[Q] WMV Movie Support? - G Tablet Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I did a "digital download" of a DVD to my PC, and then copied the .wmv file over to the /Android/data folder. The tablet recognizes the file (when I pull up the videos screen), but when I try and play, I get a "Media Error: Sorry, cannot play this video" message.
I'm brand new to the Tablet, so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, I just don't know what...
Thanks in advance!
Brian

Most digital downloads from DVDs are DRM proteced. These can only be played on "official" Microsoft codecs, usually found on Windows XP, Vista, Seven, and OSX. You're pobbly out of luck.

o9guy said:
Most digital downloads from DVDs are DRM proteced. These can only be played on "official" Microsoft codecs, usually found on Windows XP, Vista, Seven, and OSX. You're pobbly out of luck.
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Hmmm.... We've downloaded similar movies to the Ipod Touch... clearly not a windows product.
Quite unfortunate if "digital downloads" cannot be played on the tablet.

I won't say they all have DRM but many do. Googling "drm wmv" should give you some ideas as to how to deteremine if this is the case.

Thanks so much for your help!
Brian

WMV File
I had a WMV video that would not play on my Windows 7 PC with Windows Media Player.
It would play using DIV-X and some other movie players. I happen to have Camtasia Studio and I opened the file in Camtasia and created a new WMV file (took about two hours to complete). Much to my surprise the New WMV file created with Camtasia would now run fine on the New Windows 7 machine with Windows Media Player.
Just for fun, I copied the new WMV file over to the G Tablet and it played fine.
My guess is this is hit or miss depending on how the original file was created (I think this file was created with an old version of Window's Movie Maker in around 2007). Something else that is strange to me is the old movie format would play on Windows Vista but not on Windows 7.

Additional on the OP's question. You can check for DRM protection by clicking on the file properties in Windows explorer. There's a "protected content" statement, in one of the tabs. For WMA/WMV files, it should be able to tell you if it's protected or not.
If you had gotten it from Amazon, or from a DVD digital download, it is most likely infected with DRM.

Download rockplayer. Works for my phone. Should work for tablet as well
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I tried rock player but told me could not use hardware playback. When i tried software decoding I got large pixelated video not distinguishable. Please advise.

Sounds like DRM to me. I haven't used a WMV on my tab yet but I assume it will with RockPlayer.

convert files freely
Android Video Converter is a powerful and terrific tool for giving the solution of reformat from one to another.With the ideal Android Video Converter, you can appreciate the movies and music in fashion freely without any limit. hope you will like it.
source: hdvideoconverter-mac.com/android-video-converter.html

where is s flood place to download free movies for the gtab?

DRM protected videos can't playback on most devices, you must remove the DRM protection, but it seems there is no free tool to handle it

DRM protected videos can't playback on most devices, you must remove the DRM protection, but it seems there is no free tool to handle it

Download DVDFab HD Decrypter and use it to rip the video from the original DVD, then use Freemake Video Converter to encode it to the format of your choice. I use 960x540 res, original frame rate, bit rate of 1280 for the video and sample rate 44000, bit rate 128kbps for the audio... works great on my EVO 3D. Will test this when I get the G-Tab in the next few days.

This may be an issue of the codec used. There are lots of codecs out there and the extension doesn't always indicate one particular codec. Depending on the program I am using to create a video I can select different codecs for the same fle type. Though divx is pretty much a mpeg4 codec, so is some of the Windows Media Video files. I have found even on the PC I have to dowload and install a codec "super pac" in order to play al the various files I come in contact with even though they may have the same extensions. Most of your players include a number of codecs to play the files they support. In windows nce the codec is installed for one player it most likely will be recognized by another. I really have no idea if this is the case with Android, or Linux, but from what I have seen it may be entirely dependant on the player.

Related

How to play mp3 and movie files with windows media 8.5?

