yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 10 General] nate1280:
Came across something interesting.

I have a bunch of movie trailers (downloaded from apple), so they're mov files. When using MX Player, they play in software mode and for the most part play smoothly. Based on data from mediainfo (AVC video and AAC audio), and even from MX Player itself, they should be playing in hardware mode.

If I remux them into mp4s (ffmpeg -i <file.mov> -acodec copy -vcodec copy <file.mp4>), then play those, they play in hardware mode. Sometimes I'll get a small stutter near the start, not sure what thats about.

I'm guessing MX Player still needs some updates to be fully functional on this tablet?

Also, VC-1 based videos (WMV) won't play in hardware mode either, I know there aren't many of those, but I like throwing every format at it to see what i can do. These files range from more or less smooth playback to total choppyness.

From what I can find, all of these should play hardware accelerated, unless I'm missing something.
[Nexus 10 General] BoneXDA:
Quick question on frequency:

Does the Nexus 10 play a 23.976 video at 48Hz, or does it upconvert to 60Hz therefore doubling a couple of frames for some very slight stuttering like on 60Hz monitors?
[Nexus 10 General] kavey:
I'm having similar issues - some videos that play perfectly through HW acceleration on my Nexus 7 seem to only work in software mode on the Nexus 10 - that's not too much of an issue for 720p, but for 1080p, vids chug a bit using SW decoding. Using SW decoding also kills the battery as the CPU is having to do the work instead of GPU offload.

Given that the Mali-T604 should be able to cope with these fine through HW acceleration, I am hoping this is just an issue with apps like MX Player etc that haven't been updated for N10 - I will be really unhappy if this doesn't get sorted as a key purpose I bought my Nexus 10 for was watching video on the move....
[Nexus 10 General] nate1280:
I also have an S3 (SGH-I747M), and decided to do some testing with it as well. I've setup MX Player with the same DTS codec as on the Nexus 10, so MX player is configured the same on both devices.

To use any form of H/W decoding on the Nexus 10, S/W audio must be selected, on the S3, it doesn't matter.

Using the exact same video files, the apple trailers (MOV format) play in H/W+ mode, and the remux MP4s play using H/W and H/W+. The VC-1 sample I have, plays perfectly fine in H/W mode.

All these files vary in bitrates 4mbps upto 40mbps with peaks of 10mbps to 43mbps

So to sum it up, this is what i've found so far.

WMV (VC-1) on the Nexus 10 = S/W, on the S3 = H/W

MOV (h264) on the Nexus 10 = S/W, on the S3 = H/W+ (H/W)

MP4 (h264) on the Nexus 10 = H/W, on the S3 = H/W (H/W+)

MKV ((h264) on the Nexus 10 = H/W, on the S3 = H/W (H/W+)

One of my sample files, detailed info:

http://trailers.apple.com/movies/sony_pictures/skyfall/skyfall-tlr2_h1080p.mov

skyfall-tlr2_h1080p.mov (from Apple Trailers) specs are identical in the remux'd version (using ffmpeg command form earlier)

Size: 179MB

Length: 2m 31s

Avg Bitrate: 9,819 Kbps

Peak Bitrate: 23,168 Kbps

Profile: Main@L4.0

Dimensions: 1920x816

FPS: 23.976

Audio: AAC 2 Channel 96 Kbps, 44.1 KHz

According to the Samsung product brief for the Exynos 5250 (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/product/application/detail?productId=7668)

It has listed:

Multi-format Video Hardware Codec: 1080p 60fps (capable of decoding and encoding MPEG-4/H.263/H.264 and decoding only MPEG-2/VC1/VP8)

Which, one would think that it should have no issues playing any of these files I've thrown at it.

So, as the previous poster mentioned, I'm really hoping its just an MX Player issue with the brand new hardware.
[Nexus 10 General] kavey:
Hmm I tried this myself - i.e. forcing SW mode for audio but all the files I've thrown at it (1080p mp4, 720p mkv etc) all only play through SW video decoding. That said I'm only using the built-in codec - are you using the alternate with DTS?
[Nexus 10 General] nate1280:
Ya, i'm using the DTS plugin in MX Player (on both devices).

Did some more digging, seems this device will only support hardware decoding of MPEG4, H263, AVC (H264), and VP8 video codecs. It appears as tho there are no hardware decoders in place for audio, only software based.
[Nexus 10 General] Johan1976:
Any ideas how to default custom DTS codec to software mode in MXplayer? A bit annoying to always need to go into audio menu and select sw mode. Also not very user friendly.

