Video Demo: HTC Evo playback of HD/720p movies over HDMI out

[NeoteriX]

doesnt look good at all : (

What's the problem?

 

[jamesmckeephx]

taking a small screen to a big screen i guess? it looks horrible. Really bad picture

 

[TheSystem]

I ended up downloading a *1280x720* 720p "mp4" Tron Movie Trailer from Youtube.com, dragged and dropped to my EVO, displays as any 720p video should, crisp and clear.

YouTube - "TRON LEGACY" Teaser Footage (HD 720p)

 

[rjones383]

that looks incredible!!

 

[jamesmckeephx]

its not streaming though.. thats when stuff looks bad

 

[TheSystem]

its not streaming though.. thats when stuff looks bad

Right, I do not believe that the Youtube application raises the resolution to support the size of a normal HDtv, even though "HD" is highlighted.. What resolution is it actually displaying in.

 

[maalvarez34]

Hey NeoteriX I have the Blu Ray Movies, Get Him To The Greek and 127 Hours (both at 720P) on my computer and I converted them using the settings you gave; the Kbps at 5250 and the width size to 1280...It took a long time to convert but once it did the movie came out to OVER 2 GB...I put it on my evo and It refused to play. The message "cannot play video" came out. Do you have any other recommendations for the settings on Handbrake for blu ray movies? Like maybe a different width? or a different bitrate? I want the movie to fill up my screen like big buck bunny does, I dont want it to be just a small square on my tv.

 

[sitlet]

the Kbps at 5250

Thats WAY too high for the phone. I would personally keep it between 2000-3000kbps. If you are just going to view it on the phone, keep around 1500-2000, anything more than that you wont notice the difference on the phone's small screen. If you are converting it and plan on watching it on a tv via hdmi, use 2000-3000.

the movie came out to OVER 2 GB..

You can Google "mp4 splitter". I dont remember the program I used before, but there are a few programs that will split the video to under 2gb chunks and not convert it.

 

[NeoteriX]

Hey NeoteriX I have the Blu Ray Movies, Get Him To The Greek and 127 Hours (both at 720P) on my computer and I converted them using the settings you gave; the Kbps at 5250 and the width size to 1280...It took a long time to convert but once it did the movie came out to OVER 2 GB...I put it on my evo and It refused to play. The message "cannot play video" came out. Do you have any other recommendations for the settings on Handbrake for blu ray movies? Like maybe a different width? or a different bitrate? I want the movie to fill up my screen like big buck bunny does, I dont want it to be just a small square on my tv.

Mostly what Sitlet said ^^^

I disagree that 5 MBps is too high, although this will be a preference thing -- obviously the higher the bitrate, the better the quality although it's a gradual scale so you may be able to get away with a lot lower bitrate and not notice a difference unless you do a side-by-side comparison.

As for the size, the 2GB is the key limitation here for full length HD movies, unfortunately. I would recommend what Sitlet said and deal with splitting the files. Personally, I'd rather split up the files and have full HD quality at a higher bitrate instead of trying to decrease the resolution and/or bitrate to fit within 2 GB.

Because we are limited to the low profile, we can't necessarily take advantage of the better compression techniques that help to maintain quality while reducing filesize/bitrate.

 

[NeoteriX]

Right, I do not believe that the Youtube application raises the resolution to support the size of a normal HDtv, even though "HD" is highlighted.. What resolution is it actually displaying in.

I believe on mobile devices over 3G, Youtube defaults to 240P (or at best, 320P). When playing over wifi or 4G, youtube offers a higher resolution version (hi quality) which I believe is 480p, so its quite a bit better than the default resolution, but it's definitely not "HD."

 

[sitlet]

obviously the higher the bitrate, the better the quality

Correct. But with a phone with a 1ghz processor, anything above 3000kbps is going to slow it down. My old computer with a 2.5ghz processor cant handle anything above 3000kpbs. Plus the sd card cant even read that fast. And anything above 2000kbps you are not going to notice the quality difference on a 4.3 inch screen.

 

[NeoteriX]

Correct. But with a phone with a 1ghz processor, anything above 3000kbps is going to slow it down. My old computer with a 2.5ghz processor cant handle anything above 3000kpbs. Plus the sd card cant even read that fast. And anything above 2000kbps you are not going to notice the quality difference on a 4.3 inch screen.

I think we're on the same page in principle, although I will mention that processor clock speeds are no longer an exclusive basis for determining real-world performance, especially when comparing against difference use-case scenarios, operating systems, and processor architectures. Things like the overhead of Windows, and specific media/HD hardware acceleration and instruction set enhancements can result in significantly different performance results -- at any rate, I've successfully played back 5+ Mbps 720p video on the Evo with no framerate drop so the Snapdragon can definitely handle it.

