yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
I think it's about time for us to clear a few things up concerning video playback on the X1.

The X1 can play most codecs using Coreplayer Mobile.

However, to optimize video's for the X1 and windows media player, a converter such as SUPER can be used.

Please note that optimizing your X1 is advised. See this thread for more information.

Now what I would like to find out is what settings work best for the X1 to playback video with a few different preset configurations.

What we need to know is the optimal:

Resolution

Framerate

Video Codec

Video Bitrate

Audio Codec

Audio Bitrate

Audio Sampling Frequency

Container

And any other/better tools to use.

To be able to better compare results I've uploaded the Crysis Warhead HD Trailer. You can download it here.

Please use this trailer to compare and post your settings in this thread.

This thread will be updated with new information as it arises. The second post contains an example of settings I used and will be updated with user posted settings that work well.

--- Important information ---

* CorePlayer is not hardware accelerated. This means that CorePlayer is more likely to play your video's choppy. The built-in media player, however, does have hardware acceleration. To get the best video performance, at this moment the built-in media player is your best choice.

* The h.264 codec is supported by the built-in media player and currently has the best compression vs quality ratio.

--- Downloads ---

Coreplayer Mobile

SUPER
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
--- Source file ---

Setting: HD Quality - 63.4MB @ 0hrs, 1min, 32sec.

Resolution: 1280 x 720

Framerate: 30

Video Codec: WMV9

Video Bitrate: 6090 kb/s

Audio Codec: WMA9

Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100

Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s

Container: WMV

Download example here: Source file

--- Settings --- Here the optimal settings will be provided as they become available.

Configuration: Low Quality - 4.7MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 280MB for 1.5hrs of movie)

Resolution: 400x240

Framerate: 25

Video Codec: h.264

Video Bitrate: 192 kb/s

Audio Codec: AAC

Audio Sampling Freq.: 22050

Audio Bitrate:: 64 kb/s

Container: mp4

Download example here: Low Quality

Configuration: Medium Quality - 5.9MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 350MB for 1.5hrs of movie)

Resolution: 400x240

Framerate: 25

Video Codec: h.264

Video Bitrate: 384 kb/s

Audio Codec: AAC

Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100

Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s

Container: mp4

Download example here: Medium Quality

Configuration: High Quality - 10.4MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 620MB for 1.5hrs of movie)

Resolution: 608x368

Framerate: 30

Video Codec: h.264

Video Bitrate: 768

Audio Codec: AAC

Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100

Audio Bitrate:: 96 kb/s

Container: mp4

Download example here: High Quality

Configuration: Highest Quality - 16.8MB @ 1min, 31sec. (+- 1000MB for 1.5hrs of movie)

Resolution: 800x480

Framerate: 30

Video Codec: h.264

Video Bitrate: 1294 kb/s

Audio Codec: AAC

Audio Sampling Freq.: 44100

Audio Bitrate:: 128 kb/s

Container: mp4

Download example here: Highest Quality

---

When posting settings, supply the same information as I do here.
[XPERIA X1 General] jsbutran:
Good you have come up with this.. once we all share I think we can reach to as what best converter settings we can use for X1... After reading lot of material... I use these settings which gives me full screen decent/smooth run movies.. had no problems at all... but don't know if they are the best settings... check it out :

Xvid MPEG-4 Codec, 569 Target bitrate, 23.976 fps, Screen Size 640x384, Sound Mp3 128 to 160 kbit/s. Encoder used : TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress. ( The best converter with total cut/edit features )

Let me know the results.
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
Nero Recode 3

AVC in MP4, 400x240, ~400kbps

HE-AAC, ~80kbps,

Runs excellent in the Mediapanel and did quite good (but worse) in the Coreplayer 1.2.5, when I still had it installed. Switched to the Panel completely for playing back my mp4 rips.