I also only get hw decoding only with about 50% of my 720p and 1080p mkv movies. Seems a bit strange since they should be coded the same way.

Skickat från min Nexus 10 via Tapatalk 2
[Nexus 10 General] nate1280:
In settings, decoder, if you tick S/W audio under the software decoder section, it will use software for audio decoding, even if you're using hardware for video decoding.

As for the hit & miss H/W decoding of videos, I really think its MX player causing this, but not 100% sure.
[Nexus 10 General] d0nald01:
Does this work with streaming mkv files through estrong file explorer? I tried the sample mkv file on the front page and it worked, but still no sound through the network
[Nexus 10 General] Johan1976:
Did not see that option. I must be blind :)

I will look again when I am home.

Streaming perfectly from my nas by starting the movie from ES explorer. With dts audio.

Skickat från min HTC Desire via Tapatalk 2
[Nexus 10 General] fireslayer26:
I just put the Timescapes 1440p file on my Nexus and it played flawlessly through MX player. Talk about stunning! The screen on this thing is amazing!
[Nexus 10 General] cognus:
can I ask a dumb question: can these issues be worked around by converting the file to some other type that DOES have proper support for hdwe decode? is the "golden one" mp4 or DVIX or something other?
[Nexus 10 General] shanndogg:
I would like to know this as well since one of the main reasons I got this was to be able to play uncompressed full BD rips in KMV which the Nexus 10 cannot do without one issue or another. Since it looks like I will have to convert them to smaller files with Handbrake or Ripbot, is MP4 a better container choice? Is it possible players like BS, MX, etc. will have HW support for MKV in the future, or is this device not capable of it at all?
[Nexus 10 General] nate1280:
using MP4 should work just fine for H/W, with any players, even stock. in an earlier post converted (remux) some MOV trailers and they play fine H/W accelerated.

MKV should also work fine in MX Player, haven't noticed any issues with the various files i've thrown at it.
[Nexus 10 General] Johan1976:
It seems like the support for mp4 container is better with the players at the moment. However the x264 codex is as I understand perfectly supported. I play most of my mkv 1080p x264 Dts movies with hw video and sw audio.

Skickat från min HTC Desire via Tapatalk 2
[Nexus 10 General] cognus:
thank you guys for this guidance.

for those that are using win7 or win8 to run your video conversions - I had enjoyed handbrake but found 'Freemake' even better for mp4 - very slick package for freebee
[Nexus 10 General] shanndogg:
Those files have been compressed though, right? Any full BD rip w/DTS HD I have tried has stuttering. I have tried VLC, BS, and MX.
[Nexus 10 General] Funkym0nkey:
Yup. I ripped how to train your dragon BR myself yesterday to check and the file does not play smooth on Nexus 10.

Its standard 1080P x264 encode in MKV container with relatively low bitrate of 9Mbps (had laptop, so couldnt wait for hours for high bitrate encode ).

It stutters every now and then. Same file plays flawlessly on my Note 2 even with MHL output and obviously onscreen as well.

Tried MX player as well as VLC and same thing happens to degree on both players.

Also downloaded the test files available on net.

Clip_1080_5sec_VC1_15mbps.WMV

Clip_1080_5sec_MPEG2_HD_15mbps.mpg

Clip_1080_5sec_10mbps_h264.mp4

Clip_1080_5sec_10mbps_h264.mp4

Anything that is not in MP4 container drops frames. (you can download these files by just googling them ).

I even took out sound from these files for sake of testing and the tablet still drops frames and stutters.

I hope this is fixed soon. This is real bummer as I extensively use my mobile devices to watch video content as I am away from home a lot. This is something my last 4 phones have handled without an issue. To spend time transcoding / remuxing every file from popular MKV container is pain.
[Nexus 10 General] mark.m.moran:
Which player are you then using on the Nexus 10 to actually play it mate?

Thanks,

M
[Nexus 10 General] kavey:
Really we shouldn't have to remux to get hardware acceleration as the chipset should support most of the codecs and profiles you might want to throw at it, but it seems that it may be necessary until the issues with players etc has been sorted.

I'm not familiar with Freemak, but I've used XenonMKV in the past to remux MKV files to MP4 with AAC audio and it works great (and quick as it's not transcoding the video, just audio).