You are right on the SD card -- depending on the SD card class. I use a Class 6 card, so there's plenty of read speed, but one's mileage will vary given the card in use (in theory even a Class 2 should be able to handle the 6 megabit per second max bitrate, since that should still be well under the Class 2, 2 megabytes per second read rate, but that will depend on the condition of the card, fragmentation, etc., so all bets are off).

Lastly, I would agree that on a 4.3" screen with a 480x800 resolution, that high of a bitrate is not relevant. Better yet, 720p isn't even relevant, there's just not enough resolution on the display to take any advantage of it, so it would be best to downconvert to a 480p resolution for exclusive playback on the Evo. However, for outputting over HDMI to a TV, I would say that 720p is beneficial and so is using the highest bitrate available (given the processing and space constraints of the Evo).

 

[maalvarez34]

Thats WAY too high for the phone. I would personally keep it between 2000-3000kbps. If you are just going to view it on the phone, keep around 1500-2000, anything more than that you wont notice the difference on the phone's small screen. If you are converting it and plan on watching it on a tv via hdmi, use 2000-3000.



You can Google "mp4 splitter". I dont remember the program I used before, but there are a few programs that will split the video to under 2gb chunks and not convert it.

Yes I came to the conclusion that it is the bitrate. I put the bitrate at 3000 and it works fine! Thank you! My last question is. On the HDMI out settings. Should I put 720P or Do I just leave it at Automatic?

 

[sitlet]

On the HDMI out settings. Should I put 720P or Do I just leave it at Automatic?

You mean on the phone? It doesnt matter. I leave it at automatic.

 

[maalvarez34]

You mean on the phone? It doesnt matter. I leave it at automatic.

Got it. Thank you so much for all your help...Movie looks awesome!

 

[ndh777]

I was very disappointed with the Evo's HDMI output...when I first tried to use it, it was very buggy and I had to move my HDMI cord around to get it to work. (Admittedly, I did buy a cheap $10 one from Amazon.) And it didn't want to play YouTube for me! And most of all...I was disappointed that it didn't play everything the Evo did on my HDTV like I originally thought. Although, no one told me that it did do that, that was pure assumption.

By the way, is there any ROM that anyone knows of or anything that would allow a full video out through HDMI? Seems unrealistic, I know, and people have already told me why but still...can't hurt to ask right?

EDIT: I forgot to say that it DOES play YouTube for me now. And it does play videos I recorded and very nicely I might add. I got the pictures to appear once, but since then, it doesn't want to show them for some reason...

 

[BigRick10]

Such a helpful thread. Now that the dev community has full HDMI out this is a added bonus!!

 

[EarlyMon]

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/182132-what-do-you-use-your-hdmi-cable-evo-2.html#post2430285

Two options for full hdmi output.

 

[JeffinCA]

...

I've confirmed that these files playback in the Gallery player on my Vizio TV (they will work on your Evo) so if these don't work, you can at least determine that it may be a TV or cable issue.

Given my limited experience with the Samsungs, my guess is that the 720p video will hopefully work, but the 480p one won't. Let us know what happens.

I downloaded the files to my EVO 4G; they play fine on the phone, but not on my TV.

I have a Samsung LN32D450; it accepts 1080p (24/60Hz), 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Received a generic HDMI cable from a vendor on eBay and tried your videos using the Gallery player. From what I have read, the EVO 4G outputs everything on the HDMI port at 1280x720.

The videos displayed on my EVO 4G, but did not display on my TV (same with audio). The TV will notify me that the phone is disconnected from the cable, but the phone will not display anything different when it is connected to the TV via the cable (nothing extra in the Notification bar at the top before I started the Gallery player, either).

So... what's your guess as to where the problem lies?


Jeff

 

[Brewmeister]

One thing that was suggested in another thread and worked for me was to reboot the phone while the cable and TV are connected. When the phone recognizes the HDMI, you will see an HDMI icon in the notifications.

 

[NeoteriX]

I downloaded the files to my EVO 4G; they play fine on the phone, but not on my TV.

I have a Samsung LN32D450; it accepts 1080p (24/60Hz), 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Received a generic HDMI cable from a vendor on eBay and tried your videos using the Gallery player. From what I have read, the EVO 4G outputs everything on the HDMI port at 1280x720.

The videos displayed on my EVO 4G, but did not display on my TV (same with audio). The TV will notify me that the phone is disconnected from the cable, but the phone will not display anything different when it is connected to the TV via the cable (nothing extra in the Notification bar at the top before I started the Gallery player, either).

So... what's your guess as to where the problem lies?


Jeff

I think I've seen that some Samsung TVs may have issues; I know the Samsung TV I tried at work was able to do 720p but not 480, so people's results may vary depending on how old their TV is.