Uh, theres a template. Well then, again:

Resolution	400x240

Codec	AVC/h.264

Framerate	25 or as source if lower

Video Bitrate	~400kbps

Audio Sampling	as source

Audio Bitrate	HE-AAC, ~80kbps
[XPERIA X1 General] romeo0119:
I have tried so many diff combination but still haven't found one optimal to use with the x1. This thread will be great for me to do more testing. I usually super or aimersoft. Please chime in if you use those above software to encode video.
[XPERIA X1 General] SquidgyB:
I'm at work right now so can't be 100% sure, but as I remember (it's discussed in threads in the main SE X1 forum section) for the highest quality you can get on x1, encode the files for Baseline 1.3 h264, 800x450 max resolution, 30fps, and play them on wm media player or the media panel.

Videos will not run well at anything near that resolution on core player or tcpmp, they don't use the hardware acceleration that's available to media player and the media panel, although tcpmp and coreplayer will handle many more codecs.
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
Thanks for the additions people, I've uploaded a better video file to test with. It's HD by default so you can actually see the difference between high quality encoded and low/medium.

For those who post configurations, please (please!) stick to the template, I will try and reproduce the settings so I can judge them and add them to the topic.

I would like more information on the hardware acceleration topic as well;

1) Why isn't coreplayer hardware accelerated?

2) Can it be changed so it is?

3) Are there any other/better video players out there?
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
Because the driver specifications are not available and the hardware cant be accessed by third party programmers

CorePlayer team said in their forum they got hold of Qualcomm and are working to provide hardware acceleration for any MSM7xxx chipset having the graphics hardware in one of the next builds of the player

Better regarding what aspect?
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
Thanks for your reply. I'd like to see what CorePlayer can do if they manage to get the hardware acceleration working.

Better regarding smooth playback and codec support. Perhaps there's a way to add codecs to the Winmo media player?

EDIT: Updated with new configurations, all based on h.264 (for best compression/quality ratio)

EDIT2: Added another setting, tested for quality and uploaded all examples for your viewing pleasure.

EDIT3: Tested the movies on my X1. From low to high the quality is visibly better every time, so that's a good thing. On the highest quality setting proposed above, the graphics were stunning, however, it ran choppy, it looked like my X1 couldn't keep up with that high bitrate & resolution. I'd like more opinions, who else will test them!? (Tested with windows mobile media player).
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
Who can help me test the highest settings?
[XPERIA X1 General] Jabe:
Look at my post (#31) here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=460294&page=4

especially this:

I think we are talking about the same thing. I've noticed that increasing resolution does cause some problems. I use Media Panel for playing my videos.
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
I do use the Mediapanel as well, it might be imagination but I found it to be the best player regarding playback performance.

Upscaling a smaller source file in image size will worsen the quality massively. Think about how a codec works: upscaling means making the image look "soft" or "washed out". These soft or washed out images are then used by the codec to predict differencies and/or movements between the frames and then this data is used to render the subsequent frames. Since the whole image (being washed out) figuratively looks "all the same" (its just a soup of different unspecific colours) the codec has hardcore problems predicting movements between the single frames. Thus the prediction is bad, based on an already bad image, multiplies the bad effect onto every subsequent frame.
[XPERIA X1 General] Mark A Cilenti:
Display Driver Assist - Does it improve video ?

This is an interesting thread, please let me add my experience of converting and watching video on my Xperia.

Firstly this program DVD Catalyst won the top award for converting DVD to almost any format to any resolution, any bitrate.

Here is the URL : http://www.pocketdvd.ca/products/dvd catalyst 3.html

Here is the URL for SmartPhone Awards list for all the best in catagory software for video coversion for Pocket PC 2008.

http://www.smartphonemag.com/cms/awards/2008/winners_ppc_apps#CatDVD_Converters

If you download the trial of DVD Catalyst you can have 15 days of free fully functional DVD conversions, thats enough to convert almost anybodies collection. I do intend to buy this when I get round to it.

I experimineted with different formats and resolutions and here were my conclusions.

Format - Sony Media Panel seems to like the 3gp format best ( subjective )

Resolution - I use the maximum 800 X 480

Bitrate - 750 kbps though 500 is still very good.

Audio 128 kbps Stereo

All these options can easily be changed in the converter, you can set your PC Processor prioirty to high ( recommended) or highest if you not doing anything else and a complete 2 hour DVD, with high prioirty for processor will be converted and ready for copying to your X1 in about 35 - 40 mins.

Also I found my Xperia settings had an impact on video playback quality, none more so than Glyph cache, which I now have at 128kb.