Hope that helps
[Nexus 10 General] sidamos77:
I used handbrake with various parameters to convert Avengers blu-ray and always chose mp4. None of the results plays really smooth with any player.
[Nexus 10 General] nate1280:
Been doing testing for most of the day, watching logcat while playing various videos (mkv and mp4), and I can see in the logs whenever there is a brief pause, it appears as tho something goes out of sync, and it pauses slightly (60-350ms varies) so it can resync. So I'm hoping this is something that MX Player can address.

Also, digging more into the underlying system, I'm actually starting to be disappointed in the media capabilities of this tablet. Comparing its capabilities to other tablets (and phones) based on varying hardware (OMAP 4430, Tegra 3 T30L, S4 Pro, Exynos 4), its actually lacking in decoding capabilities in comparison. I really do hope this gets resolved somehow.

Just as an aside, based on information gathered (not actual tests because I don't have the hardware in hand) the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (OMAP 4430, w/ SGX540) can decode more formats (both audio/video) hardware accelerated then this "flagship" tablet.

I also compared the Nexus 7 to the Transformer T300 (same Tegra 3 T30L chip used in both), and they both have different hardware acceleration capabilities when it comes to decoding. And again, this is just based on gathered information (digging into OTA files) and not actual hardware usage)
[Nexus 10 General] freshlysqueezed:
I transcoded avatar bluray to mp4 h.264 with an rf setting of 22 and the default audio setting (aac). It plays fine with mx player with h/w decoding.
[Nexus 10 General] Johan1976:
I'm using MX player at the moment. Seems best so far.

However I have a lot of mkv 720p and 1080p "scene" releases where like 50% plays with hw. I don't see any pattern since "scene" releases should follow certain coding "rules" .

Skickat från min HTC Desire via Tapatalk 2
[Nexus 10 General] e.mote:
>the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (OMAP 4430, w/ SGX540) can decode more formats

If you want built-in multimedia support, don't buy a Nexus device. Nexus toys run plain-vanilla Android, which means H.264/AAC in MP4 container only. SoC != device. That the SoC supports a format doesn't mean the device will. In between are the software bits, things like codecs that need to be licensed.

Samsung makes PMPs, and its non-Nexus Android devices enjoy the carryover benefit of expanded AV support. If you want vids, buy a Galaxy Note 10.1 (although I note that DTS is still not supported).

For the Johnny-come-latelies, mods to various ffmpeg-based players were linked to in earlier parts of this thread, so go back and follow the links to get your MKVs to play w/ DTS.

Lastly, if you get your vids from the Interwebz, be aware that there are infinite variations on how the streams are encoded and muxed, and there will always be the odd duck that won't play, or won't play smoothly, shoulda-couldas notwithstanding.
[Nexus 10 General] sidamos77:
mp4 are hw accelerated alright, but they still do not play smooth. I tried Google Movies, MX and various other players. It's the same with all players, so hw acceleration must have a bug. I tried this on 2 different N10 with the same results.
[Nexus 10 General] indianajonze:
what types of mp4s are you playing that are not smooth? i haven't have any issues at all with mp4 files (that have been decently encoded)
[Nexus 10 General] CazeW:
That's strange as all my mp4 files have played smoothly. Can you post a clip?

We shouldn't need to remux but I found this nifty tool on the doom9 forums for quick and easy mkv to mp4 conversion.

And lets be clear here, mkv is a container, just like avi or mp4 are and has nothing to do with actual codecs. Mkv in itself cannot cannot be hardware accelerated as there is nothing to be accelerated, you could almost consider it like a zip that just holds information on how the video/audio/subtitle files are contained in one file.

Why don't our mkvs work then?

That's because AOSP Android doesn't include the code on how to open the container (which I guess Samsung has on some of their devices). Because of this the players have to implement their own code on how to open the mkv container and the code on how to send the h264 stream to the HW decoder seems to have changed because of 4.2 or Exynos 5 (or both). That is why it still works in SW as that hasn't changed.

I can't say for sure though why some mkvs play fine while others don't play at all, I can only guess that is because of some codec value that the interpreter sends incorrectly to the HW decoder.
[Nexus 10 General] MrGrimace:
Thinking out loud:

So something in the ROM running on any device would look at the extension and begin to parse the header of the video file you are trying to play to determine if it is supported.

The SoC has native support for some forms of hardware decoding. Are the routines that call the functions on that SoC proprietary to SAMSUNG and Google did not pay for them is the gist of what I am hearing?

OR

The support in the SoC is there and the calls can be made, but there is no software that exists that has been written/built to take advantage of the onboard decoder for this new chip?

