Can I download MX Player on my PC and then install to TabS?

raidon · Jan 8, 2017

I'm fairly OK with computers but no so clever with my Tab S 10.5.

Can I download MX Player (or a better player than the default one) via my PC then maybe copy it over to the Tab S?

I could probably install MX Player if it's actually ON the Tab S, but I'm not sure how to do the download itself through the Tab S. Oh, plus I might want to install some codecs, too.

Problem is, I'm getting the 'unsupported audio codec' message when I try play MKV movies.

mikedt · Jan 8, 2017

Easiest way is probably install MX directly from the Play Store on the Tab itself.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad

MX should play MKV movies no problem.

raidon · Jan 9, 2017

Um, yeah. But as I said, I'd prefer not to do the download through the tablet.
I don't get online with it, so have no antivirus or antispyware apps.
All I use it for is playing movies at the gym. Movies that I've transferred from my PC.
So how can I go the Play Store if I'm not online?
Are you saying that MX Player is probably sitting in a folder somewhere on the Tab?

psionandy · Jan 9, 2017

Android is a LOT more secure that your windows pc... in fact, if you only install apps from the playstore, you won't need antivirus of antispyware apps.

raidon · Jan 9, 2017

So I can't download the app on my PC?

svim · Jan 9, 2017

raidon said:
Um, yeah. But as I said, I'd prefer not to do the download through the tablet.
I don't get online with it, so have no antivirus or antispyware apps.
All I use it for is playing movies at the gym. Movies that I've transferred from my PC.
So how can I go the Play Store if I'm not online?
Are you saying that MX Player is probably sitting in a folder somewhere on the Tab?

You cannot access the Play Store if you're not allowing your Tab any online access. As you appear to be very averse to connecting your Tab to the Internet, you options are very limited. If you're getting any kind of unsupported codec messages when trying to view different media files and you don't want to install any kind of more capable, third-party media player like VLC or MX Player, then you either need to be very selective about what kind of files copy onto to your Tab, or on your computer there are very capable media converting programs and then you need to convert any media files that won't normally play to use codecs that will. Audacity is good for audio files and Avidemux is good for video.

But really, it will be much less hassle and will save you hours and hours of added effort to just put your Tab online, install MX Player from the Play Store, and then you'll be much better off. If anything, just go online to do the install and take your Tab offline again.
There is the much riskier option of finding and downloading a MX Player apk to your computer and then side-loading it onto your Tab, but note that's NOT the recommended way to install it. The developers for MX Player don't openly provide apk files for their app so what you'll be doing is installing an apk from an unknown source using a method that isn't advisable. Side-loading apps is only for those who know specifically what they are doing or for those living countries that don't have access to the Play Store.

raidon · Jan 9, 2017

svim, thanks very much for your comprehensive and helpful explanation. I should maybe explain that I'm a retired PC builder and serviceman who's very familiar with PC's but has never had much interest in phones. Of any kind. I wouldn't even have the Tab S if my wife hadn't bought it for me to use at the gym.

Okay, I understand what you're saying. Actually I've just been through a long Tab S drama that started when I tried to transfer a 6.5GB MKV movie to the 32GB microSD card in the Tab. It'd get to about 99% and then fail. Which was , of course, as I late discovered, because the card was formatted FAT32.

So, rather than reformat the card (which appears to need exFAT, not NTFS as someone else suggested), I split the movie into two with MKVToolnix 9.7. Next prob was the 'unsupported audio codec', so I converted the two MKV's to MP4's. But still got the 'unsupported audio codec' message. Finally solved this by using Movavi 17 for the conversion, but this time, instead of converting to MP4 I chose the 'Device' option and converted to 'Android 1920 x 1200 AAC'.

So everything is actually good. But I'd read somewhere that the MX Player was superior to the default one (and the MX developer had told me last year that I could increase the movie brightness with MX) so this seems the better app. However, I've also seen a few posts over the last couple of days to the effect that MX needs extra codecs to avoid the AC3 audio error. Is this still the case with the latest MX Player?

mikedt · Jan 9, 2017

You could try VLC, Videolan Player instead. And I've never had an unsupported codec problem at all with it. I know it definitely plays AC3 no problems.

Can download it directly from here using your PC.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html

svim · Jan 9, 2017

raidon said:
svim, thanks very much for your comprehensive and helpful explanation. I should maybe explain that I'm a retired PC builder and serviceman who's very familiar with PC's but has never had much interest in phones. Of any kind. I wouldn't even have the Tab S if my wife hadn't bought it for me to use at the gym.

Okay, I understand what you're saying. Actually I've just been through a long Tab S drama that started when I tried to transfer a 6.5GB MKV movie to the 32GB microSD card in the Tab. It'd get to about 99% and then fail. Which was , of course, as I late discovered, because the card was formatted FAT32.