I am currently experimenting with the " Display driver preloader " you can find on the thread by ell82...http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=462346

In it he uses this file, libgles_cl.dll, copied into the windows directory, to add hardware acceleration to some 3D games. This as close as we have come so far in adding hardware acceleration across the board to all programs on the X1, obviously this needs some testing and benchmarking, something this thread is very good at.

This file does not replace any windows files, you can add it to WINDOWS folder and remove it at will, it doesn't hurt, over right or harm anything.

Im using it on and off, id like to see some hard data on it, it may not be the magic bullet we have all been waiting for, but it could be a move in the right direction.

View attachment 139876
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
3GP is not a format, its only a container. The content, video wise, is either SP, ASP or AVC video (mostly, accepts a wide range of codecs though) and audio is AMR or AAC. In fact you don't follow the standard at all, your files are NOT 3GP COMPILANT. Since 3GP is just a simplified version of the MP4 container anyway, of which the latter is more versatile regarding possible content and resolution restrictions, I would definitely abandon 3GP and go for MP4. Of course with AVC video and a flavor of AAC audio.
[XPERIA X1 General] gold333:
Maybe noob question (I haven't got an sdhcmicro card so cannot test myself):

On my hx2790 tcpmp (ver 0.72, last version) always worked a treat on default 700-1500mb divx and xvids. You loaded lots of movies on a 8gb card and opened them with tcpmp. Some movies required AC3 sound and there was a plug in for that too. The movies played back 100% flawlessly.

Can we not just do this in the X1?
[XPERIA X1 General] Jabe:
no, not yet.
[XPERIA X1 General] dadeadman:
700mb dvd rips run fine in coreplayer, but for fast scenes it lags like hell
[XPERIA X1 General] kr00t0n:
Here's what I do:

Open PocketDivXEncoder

Select the 'HD TV' option

Resize to 400xABC (maintain aspect ratio)

Video quality = 70

Audio = max

Coreplayer runs it flawlessly and looks great, even fast scenes.

Watched the first season of both Burn Notice and Merlin with no issues in action packed scenes :)
[XPERIA X1 General] llecaroz:
totally agreed with coreplayer ! really better than movie player in the XMB Panel !!!! you can find my thread here : http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=3093597#post3093597

Don't know why it is so slow with the XMB Panel & so better in core player !

Core Player : reverserd enginered the chipset.... really difficult thing & to be really/fully optimized but it works better than the std XMB movie player !!!! (written by who ? sony developers or htc ? or together ?, they should buy corecodec ! ;) )
[XPERIA X1 General] gold333:
But tcpmp 0.72 doesn't? Tcpmp was the ultimate micro footprint everything player for mobile devices.
[XPERIA X1 General] N!ghty:
HTC Touch HD

i dont have an x1 (bcoz i eventually chose the touch hd over the x1 ^^) but on the touch hd the performance seems to be best with those settings:

Container: AVI

Video Codec: FLV
Audio Codec: MP3

Resolution: 560x304

Video Bitrate: 1200 kbps
Audio Bitrate: 128 kbps

since the touch hd and x1 are very similar in hardware u might give those settings a try...
[XPERIA X1 General] llecaroz:
I personnally tried with two video bitrate : 1200 & 600... & due to the screen size, there is not any really visible difference in term of quality of decreasing from 1200 to 600 !

even in 600, the quality is top ! & really suffisant !

& the file is twice smaller (480MB instead of 840MB) !

Video : 600kbps approved on mine with core player 1.3.0 (which is really better than the XMB Movie Player !)

Audio : 64kbps ! no need to set 128kbps, you will not see real differences & the file will also be more smaller ! first instead of putting too high unuseful settings, change your SE original headset with good quality one having a large response range (10<>28000Hz). I personnaly change for a Philipps one ! & you will see that 64 is top ! & you don't need to set 128 !
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
Alright, a lot of discussion is going on here. First of all I think it's time to make a separation between Coreplayer(tcpmp) and Windows Mobile Media Player (XMB Panel).

Personally I think the XMB Panel is better because it is hardware accelerated.

