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[Q] Smooth 720p/1080p video playback possible?

In particular MKV files.
I have noted that if I playback an 720p MKV with AC3/DTS sound the video plays perfectly fluid. No microjudder or frame drops AFAIK. But there is no sound of course because the inbuilt player does not support AC3/DTS natively.
However add AAC 2.0 audio into the file (MKV or MP4 container it matters not) I see judder. Kinda like when you have 23.976FPS playing on a 50Hz PAL CRT.
I have tried muxing at various framerates and interestingly the judder gets faster the higher the FPS. Very odd.
I'm used to dealing with AV stuff as I use MPC-HC/ReClock/MadVR etc to my HDTV over HDMI (BTW my Panasonic G20 Plasma does not recognise the TF HDMI output. My PC monittor does however so the TF is outputting in an unsupported res/Hz for my HDTV obviously).
It's puzzling me how when the TF does not have to playback audio the video is perfect but as soon as it has to decode audio it throws a wobbly.
The other interesting thing of note is that Youtube vids at 720p and even 1080p (Big Buck Bunny for instance) play just fine. Methinks that Flash is optimized to the Tegra 2 chip whilst the inbuilt TF player (and all the other players) are not. Moboplayer, Vplayer etc are all a bit crap at it. There is one player called LittlePlayer which gives the option of hardware playback but it is no better than the inbuilt player as it does not decode AC3/DTS and it too judders when AAC audio is played.
Anyone got a clue why this is the case? I was wondering if it was a UK specific issue (would not put it past Asus to make it PAL centric) but then why would it play a 23.976FPS 720p x264 in MKV perfectly (sans audio obviously)?

Yeah I have a 720p mkv and it plays a little off with the sound but I play a higher quality move still at 720p and the sound is like a second off. And the 1080p vids I have don't play at all. What app do you use to play your videos?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

you must be doing something wrong with the muxing or the avc stream you ended up with is not extracted properly.
I encode movies with x264 (commandline), encode the audio with neroaacen(lc, cbr, 128kbit) and mux them with mp4box. The file plays perfectly with the built-in player, meridian or rockplayer in hardware decoding mode.
Most mkv TV series I can extract th evideo stream from and use it, but not all. Some use too many reference frames while encoding and the TF can't handle it.
X264 profile high, level 4.1, preset veryfast or medium. No other options except quality level ((crf 20 or 21 I use mostly).

I've tried MKVToolnix for straight muxing. A simple MKV to MP4 prog without reencoding called mkvavi2mp4. Handbrake (Used settings suggested on this forum). I've also tried some test clips from various sites. All of them judder when audio is being decoded. I am not talking about HUGE judder. I am talking about very small judder. The video is not 100% fluid. Some may not even notice it. I do because I am always messing with progs like ReClock and MadVR in order to get perfect 24p playback to an HDTV. I am also susceptible to phosphor lag, any audio sync issues and other annoyances. I am Mr Super Anal when it comes to perfect playback and have color calibrated all my displays with a colorimeter
But I digress.
If I play Big Buck Bunny 1080p in Youtube or in the default browser it plays fluid (well enough not to be annoying). Now if I rip that same Youtube clip down to my hard disk. Copy it to the TF and play it in ANY player (Moboplayer - with or without codecs packs, Rockplayer, Vplayer, Littleplayer or the inbuilt player) it will not play it without stuttering. What the hell is that all about? Flash player is better at video playback on the TF than Honeycombs implementation? Quite.
I wish I could figure out a way to load the MP4 files in Flash through the browser. I tried file://path to MP4 and it did not work.
If anyone knows a way to do that I would be interested. Maybe I should setup a web server on my PC and stream everything in Flash
P.S. If you wish I can provide you with two sample MKV's. One with audio the other without and you can directly compare the two and post your results. I see small juddering on the clip with audio muxed in every time.

The Youtube app is not using Flash. If it was, Youtube wouldn't play on the iPhone or iPad, and it most certainly wouldn't have played on Android devices before Android 2.2. If you want to see true Flash performance so far, load up Hulu and see if you can get a 480p stream to play acceptably. Edit: Since you mention the UK though, I probably shouldn't assume you're in the US. If that's the case, just load up any Flash-based video player besides Youtube. Sometimes it helps to set your user agent to Desktop, too.
The Youtube app is actually using HTML5, with videos encoded in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and stereo AAC. The maximum bitrates supported are 5 Mbit/s and 152 kbps, respectively. You need to bear in mind too that by playing videos through the browser, the servers will recognize the device you're playing from and compress and optimize the stream accordingly. A full 1080p video at 5 Mbit/s would take forever to buffer on a tablet, so it's highly unlikely that you're getting the full quality over the network stream. Locally-stored videos, however, are free to be downloaded and played in their maximum quality, so it's understandable that you may see some stutter on large files.

