say if it is through hardware decoding or software. Also, does the stock player support HW decoding? I want to say it does, but not 100% sure.
Thanks!
Not sure about the S3. but I have mx video player, it has hw,hw+,sw. I use all the time to watch movies .
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Thanks
Thanks for the response. I did a little research myself and came up with the following...
On an h.264 transcoded file in a mp4 container.... The stock player and MX players hovered the cpu utilization around 20%. There was also another strange process that was running...I forget what; possibly mediaserver? With the "BS Player", the utilization hovered around 8% without the mediaserver process.
I think I'll stick with the "BS Player" since there's lower utilization. OH, the main reason for the response. Turns out that I'm pretty sure it's being 'hardware decoded'. If it wasn't, I would ahve expected the cpu utilzation be up around 75%+.

[Feature Request] .ts file is not HW-accelerated but repacked to MKV is

Hello,
When I try to play .ts file (e.g. HBO HD movie) recorded using DVB-C set-top box, MXPlayer uses SW mode and playback looks like a slideshow.
So I have repacked the same movie to MKV container using mkvmerge and followed the advice from this forum to configure MXPlayer to use HW acceleration for video and SW mode using custom codec for audio (for AC3 decoding). Playback is perfectly smooth in this case, because MXPlayer uses HW acceleration.
The original TS file contains:
- H264 1080i PAL 50fps track
- 1st AC3 audio track
- 2nd AC3 audio track
- 1st DVB subtitle track
- 2nd DVB subtitle track
The repacked MKV file contains:
- the same H264 track (w/o recoding)
- the same 1st AC3 audio track (w/o recoding)
(mkvmerge cannot convert DVB subtitles, so in MKV file the subtitle track is missing)
I have the Acer Iconia A1 810 tablet.
Repacking to MKV is an option to play my recordings smoothly, but I'd like to play the original TS files from SMB share, because my archive is full of such TS files. Repacking is hard and slow and additionally it'd throwed the subtitles away.
Please, is it possible to modify MXPlayer so it can play also the TS files in HW accelerated mode?
Thank you in advance!
I doubt it, because the ts container can contain so much more incompatible formats and as you probably know, AC3 for instance is not hardware supported on most devices. You cant go and force hardware decoding for something that might-half-work, but you always have the option to select your decoder and try. I'm afraid you'll just have to accept that there's some things your hardware can't decode.
Note that the smooth playback is not a problem in my case. Repacked in MKV container, my hardware plays both the mentioned tracks (H264+AC3) smoothly.
What I ask the MXPlayer team for, is to enable the same MXPlayer behavior for the original TS container file containing the same tracks (H264/AC3).
In my opinion, the MKV container is the same case as the TS container. MKV file can also contain almost anything.
I've thought that the decision to use (or not to use) HW acceleration for a video track should come after a splitter, on the basis of the video format and should not be derived from a container file format.
Hmm, that is odd. Sorry I assumed the AC3 track would've been incompatible, as it is with many androids. I always thought MX Player did decide on HW acceleration independent of containers. I can only guess some track contained in the .ts is incompatible.
But have your tried forcing HW playback (or HW+) on the .ts file yet? You can select this in the top right while a video is playing.
I thought that HW support of different containers depended on the device. Not sure.
I would think that when you select HW, it not only passes the decoding, but also the container splitting, to the hardware, which is my guess at why HW won't support different containers since the hardware doesn't know how to split the container.
@bleu8888 could you provide some insight into this?
CDB-Man said:
I thought that HW support of different containers depended on the device. Not sure.
I would think that when you select HW, it not only passes the decoding, but also the container splitting, to the hardware, which is my guess at why HW won't support different containers since the hardware doesn't know how to split the container.
@bleu8888 could you provide some insight into this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you CDB-Man and Logic_ for your thoughts.
In MX Player, it is possible to use HW decoder for a video track in parallel (and in sync) with SW decoder for an audio track. That is why I hope, that a container-splitting can be done independently on choice which decoder will be used for the given track.
My understnading is that splitting is done by whatever is set as the video decoder in MX. Audio decoder just receives the audio stream from whatever splitter is used. It's not that SW audio runs "in parallel" with HW video per se; SW or HW audio just receives an audio stream from whatever is used as the container splitter.
Sorry, my previous post was probably somewhat misleading.
It was reaction to your post:
CDB-Man said:
I thought that HW support of different containers depended on the device. Not sure.
I would think that when you select HW, it not only passes the decoding, but also the container splitting, to the hardware, which is my guess at why HW won't support different containers since the hardware doesn't know how to split the container.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wanted to say, that from the fact, that video can be independently decoded by HW and audio by SW, I presume, that splitting can also be done independently - by SW - while maintaining the players ability to pass video track decoding to HW.
Hi KodloN,
Did you try hw+ decoder? hw decoder is just stock decoder which has no chance to be improved at all.
If you it still does not work with hw+ decoder, please send me (to [email protected]) a sample .ts file that cannot be played with hw+ decoder.
Thanks
bleu8888 said:
Hi KodloN,
Did you try hw+ decoder? hw decoder is just stock decoder which has no chance to be improved at all.
If you it still does not work with hw+ decoder, please send me (to [email protected]) a sample .ts file that cannot be played with hw+ decoder.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi bleu8888,
Yes, I've tried hw+ decoder, below are results:
1) The original TS file (HBO_HD recording)
SW decoder only. Trying to switch to HW or HW+ decoder falls back to SW with error message "Cannot play this video with H/W(+) decoder".
2) TS file in which the DVB subtitle track and the Czech audio track were removed (repacked by DVBViewer-TSPlayer)
HW+ decoder is functional, but playback is sluggish on my Acer Iconia Tab A1-810 (similar performance as SW decoder playback)
HW decoder cannot play this video.
3) MKV file created from the original TS file using mkvmerge
HW decoder is functional, perfect smooth playback
HW+ decoder cannot play this video
I will send you a link to all three files to the specified email.
Thank you in advance!
Hi,
Would you try latest test build from following link?
.ts hw+ playback is improved in this test build but I'm not sure your issue is fixed because this issue looks like happening only on MediaTek platforms and I do not have device having MediaTek playform.
(Please note that hw playback is not changed though)
https://sites.google.com/site/mxvpen/translation/test-build
BTW, DVB subtitle positioning issue is also fixed.
Feedback will be appreacited !
Thanks
KodloN said:
Hi bleu8888,
Yes, I've tried hw+ decoder, below are results:
1) The original TS file (HBO_HD recording)
SW decoder only. Trying to switch to HW or HW+ decoder falls back to SW with error message "Cannot play this video with H/W(+) decoder".
2) TS file in which the DVB subtitle track and the Czech audio track were removed (repacked by DVBViewer-TSPlayer)
HW+ decoder is functional, but playback is sluggish on my Acer Iconia Tab A1-810 (similar performance as SW decoder playback)
HW decoder cannot play this video.
3) MKV file created from the original TS file using mkvmerge
HW decoder is functional, perfect smooth playback
HW+ decoder cannot play this video
I will send you a link to all three files to the specified email.
Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] Codec supported by HW/HW+ Decoder

