yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nook Color General] tablo:
Which app you guys using to play videos? I'm using Rockplayer right now and getting audio sync issue. I had better luck with Mobo Player.
[Nook Color General] chisleu:
OK:

Using Sony's HD Experiment because it is short and high action.

http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/redirect-high-definition.php?file=hd_other_sony_hd_experiment.rar

Encoding using the iphone and ipod touch preset.

I set 576x240 resolution and I can play completely smoothly with wifi on. File size is 4.44megs w/ RF: 25 (iirc)

I set 854x480 resolution and RF 30 it locks on whatever frame you start playing (black screen, etc.) Won't play. I set 854x480 and 800kbps avg kbps and it is also black screen. If I hit home and then go back and let it go, the video will change, but it doesn't seem like it will catch up. Definately broken.

I downloaded that 1080p trailer you linked.

start handbrake, load 1080p trailer, select "iphone and ipod touch" preset, select 854 width (auto height 368), changed to average kbps and set 800. My file size isn't exactly yours, but is very very close.

854x368 plays very well and looks fantastic, but it does have those pops/skips.

Disable wifi:

still get rare/random skips with my 854 file.

still get rare/random skips with your 854 file.

I turned "Disable Fullscreen" off on a hunch it was play a role in this:

My 854 file still skips from time to time.

My 576 file still skips from time to time, although more rarely. only once in 2 plays.

Your 854 file still skips from time to time.

Your 576 file still skips from time to time, maybe more rarely? Hard to quantify.

I encoded the eagle trailer with my 854 width, RF 25 "high quality" preset.

It is smaller than 800kbps (13.1M vs 18M)

It skips too.
[Nook Color General] chisleu:
We are mostly using the stock player because it forces hardware accel.

I prefer VitalPlayer to all. If you are having sync issues it is probably playing in software mode. I should say, VitalPlayer has never given me any sync issues at all while playing in software. Wish I had discovered that before DSP was working. haha
[Nook Color General] skwalas:
here are mine. :rolleyes: I noticed you picked fixed aspect ratio, so I spent some time playing with that. some observations:

Fixed aspect ratio: larger file size than anamorphic loose (~10% larger, in fact), for no visible gain in quality (actually slightly worse?). In Moboplayer, fixed aspect file could not be sized to fit screen for original source of 720x480. Correctly fit fullsize screen in stock player though. (6MB for a 1.5 min clip at RF20)

Anamorphic strict: medium file size, sizeable in soft and hard modes. (5.7MB for same clip)

Anamorphic loose: lowest file size, sizeable in soft and hard modes. May actually have better quality under most conditions. (5.5MB for same clip).

Other observations: Hardware accel seems to give colors that sort of come close to original source. Pixelation in large fields of darker color tends to be better in hardware, but most of the time, can't distinguish between the two.

Also looked at different quality settings. Set target file size at 6, and target bitrate at 500 (which resulted in a file at 6MB).

Compared to the RF20 file above (anamorphic), target file size video showed markedly lower quality, even though slightly larger file size. Target bitrate was somewhat better than target file size clip, but pixelation in large dark fields remained the same. RF20 file gave best quality of all three settings, for same file size. (plus it was faster!). I recognize that using RF settings means variable file sizes, but for me, RF15 gave ~ 10MB/minute consistently, and makes it easy to guesstimate final file size (so I got 800MB for a 93 min movie, 1.2GB for a 130 min movie, etc).

Nook's color scale is distinctly off, much cooler than it should be (compared to clip played on computer via VLC and on TV through DVD player). I'm going to play with the rendering settings (there are some calibrated settings) and see if they help.

I couldn't bring myself to like Act 1 much. Mobo is becoming my go-to player (not least because it can actually overlay subtitles without my having to piss blood as a sacrifice or something). Stock player seems to provide slightly better quality over Mobo, but can't really tell.

Anyhoo, i showed you mine now. Does this mean we're going steady?
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Agreed! Video is what I focus a lot on and don't do a lot with pics.
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Well, I payed for Act 1 when it first came out, like in 2009, so dammit, I am using it :) The really nice thing I like about Act 1 is that I can set the Zoom to "Aspect" and it will show video in full screen, unlike that of the stock browser.

