Watching video on the Desire

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dpw

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Topic # 60678 30-Apr-2010 10:39

I'm getting a bit frustrated with movie watching on this phone. I have a few TV series episodes in the usual AVI files downloaded from Torrent and these are not viewable usually. So I convert them to MP4 H.264 files but still can't view them! The latest effort actually came up with audio, but no video show on the phone! I tried both the builtin player, and Meridian.

What format are people using for videos on this phone?

Thanks.
D.

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Linuxluver

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Reply # 325172 30-Apr-2010 10:58

I use "Act1 Video Player" as it seems to be the only player that lets you alter the aspect to fill the screen and get rid of the dark bars on either side.

To convert for Android, one good wee app is "iPodme" for Windows. Does a perfect job of converting DivX AVIs to a format my Nexus One (or any Android phone) can play.

I tried it on Stargate Universe S01E14. Perfect.

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dpw

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Reply # 325192 30-Apr-2010 11:24

Thanks - I have just installed Act1. It's quite nice but still can't play my previous H.264 file. I am using Handbrake on my Mac. Finally found something that works - encode it in MPEG4!

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Linuxluver

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Reply # 325197 30-Apr-2010 11:32

dpw: Thanks - I have just installed Act1. It's quite nice but still can't play my previous H.264 file. I am using Handbrake on my Mac. Finally found something that works - encode it in MPEG4!

That's a good choice as Android supports MPEG4 and and 3GPP. ;-)

You also need to be mindful of the screen size. Android may support the codec, but it won't play things larger than 480x800 on your screen. That would require real-time down-scaling...and I'm almost certain it doesn't do anything like that.

Example: "Media Player" can play lo-res *.wmv video content - from sdcard or streaming....but most are too large to play so people assume the free "Media Player" app doesn't work. It does work...just not with 95% of *.wmv files out there because their resolution is too high.

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dpw

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Reply # 325219 30-Apr-2010 12:05

Linuxluver:
That's a good choice as Android supports MPEG4 and and 3GPP. ;-)

I swear I have seen somewhere that Android can play H.264...obviously I was mistaken...

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daskip

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Reply # 325489 1-May-2010 06:14

I'm keeping a watch on coreplayer, they are building an android version at the moment that will play avis, mkvs, etc. So hopefully it will come eventually.

dpw

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Reply # 325497 1-May-2010 08:07

That'd be fantastic! I had CorePlayer on my E71 and WinMo and it was the best media player I've ever had. Can't wait for the Android version. Where did you see they are working on it?

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daskip

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Reply # 325589 1-May-2010 15:46

They've been updating the community in their forums and updates on twitter, been at it for a while apparently, its tied to the coreplayer 2.0 release... I'm not committing to android until they have it out so hopefully soon!

julianz

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Reply # 330174 14-May-2010 15:52

Just a reply to this - a Desire and a Legend arrived in our household this week so I've been playing around with them, and for video:

Both devices support H.264 just fine, but not some of the "high profile" features (same as nearly every other portable device)

Neither of them support the iPod-ish .m4v file extension that Handbrake likes, use .mp4 instead.

In Handbrake (I'm using 0.9.4 on Windows), use the iPod profile for the Legend as the screen size is right. You could probably dial the bitrate up a fair bit from the default 700, it looks a shade soft, but it works fine.

For the Desire use the iPhone profile and change the screen resolution. I moved the quality slider to about 26 and it looked superb.

stevenz

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Reply # 330199 14-May-2010 17:51

I've had mine playing H264 but you have to use a fairly low bitrate (sub 1Mbps) or it'll choke.

I use Meridian or mPlayer for video. Keeping my eye on Coreplayer though as it'll do Divx/Xvid when it turns up.

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Reply # 330259 14-May-2010 23:46

...and there is still the possibility of the update from HTC that is meant to give it native DivX playback, and rumours that Froyo (Android OS 2.2) will support DivX playback...

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