deadman3000 said:
I've tried MKVToolnix for straight muxing. A simple MKV to MP4 prog without reencoding called mkvavi2mp4. Handbrake (Used settings suggested on this forum). I've also tried some test clips from various sites. All of them judder when audio is being decoded. I am not talking about HUGE judder. I am talking about very small judder. The video is not 100% fluid. Some may not even notice it. I do because I am always messing with progs like ReClock and MadVR in order to get perfect 24p playback to an HDTV. I am also susceptible to phosphor lag, any audio sync issues and other annoyances. I am Mr Super Anal when it comes to perfect playback and have color calibrated all my displays with a colorimeter
But I digress.
If I play Big Buck Bunny 1080p in Youtube or in the default browser it plays fluid (well enough not to be annoying). Now if I rip that same Youtube clip down to my hard disk. Copy it to the TF and play it in ANY player (Moboplayer - with or without codecs packs, Rockplayer, Vplayer, Littleplayer or the inbuilt player) it will not play it without stuttering. What the hell is that all about? Flash player is better at video playback on the TF than Honeycombs implementation? Quite.
I wish I could figure out a way to load the MP4 files in Flash through the browser. I tried file://path to MP4 and it did not work.
If anyone knows a way to do that I would be interested. Maybe I should setup a web server on my PC and stream everything in Flash
P.S. If you wish I can provide you with two sample MKV's. One with audio the other without and you can directly compare the two and post your results. I see small juddering on the clip with audio muxed in every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shoot them over

http://www.mediafire.com/?gp3bumw7qy9mppm
Check the panning of each. One has AAC audio the other not. Use the default inbuilt video player of the TF (Should offer if you click on the files if you have other players installed). The one without audio plays perfectly smooth on my TF. The one with audio has slight juddering.

deadman3000 said:
If I play Big Buck Bunny 1080p in Youtube or in the default browser it plays fluid (well enough not to be annoying).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to clarify: You are talking about viewing youtube via the default _web_ browser, setting your user agent such that you get the desktop site and using the flash plugin to play the video? Rather then using the mobile youtube web site or using the built in youtube app?
FYI of your two clips the one without audio plays smoothly in the _default_ player and the one with audio chokes with "This video cannot be played" (This is assuming you tack ".mp4" onto the file names to fool the default media player into trying to play it)
Interesting... I just re-encoded the audio _only_ ("-vcodec copy -acodec libmp3lame" in ffmpeg) and that plays smoothly.
Now mp3 audio isn't part of the mp4 container spec so you'll only get away with it in an mkv container (its flexibility is one of the things that makes matroska difficult to parse)
Ah... the video is High profile at 3.8Mbps that pretty much on the limit of what the tegra2 can do at the moment (I'd say it over it actually) so I'd say that the addition of a complex (relative to mp3) audio track is just too much.
I bet if you re-encoded that video to baseline at the same bitrate and copied the audio stream it would play fine, its just at the max computation threshold.

sub'd... I want to see what you guys are doing, I'd really like to play at least 720p peacefully.

I've tried reencoding using Handbrake and get similar results. Jerky playback with audio. Smooth without. It's like small juddering every quarter second or so. Ignore the web playback that's already been explained that it's HTML5 and is not sending me the full 1080p stream anyhow.
In fact. If someone can send me a 720p video clip with audio that they say plays 100% smooth on their TF I could see if it's not 100% smooth here. If not (as I suspect it won't be) then it's either my TF has issues. Your eyesight is not picking it up or I am going nuts

deadman3000 said:
I've tried reencoding using Handbrake and get similar results. Jerky playback with audio. Smooth without. It's like small juddering every quarter second or so. Ignore the web playback that's already been explained that it's HTML5 and is not sending me the full 1080p stream anyhow.
In fact. If someone can send me a 720p video clip with audio that they say plays 100% smooth on their TF I could see if it's not 100% smooth here. If not (as I suspect it won't be) then it's either my TF has issues. Your eyesight is not picking it up or I am going nuts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1060825
I am using the same profile settings in handbrake (high profile) and ALL my videos are really smooth! and YES...I did have judder/stutter before. download the sample files and you can test it on your TF.
the ONLY downside is that handbrake takes a while to encode but its worth it!
hope this helps.

