Pandora's Video format

[Perusa]

Hi,

is this the right place to post my topic?

I just want to know which video formats the pandora can play.

 

[Perusa]

Hello? Is somebody here ?

 

[ptitSeb]

Yes, I guess this is the right place.

 

[Perusa]

Do you know which video formats the pandora can play?

 

[ptitSeb]

All major format are readed. You may be limited with the size/bitrate of the video you want to play (FullHD is bit too much).

Is there some specific format you want to play?

 

[ekianjo]

ptitseb, fullhd and even hd ready content is a but too much

 

[Perusa]

thx and No, not a specific one. Just mp4 and wmv.

 

[ptitSeb]

As long as there is not DRM in your WMV, and you stay with sub-HD size, you should be fine.

 

[omega-weapon]

Just some extra input. DVD-Rip sized videos work perfectly using VLC Media Player on the Pandora. They also look great too.

 

[Perusa]

Cool. Good to hear!

 

[Klumpen]

Yep, I have seen some of my own DVD-Rips (many episodes of Babylon 5 f.e. ^^) in bed with it using a good mobile speaker box or headphones with it and it was great.

Looking forward to try the new PanPlayer2 when mine is back from repairs.

 

[fusion_power]

Had anyone luck to get .mkv files to play on the Pandora? I only get garbage on screen or dia-show, sound runs usualy fine though. I tested it with Mplayer2, the internal player and VLC Player (the older one), last one uses his own codecs but also can't play mkv files. Same files work of ocurse on my PC, also VLC.

So how to get mkv boxed Videos to run onto the Pandora? is there a player that can run these files without trouble?

 

[FBnil]

If you get dia-show's then it is about too high resolution to decode on time.  If Mplayer2 could not play it, then it is really too much for the oPandora.

Once solution is to recompress them, for example with openshot video editor.

Just play one of them in VLC and press Control + J (R1 and j), this will open the Codec details page. Tell me what you see there video wise: size and bitrate

Also look at the System/System info, how much CPU is being used. If the CPU is touching 100% the whole time... you are out of luck... or maybe try to overclock your system.

note: press F for fullscreen. And start fresh, just rebooted, that also makes sure your machine is "snappy".

Now if the CPU is not touching 100%, then it is the IO. I can play highres stuff off my USB3 Harddisk but the same movie on my fastest SD card is still laggy.

 

[Binky]

Now if the CPU is not touching 100%, then it is the IO. I can play highres stuff off my USB3 Harddisk but the same movie on my fastest SD card is still laggy.

Note:

The pandora's USB ports are only USB2.0 / high-speed - so a USB3.0 HDD will not perform significantly better than a USB2.0 one.

 

[fusion_power]

If you get dia-show's then it is about too high resolution to decode on time.  If Mplayer2 could not play it, then it is really too much for the oPandora.

Once solution is to recompress them, for example with openshot video editor.

Just play one of them in VLC and press Control + J (R1 and j), this will open the Codec details page. Tell me what you see there video wise: size and bitrate

Also look at the System/System info, how much CPU is being used. If the CPU is touching 100% the whole time... you are out of luck... or maybe try to overclock your system.

note: press F for fullscreen. And start fresh, just rebooted, that also makes sure your machine is "snappy".

Now if the CPU is not touching 100%, then it is the IO. I can play highres stuff off my USB3 Harddisk but the same movie on my fastest SD card is still laggy.

Will try this but because all players show the same issue and only with .mkv files, I guess the Pandora(codec) just can't handle these type of file. Video was not HD or anything fancy and I can play even high res videos fine without OC as long as these are "normal" AVI files. AFAIK Pandora with MPlayer 2 even uses HW acceleration (not sure with VLC) so Videos are usualy not a problem at all. You could try a ordinary mkv video and look if it plays "normal".

Example Video codec is H264-MPEG-4 AVC, Res: 720x404 (so no HD stuff). AVI videos (normal MPEG-4) just paly fine, even higher res ones.

I can't OC my old CC Pandora much so it's pretty normal it hit's high CPU load I guess. However, if players are really HW accelerated, such a Video should be no problem for the Pandora. I just wonder why Audio plays normal while image does not move at all. I also didn't found a newer Codec Pack for Pandora, it's still "the usual" one.

maybe it's just because of H264 that cuases trouble?

 

[thatgui]

if players are really HW accelerated, such a Video should be no problem for the Pandora.

What led you to believe that there was a video player available with hardware accelaration ? My (probably flawed) memory comes up only with one try to utilize the dsp for this, which ended in the rather dissapointing realization that its only usefull for a certain h264 encoding/mode/whatever that isn't used widely.

 

[Cloudef]

The DSP accelerated video works worse than mplayer/mplayer2/mpv on CPU for almost every video type, with exception of certain xvid && lame combination.

Different results might be had with better DSP codecs, but at least n900 ones that worked were disappointing.

av/ffmpeg used by mplayer/mplayer2/mpv has some really optimized code, so it's possible for hw acceleration to be actually worse (similar to desktop land with GPU hw acceleration)

I've found out that 1ghz model can actually play a lot of HD videos, if you disable ASS subtitles, as libass is quite taxing. (you could probably use some filter to scale down internal resolution of libass renderer as well)

 

[fusion_power]

What led you to believe that there was a video player available with hardware accelaration ? My (probably flawed) memory comes up only with one try to utilize the dsp for this, which ended in the rather dissapointing realization that its only usefull for a certain h264 encoding/mode/whatever that isn't used widely.

I thought if a Video runs onto the HW layer it is somehow HW accelerated but I guess I mixed up something there. Oh, and the checkbox in the player options "use HW acceleration" is checked of course. Seriously, most mobile players onto todays smartphones use HW acceleration, I never thought that this is still an issue onto the Pandora. Newer VLC Player uses HW acceleration afaik but this would need a new port for the Pandora of course.

Now that we finaly have a working DSP I hope this thing will get some usage. The Pandora CPU can do alot more I guess if coders find a way to access the rest of it's unused corners. But if not, I can also live with that. Let's hope the upcoming Pyra can do a little bit better when it comes to Videos (I fear, the old problem will remain if the hardware is powerful but again no proper drivers are available)

 

[Asmo]

Can't mkv files contain multiple streams, and other stuff like subtitles and chapter info? If it's base content is h264+aac or mp3, something like avidemux can be used to remux it into mp4 very quickly (no re-encoding needed) stripping it of anything that might be choking it on the Pandora.

 

[TrashyMG]

I have XVID encoded MKV files that play perfect on the Pandora.. even at HD resolutions.