I am limited by just DVDs as a source, so 720 is all that HB will allow me to max to with my settings. Not being able to stand "black bars", I opt for changing the Zoom mode. Now, when I do get a BD player for my PC, then I will be able to run native full screen and that will be wonderful (at least that is how it is going in my head right now).

Well, I will have to see how I like your, um, HB settings first ;)
[Nook Color General] poofyhairguy:
Ok, this thread has gone on long enough that I have to ask about the elephant in the room:

Has anyone else tried to use codecs from other devices on their Nook for 720p support?

Again, this all may not be worth it for a device without a HDMI port!
[Nook Color General] a.fenderson:
Speaking only as a Nook Color user (and noob user at that), I obviously can't speak to whether the time investment is worthwhile for those who have to actually make this happen, but the way I see it, it would be pretty sweet to have the ability to play standard 1280x720p24 encodes of Blu-ray rips and other high-def content, because those same encodes would still be useful on future, higher-end equipment with similar or better decode abilities and screen resolutions in the neighborhood of 720p. Whereas, with 854x480, it's capable of looking great on this device, but if my next tablet is true 16:9 720p or better, those encodes may start to look kind of shabby after so much up-scaling.
[Nook Color General] skwalas:
oh bloody.... heck. Don't put too much stock into those presets.

i seem to have had terribly "good" luck at selecting some clips that really were poor selections for testing file sizes. Went to some other movies, and my RF15 presets were just... too... big.

comparisons in video size settings and types of quality settings remain the same though.

Gone back up to RF18 for the moment. It seems to be very much source-dependent (one movie gave 10 MB/min at RF15, another gave 50MB/min! at same settings!) Joy.

And, by and large, I do have to say hardware playback does seem higher quality overall.
[Nook Color General] crea78:
I'm using your profile, and on Tron Legacy, the video quality is excellent but the audio sounds muffled and in a way, quite distracting. What would be the best settings in HB to fix this problem?
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Your settings did not work, as I suspected they wouldn't for a full-length movie, but I thought I would be sporting and give it a try. RF10 works great for me with a trailer, but for full-length movies, I am just going to stick with a 2Gb file as a preset, as it just seems anything much over that and my NC has trouble playing the file with Act 1 (hardware support only). I am happy with my results...sound is great (using my external speakers through the headset with some juiced settings in DSP Manager), the video is outstanding (although background scenes can be somewhat blotchy), and video/audio sync is spot on.

Just finished watching all 3 Lord of the Rings movies and I just couldn't be more pleased with the results I was getting. Also TeeVee Shows Stream works great with Mobo player. Between CM7 and Dal's 18C kernel, the NC is really an impressive multimedia device now.

Now, getting ready to try Nightly #55 and 4/24 kernel...handdsss are tremmbling withhh exxcitement @ the possibilitieees.
[Nook Color General] RisingRider:
Hi,

I can't get videos to work with your settings. The Thor trailer you posted works flawlessly, but any videos I convert produce a black screen with audio only with hardware decoding (Mobo Player or the stock player). Skipping to a part of the video will show me a stuck picture. With software decoding, the video is extremely slow while the audio is normal speed.

I reduced the RF to 22, and there wasn't any difference in performance.

Could you please break down your settings?
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Sorry for the late reply...somehow I missed this post.

There are a 2 things I do for good sound on my NC, but each NC seems to behave differently, so not sure if my settings will do your NC justice, but give it a try and let me know.

The first thing I do on CM7 is to go into DSP Manager app and tweak the settings in there, both for headset and speaker. So, for phone speaker, I do this: Enable "Bass Boost", Effect Strength "Slight", Equalizer enabled and all bars set to "7.0". You can play with these settings and see what works best for your ears.

Second thing is how I setup Handbrake for audio with my movies. Here are my settings:

Source: Automatic

Audio Codec: AAC (faac)

Mixdown: Dolby Pro Logic II

Samplerate: 44.1

Bitrate: 160

DRC: 3.8 (this will enable volume boosting, so this is key)

Let me know if any of this makes your sound work better. Also, the kernel you are on seems to make a difference. I am getting great results with the 4/24 OC kernel from dalingrin and I am running it at 300/1300/Interactive.
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Hi RR,

Just to clarify before I breakdown my settings, are you using the settings I posted for movies (Movies-NC.zip)? I do not have any luck using the settings for the trailers (Trailers-NC.zip) to encode movies, so I imagine that will not work for your NC as well.