So, rather than reformat the card (which appears to need exFAT, not NTFS as someone else suggested), I split the movie into two with MKVToolnix 9.7. Next prob was the 'unsupported audio codec', so I converted the two MKV's to MP4's. But still got the 'unsupported audio codec' message. Finally solved this by using Movavi 17 for the conversion, but this time, instead of converting to MP4 I chose the 'Device' option and converted to 'Android 1920 x 1200 AAC'.

So everything is actually good. But I'd read somewhere that the MX Player was superior to the default one (and the MX developer had told me last year that I could increase the movie brightness with MX) so this seems the better app. However, I've also seen a few posts over the last couple of days to the effect that MX needs extra codecs to avoid the AC3 audio error. Is this still the case with the latest MX Player?

I'll still go on record I think you'll save yourself a lot of time, effort, frustration, and hassle by just installing MX Player from the Play Store onto your Tab. As is it can handle a really wide range of codecs and if you take the time to dig into its Settings options there's an impressive number of things to enhance its abilities even more.

But that said, if you're going to convert files to fall within certain specs I don't know about anything about the capabilities of Movavi but here's listing of what kinds of file formats and codecs Avidemux can handle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidemux#Supported_formats
For something like a 6.5GB mkv, scaling it down to 1080, and using h.264 for video and mp3 for audio, will result in a much smaller file size, easily under 1GB. The default video player on your Tab should handle h.264, although again, if you were to just install MX Player than using h.265 will result in an even smaller file size and often better picture. (A drawback being converting/processing h.265 video can really tax a computer's sources.)

raidon · Jan 9, 2017

svim, I'm resigned to getting the Tab online and grabbing whatever player is best. I was just trying to avoid it if possible.

Re the Movavi 17 conversion, it did the job well. I now have the 6.5GB 'The Last Witch Hunter' split int0 two 1.5GB MP4 parts and both audio and subtitles are perfectly fine.

But I wouldn't want to do the splits and conversions again - too much hassle.

So I'll try MX Player and if I have any trouble with that, VLC (thanks, mikedt).

But I also intend to replace the 32GB microSD FAT32 card with another card formatted to handle files over 4GB. As I said earlier, I've been told that NTFS formatting is the way to go, but there's a lot of mentions online that it needs to be exFAT.

Anyone know for sure?

svim · Jan 9, 2017

Normally I'd say just let your phone format the microSD card and work around that, but push comes to shove go with exFAT.
http://www.androidauthority.com/high-capacity-microsd-cards-android-gary-explains-690710/

As for MX Player or VLC I've used both and like both enough to not even recommend one over the other. Functionally they both are very capable, and the user interface for both being better than the default Android video player. Of course that's my subjective opinion. Just be sure to dig into the Settings of each, there's a lot options to tweak. If anything, I think MX Player's Settings menus are a little easier to navigate through but that's not a real issue (as in initially installing an app how frequently do you comb through its Settings).

lvt · Jan 9, 2017

I couldn't think about an app that is better than VLC for this task.

raidon · Jan 9, 2017

Over the years I've occasionally used VLC on my PC, but I wouldn't go past Pot Player now - it's really excellent.
The Korean developer originally launched KMPlayer, then sold it to a guy who kept the name but added lots of whizbangs and a fancier GUI. I think it's still around.
His rebuilt app - Pot Player - is way better, IMHO.

mikedt · Jan 10, 2017

I thought PotPlayer was a Chinese adware/spyware thing these days. Monetized via data mining and ads.
potplayer.cn

I still use VLC myself, mainly because it's open source, and so I know it isn't going to be spying on me.

raidon · Jan 10, 2017

mikedt said:
I thought PotPlayer was a Chinese adware/spyware thing these days. Monetized via data mining and ads.
potplayer.cn

Actually, that was the impression I got about KMPlayer after it was onsold. It was a fairly straightforward app until the new guy got it.

Re the current (Daum) Potplayer being a dataminer, have you read something that supports this?

mikedt · Jan 10, 2017

After a bit more digging. I don't think PotPlayer is going to help the OP's Samsung Tab Android tablet.

And the Mac I'm using isn't going to be able to use it either, same for my other devices.

http://potplayer.daum.net/
Download for Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP.

When it comes to data mining and ads, assuming it's free but not open source, how is it monetized?

BTW for anyone not familiar with this. .EXE files require Microsoft Windows on a PC to run them.

bobjames · Jan 14, 2017

So will a tablet boot from a USB stick? Don't know myself but if it will ,look up Fatdog64 and get the iso onto the stick and boot from that . It'll play anything you want well.

Put it on a live CD if you want and boot from there then when you have done with movies just reboot without the media and it will go back to windows or whatever you normally boot

raidon · Jan 14, 2017

Thanks everyone for your comments. I took the tablet online and grabbed MX Player and VLC. They seem pretty good, better than the default. I'm finding the controls for both players a little hard to fathom, though - where can I find manuals for MX and VLC?

svim · Jan 14, 2017

Maybe these will help:
MX Player
https://sites.google.com/site/mxvpen/faq
https://sites.google.com/site/mxvpen/features
VLC
https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Android/

Can I download MX Player on my PC and then install to TabS?

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