**The Touch Pro Video Playback Bible**

[SprintTouch08]

Originally Posted by BigDinCA

So what have we learned in this thread? Well, it seems that Technology1, dr g and dishe have some sort of wierd hate-triangle going on here. Oh! Also, we're all praying for some Qtv support in TCPMP soon. Otherwise we'll have to dredge through all of the name-calling and bruised egos (because someone isn't as smart as someone else... in someone's eyes) to find a plausible solution. For what it's worth, the thread was very informative.

Am i the only person who feels like Technology reminds me of Bill Mays?

Tech were all glad youre happy with youre work but its totally inapplicable here. This is NATIVE on device video while you whatever you do with streaming. Its highly inappropriate to promote youre product and future products in another person's thread. I followed your threads on xda and here, and theres no need to continue to slam your product into people's faces. If they want to use it they will seek your thread out. Saying it another 500 times wont change people's mind wha to use. (Hence the Billy Mays reference continually in your face with w/e product he's selling saying everything 10 times.)

Furthermore, its totally inappropriate to constantly refer to people as "guy" "dude" "bud." People have names here just as you made one for a reason, we can refer to you by name so I think youre capable too. Theres no reason to imply a "Hey you buddy" statement, it just comes off as totaly rude.

[dishe]

Originally Posted by lefty11

I was so happy when I traded my Mogul for the TP, but like many others it appears, I was unhappy to see that this phone had video playback issues in virtually all players. Maybe this is being redundant to a point but with all your knowledge you have am***** thus far on the different players lack of interaction or full utilization of Qtv driver , then can you tell me if you have found any encoding method and combination of player in 640x480 that will play with no drops at 23.97 fps using something to benchmark the results ? I see the album plays the VGA in what appears to be very very good quality but I would like to be able to make minor adjustments to the brightness, saturation, etc. Is there a way to do this anywhere for the album? I am unaware of any settings like that .

HTC Album wasn't designed to be a fancy video player. It was designed to play back videos taken with the camera (Which happens to support recording in mp4). It just so happens that HTC wrote it to use the Qtv driver so that the videos will play nicely on the VGA screen. Technically, you should expect WMP to have more features since it is designed to be the entertainment center of the device.
Well, since we know how weak WMP is, don't expect much from HTC Album... the only advantage to it is CPU efficiency. Plus, even if it DID support adjusting the picture, I would recommend against it- As it is we are desperately trying to free up CPU power to drop as few frames as possible. Any of the post-processing effects you describe (brightness, saturation, etc) will take a percentage of the CPU time to process per frame, and result in a slight drop in fps.
Best bet? Render/encode the video with whatever changes you want beforehand (pocketDivXEncoder, for example, has an option to adjust brightness before writing to the new file).

Originally Posted by lefty11

Hmmm, I think that you must have a different version ? I have 1.3 and it still drops frames in full vga .... maybe I misunderstood that this was to be expected even thought it still would hit appx 20fps playback. Smooth compared to tcpmp but not flawless, I guess I like to watch video without an occasional hiccup.

Lefty, chances are you're playing different quality videos than Not A Stain. In CorePlayer 1.3, I'm able to play a video at VGA size (technically only 640x368 due to aspect ratio) at a full NTSC 29.97 fps, as long as I encode it with the bitrate down to 500-600kbps (which can be done with PocketDivxEncoder, or other app of choice). Another trick is to lower the bitrate when encoding to 15 or 24 fps. Film is only 24fps anyhow, and if the fps are lessened instead of dropped, you don't get the "stutter" frame effect, and it gives the illusion of smoother video.
If, however, you are not re-encoding the video first and just using the straight original source video, chances are it will have a higher bitrate, and while it would probably be totally watchable, may have the occasional frame drop (I tested the original of the video mentioned above, and benchmarked about 95% of the full speed).

Mp4 in WMP, on the other hand, seems to catch up fast and run nicely, even with 800+kbps video compression! That's the difference between full QTV and the partial overlay that CorePlayer has....