..........

While I agree that, officially, Honeycomb doesn't support the mkv container. It must be able to parse it as it does support WebM and that uses the matroska container.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6553908/with_audio_mp3.mkv
This is the same video stream but with the audio re-encoded to mp3, plays nicely for me in the default video player it I tack ".mp4" on the end to fool the player into trying to play it.
I don't stream but everything e.mote said about hinting is spot on, also you may want to look at interleaving (a feature of the muxing that MP4Box can do) is you want to stream.

earlyberd said:
A full 1080p video at 5 Mbit/s would take forever to buffer on a tablet, so it's highly unlikely that you're getting the full quality over the network stream.
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Click to collapse
Way too generalized. I have a Playbook and it plays 1080p Youtube in the browser flawlessly.

I played The Cape clip from the example Handbrake settings thread. The clip plays with micro judder like every other clip with sound. I am now using a Prime 1.4 rooted not the stock firmware and it still does it. It is like frame drop every half or quarter second. If you have ever seen NTSC 23.976FPS played back on a PAL 50Hz CRT TV you will know what it looks like. It is very obvious on pans.
Surely I cannot be the ONLY person who can see this??? Are your eyes really that bad?
EDIT: Tried the MP3 version you provided. Still there. You can count the judder. Tick tick tick tick... every quarter second.
EDIT2: I guess the only way to demonstrate this to you guys is by way of a video of it along with some audio prompting from me to point it out to you (excuse the d(t)icks). You will notice that the audio drops out for some reason during playback but when it does the video plays buttery smooth. No idea why the audio drops out. I was playing back the MP3 muxed version from the link above using Moboplayer but this problem - the juddering - occurs with any player I have tried. The juddering happens on every single video I have tested it on when it is decoding audio.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXfdQP8BtEA
I will restate however. Yotube playback looks much smoother than playing a file from the inbuilt flash memory or SD cards.

I am having the same problem as you and I see the judder on these clips as well. I posted my issues in the encoding guide thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1060825&page=9
It has nothing to do with the overall bitrate rate as many of my samples are <2,000 kbps, and just like you, if I remove the AAC audio, video is silky smooth. I assume it's just a software issue that should be able to be resolved, but I guess we'll see...

e.mote said:
BTW, if you recoded the clip, then I suggest using better settings. The settings used are excessive. When facing a device with marginal playback, there is less tolerance for bad encodes. If you're anal about playback, then you should be equally anal about your encode settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that. But since your video judders just like every other clip that means diddly squat. I don't see why I should have to reencode every video I have in order for it to playback on the TF either. It should be able to handle 720p at least. It does play it but only plays it smoothly with no audio playback whatsoever.

bartleyg82 said:
I am having the same problem as you and I see the judder on these clips as well. I posted my issues in the encoding guide thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1060825&page=9
It has nothing to do with the overall bitrate rate as many of my samples are <2,000 kbps, and just like you, if I remove the AAC audio, video is silky smooth. I assume it's just a software issue that should be able to be resolved, but I guess we'll see...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phew! Thanks for chimeing in! I am glad it's not just me. Do you live in the UK perchance? If not that would rule out any UK specific reasons.

Nope, I'm in the US. My TF is also running Prime 1.4. I've tried the "stock" kernel and the OC kernel and the problem is the same with both. I didn't think to test video before rooting and installing Prime, so I can't vouch for whether or not it happens on completely stock HC 3.1

deadman3000 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXfdQP8BtEA
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How... what...
Are you serious? I see literally no issue. Either my eyes or your camera, one of the two can't pick up this judder. And I did notice the compression in the better encode offered here (text, grappling hooks, lasers, pretty much anything like that. Not a bad result, but clearly visible)
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk

[Bug Report] increase network buffer size

Hi,
I absolutely love this player, I find when I'm streaming 720/1080p video over WIFI, that it'll play great for a bit and then get all jittery/sluggish. I determined this is related to the buffering because if I then hit pause, wait for 10-15 seconds and play again, it'll be perfect again until it catches up with the buffer again. Is there anyway to increase or double whatever it is buffering to makes these hiccups less? Even if I had to behind the scenes and modify a config/text file somewhere, I'd be glad to do it if told how. I'd be just fine pausing a movie and waiting for it to get enough ahead of itself but MX Player only seems to buffer a limited amount and stop? Any feedback to improve this would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Network playback buffering is a known issue, and has been for a while now. It's something that the developer is working on.
In fact, it's the first item on the Feature Requests and Bugs list: http://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/mx-player/sticky-running-list-feature-requests-t2718297