Difference between: There is no hardware support YET and there can never be HW support until someone pays SAMSUNG.

EDIT:

Using this as an opportunity to learn more about android's source. So I found reference to android.media.DecoderCapabilities which looks like it reads a C/C++ compiled library called "media_jni" to discover native support for video/audio decoding and returns VideoDecoder objects.

I don't know if those objects are used for the actual decoding in Gallery or are just descriptors but assuming the former, then to add native video support you would (again, making a lot of assumptions) edit and rebuild the media_jni library with new VideoDecoder objects that know how to make use of the Exynos's "Multi-format Video Hardware Codec".

This code probably already exists on non-stock Exynos 5 devices, but I don't know if they are required to open source that kind of stuff. (Or I could be chasing the wrong path from the beginning :) in which case please educate me if you are willing)

EDIT EDIT: (sorry)

Found some source for media_jni. Looks like it still needs to reference codecs that are compiled for the system so it comes back to are those available for the SoC from SAMSUNG or do you have to pay for them when you buy their hardware and I am sure it is the latter. (Again, If I am off-base let me know. It's the only way i'll learn. :D )
[Nexus 10 General] sidamos77:
Those are Blu-rays converted to mp4 by Handbrake.
[Nexus 10 General] cognus:
at risk of going off-topic: played back on Nexus 7 or ??? with which player? on the conversion did you option for 1080p?, 720p?

did you then retry using some other package? there is a good deal of meat on these and others at > http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-audio-video-format-conversion-program.htm
[Nexus 10 General] Funkym0nkey:
The player I am having least issues with is BSPlaye on this tablet.

It does resort to software processing for most videos, but its software processing at the moment is performing near perfect compared to MX player which has been my main go to default media player for more than a year now.

So at least for now, that is what I am using. MX at the moment definitely cannot playback files properly even with software decoding. It keeps skipping frames. BSplayer is much better. If anyone else can test it out and confirm this, will be good reference for others.
[Nexus 10 General] ady702:
Is BSPlayer the best for MKV streaming for Nexus 10? I tried MX Player, video was fine but no sound for some reason.

edit just saw the link in the 1st post about DTS sound will try that
[Nexus 10 General] sidamos77:
720p. On the N10, of course. Tried MX and Google player. I think those are the only ones with hw decoding at the moment.
[Nexus 10 General] e.mote:
>However I have a lot of mkv 720p and 1080p "scene" releases where like 50% plays with hw. I don't see any pattern since "scene" releases should follow certain coding "rules".

Heh, I Goog on "scene encoding rules" to see what comes up. Cripes! I didn't realize warez peeps were such natural-born bureaucrats! :)

http://scenerules.irc.gs/ Constitution of Global Warez Dudez

TV Roolez

http://scenerules.irc.gs/n.html?id=2012_SDTVx264r.nfo

Yay! AVI/XviD is dead finally! No more 700MB/1.4GB crap! :)

Sob no more --zones. That was a staple of ye olde Nandub, squeezing out every bit from the intro and outro. Let us have a moment of silence for the dear departed... <reminiscing over my Doom9 days>

Yay again! No more 2-pass crap. Peeps are finally getting the message and using one-pass CRF. That only took 4 years...

Looks like folks are still stuck on --level 3.1. Most toys nowaday can handle 16 reframes. This should be left floating.

For ya XBox warezers...

http://scenerules.irc.gs/t.html?id=twmvrs_v4.1.nfo
[Nexus 10 General] Johan1976:
That's what I like with the scene. I know what I get and it just work. HW decoding works like a breeze. At least on my HTPC but for some reason not on my Nexus 10.

Skickat från min Nexus 10 via Tapatalk 2
[Nexus 10 General] kavey:
I'm not sure that it's quite so simple - I do know what you mean about Samsung - I have had an SII and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and yes their container/codec support is great. However if is was the case that nexus devices were limited, then the Nexus 7 would also have these issues, which it doesn't.

The N7 perfectly plays 720p/1080p MKVs using HW acceleration once a player like MX has split the MKV container, however the N10 does not.

Both my N7 and N10 are on the same 4.2.1 base so should share the same codecs etc, and with the improved SoC capabilities of the N10, these files should play perfectly; for some reason they do not :(

I really hope it's just an issue with the players needing an update to fix the splitting/decoding/sync issues.
[Nexus 10 General] Rinzler:
What program did you use?

