Droid's video playback is weak and not much better than G1

[rushmore]

Folks, I have had the Droid for two days now and I am a huge video fan. Here are my observations and also referring to the G1 and N900 (same chipset as Droid).

1. Vids above 640X480 do not seem to play unless low bit rates
2. Some vids above 640X480 lock the device up and you have to remove the battery. The same files do not play on the G1 either, but they at least either have sound and no picture or do not load up. I have NEVER had a video lock the G1 up and have to hard reboot.
3. Lower res (480X320) 4:3 vids fill the top and bottom screen, but widescreen vids have borders around the entire display. This suggests very weak scaling options in the Droid's drivers.

N900 scales to correct aspect ratio for lower and higher res vids and plays high res MP4 with no problem. Not to mention Xvid, Divx, WMV, Mpeg, etc. (I know Droid is just MP4)

Given that Droid and the N900 both have the same chipsets, it is obvious that Motorola failed to have video drivers written to use the features of the 3430 chipset and the 2.0 framework does not allow for any improvements either. This device should be eating MP4 for breakfast, but it is choking.

Android and Motorola are holding the video performance back BIG TIME and just like the G1, you have to decode to specific parameters and aspect ratios or the videos will not play or not fit the screen correctly.


Overall still a great device (except for the sd card behind the battery issue), but I prefer the N900 due to better video drivers and more video codecs as well as 32gb built in plus sd card slot.

 

[tc1]

My playback is fine maybe you should try a different video converter?....see my other thread..... http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-audio-video/2024-i-found-good-video-converter-droid.html

And Im sure divx,xvid etc will be coming soon.

 

[Breakmyfootoff]

Yeah, not sure whats wrong with the video format you're using, but mine is playing movies beautifully. My little brother was here yesterday with his G1 and the same videos that played great on my Droid were VERY choppy on his G1.

 

[rushmore]

Yeah, not sure whats wrong with the video format you're using, but mine is playing movies beautifully. My little brother was here yesterday with his G1 and the same videos that played great on my Droid were VERY choppy on his G1.

If you endode to Droids native res they play fine, but my point is about lower res vids, since they take up less space on the card and it surprises me that Android still does not have decent drivers for scaling video.

Is is not the chipset, but is the restrictive OS. Android needs to allow each phone to have its own drivers for their chipsets.

 

[sun]

Unfortunately I am having difficulties like hte original poster. I have my own droid and access to a nearly virgin install droid (non technical friend). I have been encoding various videos with various settings on various pc using different software and I cannot get anything more than 640 x 480 with 24fps and 750bitrate to work.

I have encoded using Handbrake and also using the encoder on my HP Mediasmart Server. I had to tweak the server pretty severely to get it to encode the video with setting mentioned above so that they play. I am not sure what the deal it but its pretty disappointing to have something like this holding back the droid.

Does anyone have an suggestions? I have tried to encode to the native resolution and they dont work. i tried (Motorola Droid – Best Video Format Conversion Settings Using Free HandBrake | Fun Tech Talk) encoding to 848x480 as someone suggested. I found a post here with suggestions on video for the droid and even the sample video they uploaded wouldn't play.

Help

-sun

 

[GeLopez]

My video playback is great both from downloaded movies and DVD I have encoded myself

 

[lagtastic]

edited:

bleh the second i post a comment, i get a bad encode lol

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Have a look through the posts here http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-audio-video/2168-what-movies-your-droid.html

JTAC posted a couple of links to videos he converted at high quality.

Each movie is encoded using DVD Catalyst 3.

Maintain their default aspect ratios....unless they are shot in full screen

Verizon Droid HQ preset
848x480
1500 KBPS Video
1 Pass encoding
160 KBPS audio
Audio: Stereo

Format: h264_ipod_hq

Some might say this is overkill, but I have gotten nothing but great results and the movies look crisp and vibrant.

 

[sun]

Yeah I've looked through that thread as well. I am currently testing encodes on handbrake, DVD catalyst etc . So far anything over 640 doesn't work, worst is the fact that The devoid doesn't scale except when I uses handbrak and the legacy iPod setting after changing bit rate to 500. Will keep you guys posted.

-sun

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Have a look here DVD to Droid Sample Videos | Tools4Movies, the official home of DVD Catalyst
it has some sample videos I made for the Droid.

In addition, in regards of full-screen, please have a look here
DVD to Verizon Droid | Tools4Movies, the official home of DVD Catalyst

both are different links to my site to posts containing specific info for the Droid.

 

[sun]

So With DVD Catalyst is worked beautifully. I think the problem i was having was 1 i wanted my resolution higher than the sources. When i entered it on the mediasmart server .. the video wouldn't play on the device but would play on the computer .. still not sure why but i guess it doesn't matter. When i put a lower resolution in hte mediasmart it played but the transcoder did not remove the black bars (in fact it seems to have added some) .. but when i used both handbrake and DVDCatalyst the files played and filled the droid screen (not stretched) .. so i guess now all i need to do is find out how to set up one of those two programs to monitor the video folder and automatically encode new videos as they are added (like the hp mediasmart does) if i can't i'll have to manually encode (which i don't really want to do) ..

Any suggestions on an encoder that monitors a folder and encodes anything that is added to that folder? ie a smart "batch" encoder..

-sun

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Any suggestions on an encoder that monitors a folder and encodes anything that is added to that folder? ie a smart "batch" encoder..

-sun

Have you looked in the manual of DVD Catalyst?

There are a couple of "Example Scenario's" that describe how to set DVD Catalyst up to monitor folders, convert automatically, and keep track of what files it already has converted. Some things that have been added recently, and not in the manual yet are things like run something before and/or after conversion, and a bunch more.

 

[sun]

(Droid double post sorry)

 

[sun]

No but I will as soon As I get home. Thanks catalyst.

-sun