Update
CDB-Man said:
Network playback buffering is a known issue, and has been for a while now. It's something that the developer is working on.
In fact, it's the first item on the Feature Requests and Bugs list: http://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/mx-player/sticky-running-list-feature-requests-t2718297
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been a known issue for over four years now - will there be an update? Or does anyone know of a player that can buffer network streams?

sungkhum said:
It's been a known issue for over four years now - will there be an update? Or does anyone know of a player that can buffer network streams?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Networking playback performance will be improved in the major update v1.8

Can you provide a feedback on the 1.8 release date?
I really need this... I can't play any videos because my internet sucks and the player only buffers a maximum of ~30 seconds of video. Even if i pause the video and try to watch it 3 hours latter it wont work...
Thanks

whise1 said:
Can you provide a feedback on the 1.8 release date?
I really need this... I can't play any videos because my internet sucks and the player only buffers a maximum of ~30 seconds of video. Even if i pause the video and try to watch it 3 hours latter it wont work...
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this is the most anoying issue for me. When watching some youtube videos the app doesnt save the videos in cache.

stream stopped when pause or screen off?

Hi,
I love this app , reacently using MX player streams in apps like movie HD , showbox , cinema box, mega box etc but i noticed when i pause or screen off while waching live movie stream , Buffering stopped automatically but when i play then buffering starts i need this player to never stop buffer so that the movie play smooth just like in youtube app when you play or stop it always buffering so that we could easily watch movie without stop . Kindly reply if this matter solve

Bump
I have the same issue. Statement above, is clear. When streaming, if you press pause, MX PLAYER will try to Load; Stop; and End Playback.
Version 1.9.10(ARMv7 neon)
Running on Firestick (version 2, 4 gigs available)
mx player, Standard config.
Mp4 file ~500MB 720p max.(can be smaller or much larger makes no difference)
having trouble making a bug report because it is on a Firestick, however I did not always have this problem. Any help to point me and others in the right direction would be greatly appreciated, please.

Skip forward/backward function acts weird on my device.

I have a 2015 model of sony bravia android tv, and it has a MT5890 CPU and a mali T-624 GPU. I installed the latest version of mx player and armv7 neon codec.
I am able to play x265 coded videos with built-in video player without any problem, it's very smooth, and I can skip forward or backward or just jump to whenever I wish to.
However when using mx player, it's also very smooth, but I can only play from the beginning, if I try to skip forward or backward, or jump to a certain time point, it starts to act very weird. Sometimes video speeds up 2x or 3x, sometimes it slows down, like it's catching up or slowing down to wait audio to be synchronized. And it can take from couple of minutes to half an hour to go back to normal.
This only applies to x265 coded videos, I have other video that are coded with x264 or HEVC, and they work just fine in both built-in player and mx player.
I have tried other video players like spmc, kodi or VLC, they all stutter, VLC is probably the best among these but it is still dropping frames left and right. But most of them don't have problem with skipping or jumping.
Can someone please explain the reason? Could it be fixed?
Much appreciated!

terrytw said:
I have a 2015 model of sony bravia android tv, and it has a MT5890 CPU and a mali T-624 GPU. I installed the latest version of mx player and armv7 neon codec.
I am able to play x265 coded videos with built-in video player without any problem, it's very smooth, and I can skip forward or backward or just jump to whenever I wish to.
However when using mx player, it's also very smooth, but I can only play from the beginning, if I try to skip forward or backward, or jump to a certain time point, it starts to act very weird. Sometimes video speeds up 2x or 3x, sometimes it slows down, like it's catching up or slowing down to wait audio to be synchronized. And it can take from couple of minutes to half an hour to go back to normal.
This only applies to x265 coded videos, I have other video that are coded with x264 or HEVC, and they work just fine in both built-in player and mx player.
I have tried other video players like spmc, kodi or VLC, they all stutter, VLC is probably the best among these but it is still dropping frames left and right. But most of them don't have problem with skipping or jumping.
Can someone please explain the reason? Could it be fixed?
Much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically, x265 is an encoder for HEVC. So, both are same.
Maybe some particular HEVC profile has issues. Can you try HW+ decoder?