As I stated in the first post, we should figure out what codecs and containers work best, with what bitrates, resolutions etc. Thing is, we need to sort what codec is best to use with either Coreplayer or XMB Panel. For XMB Panel I think h.264 contained in MP4 is best, for that gives good compression and is properly supported by the XMB Panel. As for Coreplayer, I can imagine an AVI will play just as well, as for quality however, I think AVI is inferior. Opinions?

To summarize, I want to find out which codecs & containers to use on either Coreplayer or XMB Panel.

Edit: I think it's a good idea to start out with a baseline: h.264 encoded in MP4 as my first posts suggest. If you think you have a better setting then first encode this setting, try it and then encode your own setting and try it. Compare the two and post results. I'm not sure if there's a way to get some hard facts (Coreplayer does have a benchmark option), but at least it'll give some base for comparison. Also, I find that there's a lot of difference between X1 users, depending on ROM and systems settings, so don't assume that what goes for you, goes for everyone.
[XPERIA X1 General] llecaroz:
From my part, here is my feedback :

XMB Panel : 480x200 with h264/aac & 1200kbps=it hangs by closing the player & returning back to the XMB

CorePlayer : Totally laggy

XMB Panel : 480x200 with still h264/aac & 600kbps=crash, totally hangs the media palyer & XMB !

CorePlayer, really fluent ! cooooooooool ! no quality differences comparing to the 1200kbps !

CorePlayer is able to read h264/mp3 but not the XMB Media Player returning an error message about encoding.

CorePlayer & XMB Media Player : are not able to read h264/ac3 encoding.

In all tests, sounds are encoded in 64kbps ! no need to go upper ! as I said, first change your headset to a high quality one !

Really a good movie player using CorePlayer 1.3.0 & 480x200 h264/aac 600kbps. File is around 480MB for around 1H30 of movie.

Hope that will help you to create a sume up/summarize in a table format.

Louis
[XPERIA X1 General] gold333:
You really don't want any of this. What are you going to do? Sit there all day and convert downloaded movies for your phone?

You just want to load your xvids on an 8gb card take it with you and drop them in tcpmp or core and have them play. Alot of people are reporting 100% success using this. That's what we should work to, not spending hours reencoding every singge movie you want to watch frame by frame.
[XPERIA X1 General] llecaroz:
I never download movies, only converting my own DVD movies. that's why I tried to find correct parameters ! like lot of other users ripping themselves & finding players to be slow. anyway, finally I found the correct parameters for coreplayer as it is the best player on xperia. & that is really interesting when you travel everytime. So, I don't sit there all the day & convert downloaded movies. it is less than 30 minutes on a Quad core while you are working at your home or office ! & I also rip all my Audio CD to fill my memory !

personnaly, my XPeria is also a really good enternment (the best at this time) tool allowing me to listen music, watching movies, communicating (mail, browser), & for sure receiving phone calls without disturbing anybody like other having distincts mp3 players+PC+phones, ect....
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
OT: What we don't want is off topic posts that contribute nothing and are loaded with narcissism. Even if we can play them directly, it would be nice to convert and compress them without losing quality, so we can stuff the microSD even fuller.

The sample file I used is so big, the X1 just can't handle it (6MB per second bitrate), so it's a bit hard to compare the before/after. It can only be used to test several optimal settings. For those that have already ripped their movies to for instance AVI and want to convert for optimal settings on the X1 I'm going to look for a clip we can use to test those settings as well.

As for now, I want more tests with h.264! :D Post your results people!
[XPERIA X1 General] gold333:
Consider it my way of helping the noob. Some may think ou need to do all this to watch movies, whereas you dont. Apologies to the perfectionists who reencode for optimum quality. Geeks. :)
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
Usually happens when you didnt stick to the baseline profile. The Panel doesnt give proper warnings/errors it just reverts back to the filelist.