I just wondered about some of my videos not being played by the HW decoder. I figured out the issue must lay upon the codec, so I thought I do some research, since some HD Videos are going well with the HW decoder.
I would be really glad if someone can actually give me some advices how to convert the videos and which codec I should use for the best outcome.
The SW decoder is such a batterie consuming beast, I wish all videos could make use of the HW decoder.
Which converter are you using?
Try using basic convertion. You can reduce bightness so battery can extend a little bit.
About supported codecs:
HW decoder should support all codecs that are supported by your device. The best (and most common) codec is AVC (H.264), it's supported by your device for sure. It's the only codec worth caring about (for now).
However this doesn't end at codecs, because codecs have profiles and levels. Basically they are set of restrictions (like "to be able to play this video you need to be able to do this"). They are needed to ensure that if decoder supports particular profile/level, then it would be able to play any video with that (or lower) profile/level.
I believe that your device should support at least High Profile L4.1, which means that it should be able to play most H.264 videos.
However there's one special case - videos that use High 10 Profile (hi10p, 10 bit depth). It's commonly used on anime sources, becauses it preserves gradients well. There're no hardware decoders that support it.
Unfortunately manufactures usually are very vague about codecs/profiles/level support ("1080p HD video" is all what qualcomm says, lol), so you should test by yourself to find it out.
The first thing you need to do if you want to know why you can or can't play some video using h/w decoder is to check it's codec, profile and level (using MediaInfo or any other similar tool, usually media players have it built-in).
About conversion:
Try Handbrake, by default it should produce files playable by your device (no need to touch presets). You can play with "x264 Preset" to control speed/size and Quality to control quality/size.
Converting with Handbrake into x264 mp4 would be the most universally acceptable format for all devices, and work with HW decoding.
That should be no problem with your stock Nexus 4.

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