Thirumalai.K said:
Basically, x265 is an encoder for HEVC. So, both are same.
Maybe some particular HEVC profile has issues. Can you try HW+ decoder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In fact I am using HW+ decoder, and it's the only way I can play those videos smoothly. Switching to HW or SW would make the video either completely unplayable or stutter very heavily.
To sum it up, I CAN play any videos with built-in player smoothly and drag or jump or skip however I want to.
I CAN play x265 coded files smoothly with mx player in HW+ mode, but I CANNOT jump or skip. I CAN play any other videos with mx player without any problem.
I CAN play x265 coded files with some level of stutter with other players like spmc and VLC, but I CAN drag or jump however I want to.
The videos that I am having problem with have these kind of parameters:
Format : HEVC
Format Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main [email protected]@High
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Writing library : x265 2.5+4-b4a5bcfe29c7:[Windows][GCC 4.9.3][64 bit] 10bit
If the writing library is x264 or ATEME Titan KFE or ATEME Titan file, or if the codec ID is hev1, or if the format profile is Main [email protected]@Main, I don't have a problem.
This is so weird....

To the TC - Did you ever get this sorted?
I am having the same issue on my Sony Bravia. Whilst the actual player is exactly what I wanted, I get exactly the same issue when fast forwarding or rewinding.
I have played around with the different codec settings but it doesn't seem to make any differences.
Did you end up finding a solution?
Cheers

littlelostkiwi said:
To the TC - Did you ever get this sorted?
I am having the same issue on my Sony Bravia. Whilst the actual player is exactly what I wanted, I get exactly the same issue when fast forwarding or rewinding.
I have played around with the different codec settings but it doesn't seem to make any differences.
Did you end up finding a solution?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to see that I am not alone. But unfortunately I did not find any solution and had given up on this.
After all, it is only a tiny fraction of all the videos have this kind of behavior.

Thank you for the confirmation

No video / black screen on philips android TV

Hi,
I just bought a Philips 32PFS6402 Android TV (version QM164E.).16.102.24).
Unfortunately the default video player, didn't have the possibility to adjust the subtitles, so I had to look for alternatives. Your MX player was highly recommended and the features I was looking for seems to be in place (remember where you stopped a video stored on USB and continue from that point on the next time. And adjust the timing of the subtitles while playing the video.)
so far so good. But unfortunately, not all video's are shown correctly. For some video's I only see a black screen. There is audio and ther are subtitles, but the screen stays black.
The codec info for the specific file:
MPEG-4 Video (XVID)
1920*800
Strange thing is, I can play the same movie using the default player.
Any suggestions?
thanks in advance,
Matthijs

mldz said:
Hi,
I just bought a Philips 32PFS6402 Android TV (version QM164E.).16.102.24).
Unfortunately the default video player, didn't have the possibility to adjust the subtitles, so I had to look for alternatives. Your MX player was highly recommended and the features I was looking for seems to be in place (remember where you stopped a video stored on USB and continue from that point on the next time. And adjust the timing of the subtitles while playing the video.)
so far so good. But unfortunately, not all video's are shown correctly. For some video's I only see a black screen. There is audio and ther are subtitles, but the screen stays black.
The codec info for the specific file:
MPEG-4 Video (XVID)
1920*800
Strange thing is, I can play the same movie using the default player.
Any suggestions?
thanks in advance,
Matthijs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please collect a bug report quickly after playing the file that has issues and share with us. It will help us to investigate further and provide a better resolution.

MXPlayer said:
Please collect a bug report quickly after playing the file that has issues and share with us. It will help us to investigate further and provide a better resolution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, thanks for your reaction. How do I collect a bug report? I didn't see any options for that.
For you info. I tried Kodi today as well and experienced the same problems. No video image, while there is sound and there are subtitles. I find it to be very strange, since the same movie does play in the default player (no idea which one that is).
Today the movie I tested yesterday on MX Player, resulted in some kind of freeze. no response what so ever.
thanks,
Matthijs

mldz said:
First of all, thanks for your reaction. How do I collect a bug report? I didn't see any options for that.
For you info. I tried Kodi today as well and experienced the same problems. No video image, while there is sound and there are subtitles. I find it to be very strange, since the same movie does play in the default player (no idea which one that is).
Today the movie I tested yesterday on MX Player, resulted in some kind of freeze. no response what so ever.
thanks,
Matthijs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Based on the information you have shared, it seems that your device's hardware-accelerated decoders are buggy or broken. Request you to tap on the HW button on the playback screen and check other decoders. It may work for you.

MXPlayer said:
Based on the information you have shared, it seems that your device's hardware-accelerated decoders are buggy or broken. Request you to tap on the HW button on the playback screen and check other decoders. It may work for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will give it a try again (it's not near me now). Thanks