Album/WMP, however, can play an MP4

[fat boy]

Dishe,
Thanks a lot for this thread and information. This is one area that I don't want to spend a whole lot of time in but when I am using a movie I want to enjoy it. I will try HTC Album.

[midiology]

yeah Dishe,, Good thread,,, good info,,

and hey keep sharing,, dont let the haters keep you from posting your thoughts in the future,,,

sometimes these threads get to be a pi$$ing contest, because one person says the x phone has g56 hardware,, and is capable of crapping gold eggs, someone always has to chime in and either say,, " yeah weve known about g56 hardware since we were babies" or " contradict anything you would have to say about g56 by saying that you were wrong because the eggs technically were not gold,, but were actuall gold colored because of a faulty driver",, lol

so FTW, do what you do buddy and lets get this forum back to a helping forum and not a sizing up contest of genitals...

Thanks again

[Athasian]

I can't believe the difference this makes. I had a video I haven't been able to play successfully (it freezes bad, tcpmp benchmarks it at 60% of its max) and re-encoded it to play in HTC album. Night and freakin DAY.

[TreyBeno]

Originally Posted by aceracer24

Seriously, chill out. This is an apples and oranges comparison. Your making it personal and it has nothing to do with your precious little streaming thread. Not everyone wants to stream much less stream youtube all day. This post is about actual video's put on your phone to watch with a video player. Nobody is stealing your thunder.

Gotta agree with ya there. This thread is about the format for local videos on storage. NOT about streaming all day. And like ACERACER says, who wants to stream youtube and such all day. Especially when there is a stock app that does it very well in high quality. Ive always noticed the better playback of mp4 in WMP/Album and this thread lets me know why. Its extremely useful to me and im sure others.

[slypher]

WOW, excellent post and great info dishe!

I stopped using WMP a long time ago (before the TP) and never even thought of using HTC Album (cause i dont take vids with my phone much).

Thanks.

-s

[TheRealHotshot]

Originally Posted by lefty11

Hmmm, I think that you must have a different version ? I have 1.3 and it still drops frames in full vga .... maybe I misunderstood that this was to be expected even thought it still would hit appx 20fps playback. Smooth compared to tcpmp but not flawless, I guess I like to watch video without an occasional hiccup. Thanks for the input , but not quite the info I was looking for. I was hoping Dishe could reply to my post..

I have the newest coreplayer out and most of my settings are the same when I downloaded. And I must say my benchmark 100% and never lag during play I have watched the whole movie wanted on my phone and even in the fast pace scenes it don't skip plays like a champ! I couldn't tell u why ppl coreplayer lag cause mine don't at all

[lexluthor]

Not A Stain,

What format and resolution are your videos.

I bet not H.264 at anywhere close to 640x480.

Go back and read this thread and you'll see that's what gives Coreplayer problems.

[dishe]

Originally Posted by Not_A_Stain

I have the newest coreplayer out and most of my settings are the same when I downloaded. And I must say my benchmark 100% and never lag during play I have watched the whole movie wanted on my phone and even in the fast pace scenes it don't skip plays like a champ! I couldn't tell u why ppl coreplayer lag cause mine don't at all

I do beleive that you missed the point of the thread- at no point did I say you could not get a perfectly watchable video out of Coreplayer (especially with the latest Qtv overlay support).

What I did say, however, is that you do not get FULL acceleration unless using the built in apps.

In other words, take video and compress it into 800kbps H.264 Mp4, and try playing it in coreplayer. You WILL get dropped frames. Quite a few, actually.
Then, try the same video in WMP or HTC Album, and you'll see the difference. The reason for this is that H.264 is a very CPU-intensive decoding algorithm, and one that the little Qualcomm chips have trouble handling without using the hardware acceleration. If you're just playing a 320x240 Divx format file you compressed for a Titan, hell you could probably do that on TCPMP and get near 100%. That's not what this thread is about, though...