What was the AVC profile and level?
[Nexus 10 General] cognus:
that's interesting... Isn't that exactly or close- to what the iPAD Mini spec is for full HD playback? I was reading up on that this morning and best I can tell its a ditto. other than this, there are some limitations ... quite a few
[Nexus 10 General] mark2222:
There's an update for mx player including full screen playback fix.
[Nexus 10 General] MrGrimace:
The codecs in question would have to be recompiled for the specific Exynos processor and graphics that Nexus 10 uses. All of that was already done in the case of the Nexus 7 because it used the Tegra 3 which already had codecs for the TF201 and others from the same manufacturer (ASUS). So in that case it was a carry forward.

For the Nexus 10, someone needs to get codecs that are compiled for Exynos 5250 and add them to the ROM. This would have to be Google by way of Samsung or some bright community member when another tablet with the Exynos 5250 is created and has that support.

:( (I think)
[Nexus 10 General] JLowe:
Is there any way to mount a BR iso and play it?
[Nexus 10 General] Rinzler:
This is bullsh*t that this "high end" tablet cannot play 720p or 1080p 2 channel audio mp4 videos smoothly.

Has anybody heard anything about fixing this codec problem?

And please....the "I don't have that problem" posts don't do anything to fix an issue I've confirmed with many other people.
[Nexus 10 General] dust.:
Well then you should've also confirmed that this is likely not a hardware issue, but an issue with the media players.
[Nexus 10 General] Rinzler:
No player that I have tried has played mp4s smoothly... Even the es file browser player.

Epic fail on Google's part for this shortcoming. I shouldn't have to try so many different players to get this to work.
[Nexus 10 General] dust.:
Strange... because every mp4 I've played so far on MX, BS, and XBMC have played flawlessly.
[Nexus 10 General] khal_nayak:
y doesnt mx player use hardware decoder for divx and xvid, r the codecs for the same also missing?

---------- Post added at 04:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:49 PM ----------

tried hardware decoder for mkv files encoded with x264 and ac3, very choppy, almost impossible to view, switching to software decoder solves it, audio works fine both ways
[Nexus 10 General] MrGrimace:
Based on testing with stock player: the ONLY video codec registered to play on the machine seems to be H.264 (wrapper is software dependent but native supports MP4) .

The Exynos 5250 claims support for about 7 other well used formats. This is a software issue.

If/When another tablet comes out with the Exynos 5250, I believe we will get our hardware support. The Nexus 7 has a lot of support that was grandfathered in from the Transformer Prime (another Tegra 3 system) for example.

Nobody was paid/Google did not care about hardware codec support for this tablet. Kind of a bummer.
[Nexus 10 General] irishrally:
I've been streaming 10-30GB bluray rips in mkv container to the Nexus 10 using Plex on my home network. Quality is amazing. I've already watched a few movies I was just opening to test because they looked so good. I'll try some external players with aMPdroid and MP, and copy some files to the N10.
[Nexus 10 General] MrGrimace:
Do you know if Plex is Transcoding the file during the transfer?
[Nexus 10 General] irishrally:
Plex will transcode depending on what bandwidth settings are selected. I was streaming at 8 Mbps which should be pretty close to enough bandwidth to push this quality video through without transcoding, but I'm not sure. I'd guess there is some transcoding going on because there is no directplay setting in the android app like there is on the desktop app.

EDIT: it was definitely transcoding. I found the setting to turn transcoding off and it said I needed ~12Mbps, and my network couldn't handle that. I'll copy some files to the device and see what happens with all these players.
[Nexus 10 General] khal_nayak:
how come when i select any file to play in es explorer, i get the list of players as mx player and vlc and no stock android player, i checked in settings and apps but its not there anywhere, does this have to do with the region where it being used?
[Nexus 10 General] MrGrimace:
I think it has to do with supported extensions. If MKV is not supported then VideoPlayer won't show. To bypass this long press on the file and open as a video for all video options.
[Nexus 10 General] khal_nayak:
ok now it shows it in list. one question, will there be any chance google fixing this codec issue or do we need to depend on 3rd party developers or device using same same processors for a solution which allows all media files to be played with hardware acceleration? is this issue on cyanogenmod 10 as well?
[Nexus 10 General] MPJ88:
Either MX player or VLC nightly build works for anything i throw at it. Make sure hardware video decoding is on and possibly software for audio.

There will always be something that doesn't work or needs a bit of negotiating when its a brand new piece of hardware, with a brand new OS and the latest highest res android tablet. You will have to be patient about some things, I bought mine knowing this.