**The Touch Pro Video Playback Bible**

[esqueue]

This is a post that I made a while back. You can use coreplayer or tcpmp. I notice that coreplayer skips really bad when I first run it. I close and reopen it and NO dropped frames with the setting below. Odd but I've found what works and I use it. Follow my instructions to the "T" and I can almost guarantee no dropped frames, using TCPMP or Coreplayer.

Try this free program called AlltoAvi. Do not use restrictive mode. Use TCPMP (attached below) for video playback. Try encoding a dvd if it can and use the settings below. Please report back if it worked well.

Note: if using tcpmp you can watch the file as it is being converted on your computer using htc network or something similar.

AlltoAvi settings:

"Keep Aspect Ratio" box must be checked.
Screen size 640xXXX(Just type in 640)
Bi Cubic
Video encoder is XVID
Video bitrate is 400 (I've actually use 1000 at times and it still doesn't skip, see how high you can go)
Audio Bitrate 96
Subtitle is for subtitles lol

TCPMP is set to microdrive mode which I don't know if it helps
Options>Settings>select page>Buffering then check the microdrive box.


Unfortunately I have no dvds to check if this program can even encode them.

[killerkhatiby009]

I downloaded the video encoder for Touch HD/Diamond/Pro and when I encode my videos it takes a very long time (3hsr for a 20min video), is this normal? Or is there something I can do to make it go faster?

[lefty11]

Great info Dishe, really. I think with an 8GB card it is always nice to carry around a few movies for things such as Doctor office waiting rooms, airport layovers, or anything else that is a time waster. It is extremely nice to be able to sit and watch a video like it should be played , with no hiccups and such. I think you're info has been valuable for those of us who fall into that boat , and I say thank you. I agree the Album plays with what appears to be full acceleration . I did go back into CorePlayer and look at all the settings and played with a few . I watched a regular size full converted copy of a recent movie with just a bit of spotty issues , so it too works nicely enough to watch a converted down vga mp4. I know not everyone has CorePlayer but it works well since you have a few more app controls and it seems to work better with ORB also (my opinion). I know this is probably already known to people with CorePlayer but for those few who have not changed it yet on a vga mp4, got to Tools/Preferences/SelectPage/Video and select "QTv Display " as Video Output , and Select "High" for Video Quality . I hope this helps just a few peeps, but I can tell you, if you tried playing an MP4 without these two changes, you will be elated to see the movie playing well.
Sorry for all those who already knew this , but just trying to help anyone who overlooked it. I think it plays VGA just fine at very nice bps for 95 percent of the people . Thanks again for the great info, Dishe.

[lexluthor]

Lefty11,

The issue with Coreplayer isn't with mp4 files in particular, it's with h.264 encoded video. You can encode an xvid inside an mp4 wrapper.

I bet your video that file you say is playing well in coreplayer either isn't h.264 or isn't 640x480 in the 700kbps range.

H.264 video at 640x480 at 700kbps won't play acceptably on a TP using coreplayer.

There are some good wikipedia entries to learn about the options with wrappers and codecs.

[labratlsx]

Ok so i converted a movie over to mp4 using the provided GUI encoder link in the first post...HTC Album won't see the movie??? It sees the folder i created...but not the movie??? the movie is 288mb in size...suppose that has something to do with it? WMP sees and plays it fine...a little bit of skippage...i wanted to see what Album would do...but alas....

[lefty11]

Originally Posted by lexluthor

Lefty11,

The issue with Coreplayer isn't with mp4 files in particular, it's with h.264 encoded video. You can encode an xvid inside an mp4 wrapper.

I bet your video that file you say is playing well in coreplayer either isn't h.264 or isn't 640x480 in the 700kbps range.

H.264 video at 640x480 at 700kbps won't play acceptably on a TP using coreplayer.

There are some good wikipedia entries to learn about the options with wrappers and codecs.

You are correct indeed it is not H.264 which sucks in Coreplayer right now, I was not trying to imply that, and apologize for not specifying. H.264 plays great in album , but 640x480 encoded mp4 (non H.264) does play fine in CorePlayer and if you do not have the video setting in Coreplayer to Qtv display , these files will show no video .Also my bigger xvids and Avi's really had issues. Maybe it's my imagination, lol. I was merely trying to help someone out who might experience that issue. But it will play the 640x480 encoded mp4 and TCPMP still will not play it without dropping tons and tons of frames . I am not an expert by any means and thus I appreciate your input as well as all the stuff from Dishe. Honestly, my issue was not what Core Player would or would not do originally but instead was the lackluster performance of TCPMP on my TP without having to reencode darn near every video I have just to watch it. Thanks

[The_Omni]

Just curious guys, being a bit of a video freak on the ppc6700, how do the Touch/Qualcomm processors handle WMV files?

As some of you know the older ARM/Win Mobile devices never handled MP4 that well and suffered even on high bit rate divx/xvid, but they could do WMV great.

Omni

[dishe]

Originally Posted by The_Omni

Just curious guys, being a bit of a video freak on the ppc6700, how do the Touch/Qualcomm processors handle WMV files?

As some of you know the older ARM/Win Mobile devices never handled MP4 that well and suffered even on high bit rate divx/xvid, but they could do WMV great.

Omni

Yes, I recall that years ago (WM2003 days) I used to encode everything to wmv and play with WMP, since it was one of the only ways to get a decent video display back then. But its strange that you say you're doing that with a 6700... an Xscale CPU of at least 400mhz, WM5, and TCPMP should be more than enough for decent DivX video. I switched entirely to DivX when I got my HTC Tornado, and that was only 200Mhz!
Honestly, nowadays I don't even touch WMV. I don't even have any lying around to test with since the format is practically obsolete in my opinion.

On your 6700, test a 350kbps Divx encoded vid side by side with a 350kpbs WMV. You'll see the DivX delivers sharper and higher quality video at the same frame than Windows Media 9 encoding does. But anyway, this is waaay off topic. I've never encountered anything that would imply the Qualcomm chips wouldn't play wmv just as well if not better than the Xscales of yesteryear.

[AycheDub]

Great thread Dishe, much appreciated. I was using MP4 through WMP before, but always at 950+ bitrate and I would get a lot of skippage... tried 700 bitrate and HTC Album, no problem at all. Worked great. I never realized how much of a different dropping that 250 in bitrate would make...

Thanks!

[jmorton10]

I am so glad this thread was posted, I was struggling like crazy to get clear playable ripped DVD movies in my TP's (I have 3 of them). I use cucusoft Ultimate-Converter to rip & had been trying all different formats, bit rates etc etc etc

Now, thanks to this thread I realized that I needed to use WMP for playback instead of the cool black skinned Coreplayer 1.3 I had been struggling with. Someone had posted a few months ago that CP was the ultimate video player for the TP & I never really had any reason to think otherwise.

In the last couple days, I re-encoded a few movies as h.264 at 800kbps & tried playing them in both CP & WMP. WOW!!

In WMP, they play virtually perfect & look awesome through video out on the 7" NAV screen in my truck also. Those same video's look like a slideshow in CorePlayer 1.3

~John