Also, I only watch my movies using a hardware-only player. Currently I am using Act 1, but the stock player should give you nearly the same results.

Let me know...thanks.
[Nook Color General] RisingRider:
I used the trailers settings, as I'm only converting short clips.

Thanks.
[Nook Color General] seth.i.simmons:
I DL'd and watched that Thor trailer, and it looked and ran EPIC!! Only question is, does anybody know what all the encoding settings are for that video?? On my laptop for some reason it won't show the video info :/ Thanks for the help!

PS: I'm currently using Any Video Converter and it works pretty good, just wanna know how that Thor trailer is encoded. Thanks!
[Nook Color General] a.fenderson:
I can't tell you what options were ticked/set in Handbrake (check here), but here's what MediaInfo reports on that clip:

General

Complete name : [...]Thor 720p-10RF.m4v

Format : MPEG-4

Format profile : Base Media / Version 2

Codec ID : mp42

File size : 186 MiB

Duration : 2mn 29s

Overall bit rate : 10.5 Mbps

Encoded date : UTC 2011-04-19 07:14:59

Tagged date : UTC 2011-04-19 07:18:59

Writing application : HandBrake 0.9.5 2011010300

Video

ID : 1

Format : AVC

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile : Baseline@L3.0

Format settings, CABAC : No

Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames

Codec ID : avc1

Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding

Duration : 2mn 29s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 10.3 Mbps

Width : 854 pixels

Height : 480 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Frame rate mode : Variable

Frame rate : 23.976 fps

Minimum frame rate : 23.974 fps

Maximum frame rate : 23.981 fps

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.048

Stream size : 183 MiB (98%)

Writing library : x264 core 112

Encoding settings : cabac=0 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=10.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=3 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Encoded date : UTC 2011-04-19 07:14:59

Tagged date : UTC 2011-04-19 07:18:59

Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177

Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361

Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio

ID : 2

Format : AAC

Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec

Format profile : LC

Codec ID : 40

Duration : 2mn 29s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 160 Kbps

Maximum bit rate : 276 Kbps

Channel(s) : 2 channels

Channel positions : Front: L R

Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz

Compression mode : Lossy

Stream size : 2.85 MiB (2%)

Language : English

Encoded date : UTC 2011-04-19 07:14:59

Tagged date : UTC 2011-04-19 07:18:59
[Nook Color General] seth.i.simmons:
Thanks for that quick reply, its actually about the same as I set up my video conversions, just obviously with a MUCH lower frame rate :P My conversions actually look pretty amazing on my NC, gotta love the IPS screen. Thanks again, that was a big help!
[Nook Color General] a.fenderson:
No problem, but I didn't follow the "much lower frame rate" part--this is lower than your conversions, or vice versa? This one's set to standard 23.974 fps, and usually only animation has a lower native framerate than that.
[Nook Color General] seth.i.simmons:
Sorry, I meant that my conversions usually have a much lower bit-rate, just didn't come out right. The framerate I usually just leave alone. Sorry about the confusion!
[Nook Color General] ExploreMN:
I actually bought Any Video Converter Professional (it's cheap) and it comes with several Android plugins. I use the Sony Xperia plugin which works great. It encodes at 854x480 with x264 set at a bitrate of 1200 and 25 fps. Audio is aac, 128 bitrate, 44100 sample rate stereo.

It converts stuff pretty fast too.

However, you can also download programs that decode almost anything. I think the one I use is Mobo Player which...so far...has been able to play everything I throw at it without an issue. AVI, MPG, and more. No conversion needed.
[Nook Color General] chisleu:
I have not had any trouble with handbrake at all
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
What is the average time of the short clips? Along the lines of the trailers that have been posted in this thread?

Also, what ROM are you on and what kernel are you using?
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Agreed.....
[Nook Color General] RisingRider:
1 minute 30 seconds. CM7 7.0.0 (was on Nightly 55 but had to downgrade due to a bug), ALSA fix, dalingrin 18C (was on newer kernel with 1.3GHz but downgraded to match your settings).