Well, MP3 is inferiour to AAC so you should prefer AAC over MP3. AC-3 is similar to AAC but AAC offers better compression and more importantly compatibility, especially when you intend to encode stereo only; AC-3 is mainly intended for 5.1 or other multi-channel audio, which makes no sense on a mobile handset. So h.264/AVC and AAC seems to be the way to go.
[XPERIA X1 General] foxvengeor:
And the media panel? What can he play?
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
WMV, 3GP and MP4 with the usual suspects of content: WMA/WMV and ASP and AVC.
[XPERIA X1 General] foxvengeor:
Run fine with coreplayer but can't do anything with the Mediapanel and the MP4...I've test some things.... Bitrates , resolution .... But crash or black screen .... :(
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
Heh, I know what you mean. Ended up uninstalling the media panel. It annoyed be beyond reasoning. Even if the media panel played my vids, it decided to do so only in portrait mode, but with the video scaled as if it was landscape mode, showing only half the vid. Horrifically made, that panel.
[XPERIA X1 General] foxvengeor:
yeah but it is the only one which use the gpu acceleration...

:( It's the reason that i want to encode a video to this panel and not for coreplayer. Normally the SE panel will be more fluently... As a future core player 2.0
[XPERIA X1 General] llecaroz:
as I said in one of my previous post, exactly the same behavior with the mediapanel ! I only use coreplayer as it is more robust comparing to the first one !
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
Then you didnt set the encoding settings right. I agree, the Panel itself isnt that ergonomical, true, but does its main job just fine. The panel can play all kinds of resolutions (it scales them up or down) and all kinds of bitrates (the higher of course the laggier, as expected...), as long as the files got encoded correctly.

It cannot handle files encoded with profile settings which do not follow the baseline profile. So its is abolutely crucial that you only use encoder options which dont leave the baseline profile borders.
[XPERIA X1 General] ninja.rogue:
@ Shaggo

it seems you are quite experienced: can you please enlighten me about the possible options? I mean, you referred to borders of profile: can you be more precise?

Thank you very much and happy new year
[XPERIA X1 General] llecaroz:
Totally agreed! schaggo, could you please specify, the parameters that you used to rip/encode your videos ?, due to the number of tests, I am really interested to know which parameters you used to obtain finaly an acceptable quality of video/sound with any lag !?????

For sure, look above & you will make happy lot of members here as you see to be a so good expert ;), your contribution will be so great !

thx in advance

Louis

(Personnaly, I found the correct parameters but as i said, anyway, the best quality with nolag is obtained in in coreplayer, not in the mediaplayer...)
[XPERIA X1 General] schaggo:
I'm not experienced but I did do some reading (in the xda-developers AVC Bible btw!) and got some knowledge on what AVC (h.264) is, what concepts there are behind it and what profiles mean.

AVC offers several features which can or cant be used while encoding. Some of the features give better quality, but demand more processing power while decoding. Some speed up the encoding or decoding process and so on. Now the people behind AVC sat together and defined a couple of sets which define which features are used and which not. Those sets are referred to as profiles.

So to give you an idea: there's the baseline profile, when you use the baseline profile all the advanced AVC features are deactivated to produce files, which are compatible with every AVC compatible device or program.

There is, for example, a main profile. In the main profile some of the advanced features of AVC are used.

Theres the extended profile, it uses even more AVC features.

And of course there is a high profile, respectively several iterations of the high profile using some of the most advanced AVC features. These files look especially good, but also need alot of processing power while decoding. And not every player out there (the X1 Panel for example ;)) supports every AVC feature and if you use them all, the files wont play on every player.

Read more about profiles in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Profiles

Ok, now, the Mediapanel of the X1 ONLY supports baseline compilant files. If you use an option which shouldnt be used in the baseline profile, the X1 wont play it, the application either shows a black screen or crashes alltogether.

Problem is, most of the encoding programs dont give you profiles to chose, only options. I for example use Nero Recode, and Recode only gives me some checkboxes for options. I now had a look at the options, checked the internet if they are allowed in the baseline profile and deactivated all the options, the baseline profile and thus the X1 doesnt like. Now I have excellent video playback in the mediapanel of the X1.

Here a list of options (translated from German) Nero Recode offers, which I had to deactivate:

Bidirectional prediction

CABAC

Weighted prediction

Interlanced Encoding

8x8 transformation

So check your encoding programs options if you can find something which breaks the baseline profile. Do that using (hint hint) Google for example ;)
[XPERIA X1 General] Angelusz:
Hmm, wasn't the blackstone equal to X1 when it comes to hardware?

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=446366