However, I found out the problem.

It was the frame rate. My clips had a frame rate of 29.97 FPS. I turned down the frame rate to 25, and checked off Peak Framerate (VFR). It works now (even with the stock player).

I discovered this by comparing our encoded videos. Thanks!
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Good...glad working for you!

In Handbrake, I just let it take the framerate from the Source and since I am mostly encoding standard DVDs (for now), then the 23.xx is about right. I also figure by keeping the framerate to that of Source, I am more apt to keep audio/video synced.

EDIT: Btw, I am now on CM7.02 and 4/24 OC kernel, running at 300/1300/Interactive and I am very happy with my video playback with this config.
[Nook Color General] phoneturf:
For a media player, I like Rockplayer best since it plays almost everything I throw at it, without conversion, unlike any other video player I have found. Does anyone know a way to get the paid version on the NC? I watch enough video that it is worth $10 to me to get rid of the red R.
[Nook Color General] chisleu:
Try moboplayer before that! The only thing that moboplayer can't play and rockplyer can is the streams from tv show stream app
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
Not true....I only use MoboPlayer for TV Shows Stream app....works great (using latest Market version).

EDIT: "Default Using Soft-Decoding" is checked in the Settings
[Nook Color General] rick09:
+1 Moboplayer works fine with TV shows stream.
[Nook Color General] chisleu:
I use mobo as my hardware player so I can't do that.
[Nook Color General] dinimon:
i flashed cm7 on my g2x and there seems to be no native video player installed, i'm not sure why. if anyone can help, that would be great. i also flashed google apps onto cm7.
[Nook Color General] nolook:
delete please
[Nook Color General] gijosh28:
I am missing something here. I don't see any of the handbrake profiles posted by dalingrin.
[Nook Color General] sinanju:
I transfered a particularly high-quality (judging by the ratio of its length in minutes vs it's size in GBs) video from my TiVo and converted it using Dalingrin's preset altered for two passes... I hadn't watched it, yet...

Let me tell you... the Cloverfield movie makes a crappy test video if you're looking for video artifacts.

No lessons learned today.
[Nook Color General] 360Razir:
New video, but using same presets as I posted earlier. WiFi on, no skipping. I have no idea what is going on. Huge *SIGH*.

Using "Bloat Freezer", I did stop one programe (20 Minute Meals, which I have never even opened since downloading it), but it is always running, so I "froze" it with that app. I am sure that is too easy, so I will keep tinkering. Well, at least I can keep my WiFi enabled...that is some comfort.

I do have to say my video/audio is just beautiful. File size with "Fellowship of the Ring" is 1.22Mb, which I am happy with.
[Nook Color General] MedLine:
Glad to hear not just me on CM7 and dalingrin OC kernel.

Reading all the posts on this thread I'd have to concede that there are issues, for many users, with video playback beyond encoding for the NC that still need to be resolved.

For me, however, video playback has been nothing short of spectacular. Given the amazing work of the devs around here, it's worth making this post just to have that on record.

If anybody is interested, I made another clip of H.264 video playback including high-speed scrubbing (its so cool doing this on a mobile device) on my NC running CM7 n37 and dalingrin OC kernel 040411: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22573583/NC_VideoTest_0410111.m4v
[Nook Color General] lschroeder:
From my posts over at androidtablets.net.

I finally got hardware acceleration to work for my my mp4 videos from my Home Theatre PC. I used VideoRedo TVSuite to convert Over The Air, 1080i MPEG 2, and Comcast encrypted channels, 1080i MPEG 4 to mp4 nook files playable with hardware acceleration on the default video player. This program makes it easy to remove commercials as well. I use 4 OTA tuners and an HDPVR for comcast encrypted channels.

If I use the VideoRedo's Droid profile, its 848x480 setting will playback by various video players using software codecs on my android cm7 ROMS. This profile does not allow hardware acceleration. When I change the Droid Profile from a Level 3.1 to a Level 3.0 it then allows an output maximum size of 768x448 with hardware acceleration for our nook. I save this new profile as Color Nook. During hardware playback the 768x448 scales to full size. It is in sync and with no micro blocking during playback in the default movie player. The video seem perfect to me. It works with hardware acceleration in other players as well.

VideoRedo TVSuite works with most MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 sources.

For more info about VideoRedo TVSuite see link below, the second convert option for portable devices is what we want. With the slight modification, it works great for us too!

http://www.videoredo.com/en/ProductTVS.htm

From phiremod's 5.3 thread here.

I found the size to be necessary but not all that is needed. When I set it to that size, actually 832X480 (restriction of VideoRedo TVSuite), it still would not play with hardware acceleration. It would play with players that had software decoders.

I had to change the Level from 3.1 to 3.0 to make the file play in default movies and other players with hardware acceleration set on. Size alone would not play.

My program VideoRedo TVSuite set my input size of 832x480 to output of 768x448 when I selected Level 3.0 from their advanced options. According to the developer changing the Level overrode my input parameters. The final 768x448 scaled to full size with hardware acceleration.
[Nook Color General] lschroeder:
[ROM][April 2 2011] >>>>> phiremod nook V5.3 <<<<< OC Kernel | CM7 RC4 Base

I am using this ROM with OC Kernel that it came with. Made more changes from above post. See Edits in this post.

I just sit wi-fi and bluetooth to off. Watched then long pressed nook button and turn back on. Toogle both on and off several times. Not sure if I noticed any difference. Are you seeing differences with these both off?

Loading the file (a 1.30GB mp4 recording of an HBO movie made by the above post techniques) using File Manager and default Movies player. The original file was 15.2GB 2 hour 41 minute movie recorded by my Hauppauge HDPVR using my HTPC.

Using yxplayer Neon the specs are: Avatar.mp4; Video: avc1, 768x448; Audio: mp4a, 48000Hz, 2Ch, 153Kbps. Just loaded Vital Player Neon back. Used menu to set to hardware decode. I really like this player, but wish it had the zoom feature of yxplayer Neon. For example my Lawrence of Arabia, mp4 from HDNet Movies wide screen letterbox scales up perfectly with yxplayer where with Vital Player the faces are way to wide.

Edit: yxplayer Neon Video now appears as: avc1, 768x432

VideoRedo TVSuite added Nook Color profile: only change - Level: 3.0; of note - Avg Bitrate: 1000 Kbps; Max Bitrate: 3000 Kbps. Should I possibly crank Max Bitrate down?

Edit: Notice that Aspect ratio was not 16:9 with their 768x448, so I changed to 768x432. I decided to set Max Bitrate at 1500 Kbps. Kept Level at 3.0.

Final output reloaded into VideoRedo TVSuite gave this infromation from menu > Tools > Show Video Program Information: Encoding: H.264; Frame rate: 29.97 FPS; Aspect ratio 1.75:1; VBV buffer: Progressive; Entropy mode: CAVLC; Vide StreamED: xEO; Encoding size: 768x448; Header bit rate 3.000 Mbps; Profile: Baseline/3.0; Chroma: 4:2:0; Bit Rate: 1.107 Mbps; Format: ADTS; PES: StreamIDxCo

Edit: Changed values above now appears as Aspect ratio 16:9 and Header bit rate 1.500 Mbps when we view information. Video now appeared in Movies with the correct Aspect ratio. The final Bit Rate was not changed at all, only the Header bit rate.

Try it for yourself, latest trial at

http://www.videoredo.com/en/Download.htm

or latest beta at

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showthread.php?t=24328

Larry
[Nook Color General] chisleu:
My video player does not look like that. I have to click at the bottom on a button on the bar itself to move the video around. I changed back to system theme from honeybread but I still have to click on the bar.

I very rarely have 576 width video stutter at all. I can usually make it through that trailer without a stutter.

It does stutter sometimes. Wifi on or off. It stutters more often on 854 width video. :(
[Nook Color General] MedLine:
You're missing the point. That was a 3000 Kbps file that the NC was high-speed scrubbing through like it was silly putty, with hardware acceleration. I didn't push the resolution (576x240), but 3000 Kbps nonetheless, and the NC was pushing it around like it was nothing.

Have you played around with iMovie on iOS, you can't scrub thruogh video like what I'm seeing on the NC.

Kudos to CM7, and dalingrin OC kernel, that at least one user is seeing that kind of video performance.