Hi
I wonder if anyone can tell me... how to play mp3 files and movie files say avi , mpg etc with the new windows media 8.5? I don't seem to be able to use the xda to play a simple mp3 file after I use activesync to transfer the file into the xda. It may a be simple software problem or do I need special codecs for these files to be played?
Sorry if it is a silly question.
Cheers
Hi, if you have the pocket pc 2002, and windows media player 8.5, you should be able to play mp3 files without any issue.
Try downloading a small mp3 file from the net to check. sometimes, if you dont have an SD card, and only a limited memory, and you try and copy a large mp3 to your xda, it cuts off half way when you run out of storage memory. This leaves your file corrupted, and hence you cant play it.
Close all your running apps. Adjust your memory settings, to increase storage area. Choose an mp3 file that is much smaller than available space (eg. ringtone from some website) and copy that to your xda.
Thanks
Hi
Thanks very much for your reply. Thot nobody is interested to answer a silly question like that. Indeed I think the mp3 file I tried to play is corrupted. Got windows media player to play other smaller mp3 files after your advice. However, can windows media player play mpg files at all? Always seem to get message that the movie file cannot be played.
Thanks again.
Smaslift
Hi
cant remember if media player 8.5 can play mpgs. However if you install pocket divx player, you should be able to play most file formats. Ofcourse it wont play all mpgs, or all avis, it depends on the codecs used, however common ones, especially divx are playable.
http://www.projectmayo.com/projects/detail.php?projectId=9
Just to let you know, Media player 8.5 can't play mpeg.
PocketTV is another alternative.
movie file size
HI
Thanks for info. Installed both pocket tv and divx and both are great. Only thing is size of movie files are too big. I have tried using VirtualDub to play around with movie compression but still hasn't found the optimal size to reduce a movie to be sensible for use in pdas. What is the screen size and how else besides the screen size can one use to reduce movie file size?
Cheers
Some good guides here:
http://www.pocketmatrix.com/guides/
Hi
In virtual dub, you need to ensure that you are specifying a codec for video compression AND audio compression.By default virtualdub does not compress the audio, hence the file tends to be quite large.
You may want to install some more audio codecs to give you a better compression. Try installing the WMA codecs, or get Windows Media player 9 on your system.
WMA codes
Hi
Thanks for replies. I have Windows Media 9 on my system; how to use it to get the audio compression with Virtual Dub?
Cheers
Vic
in the audio menu on virtuadub, you need to select Full Processing Mode. Then the compression option will become selectable. You can then pick an audio codec. Be aware not all audio codecs will be available on your xda. Use Windows Media Audio codecs, have a look at:
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-wma.htm

Video Player

It's possible to play video on this device? How can I convert my video files to files which x8 understand?
It can take mp4 for sure : I have 2 videos in "/sdcard/video/"
You can try RockPlayer - Plays all divx videos so no need for convert the files at all the player is really great app and you can get it for free from the android market. I watch two movies both more then 2 hours long for a 50% battery so the player is great.
It looks like slideshow with software decoding, it's not works with hardware decoding.
It not play all avi formats well but works great for some if you have time to find out what format works on that phone but i Watch for example Fight Club on this and was nice and smooth also watch some Shows on it and it works great for that it`s very useful when you are at the bus or at the train and have time to kill.
When connected to the computer, download MediaGo from PC companion. It converts audio and video to x8 format, as well as adding it to the device.
Sent from my E15i using XDA App
yup. just use the media go from SE. it automatic convert the media file to match the hardware decoding. its an extra work but worth doing. to save some memory.
Sent from my E15i using XDA App
Cannot setup Media Go on my windows 7 x64 corporate. Fail while installing MS Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable package.
I use Avidemux GTK app on Ubuntu. Just use "auto->PSP" settings. it makes files that x8 decodes in hardware.
My favourite video playing app is arcMedia.
It is capable to handle largest video files thanks for video buffering.
But It is not working since I rooted my 2.1 with original rom.
Anybody knows why?
The problem is app2sd. arcMedia doesn't support app2sd yet.
I really wait for the update because you don't have to convert video files with it.
arcMedia plays normal xvid videos smoothly like desktop computers.
My pre-isntalled video player can't find any files, even those which i've recorded with camera. What's the problem?
What's the point of installing video player which can't find video files? for example if some1 buys x8 and don't want to use any of apps from the market, only pre-installed ones. so he can't watch any recorded videos? only getting there through camera app? it's the same with picture review.
Rockplayer v6 vfp version can play video rmvb well, of course, not as well as computer
It all depends on the encoding and the resolution of the files people.
Dont expect to be able to play a full hd avi or mp4 with a 600hz CPU!
Maybe the PSP compatible avi files you can d/l with utorrent work better.
N.
yeah,i would recommend you to convert the videos with Xmedia.(It Supports X8)
Its works everytime on my X8
I use yxplayer2, RockPlayer gives me a lot of erros playing the videos.
I can also say that vital player from market plays divx/xvid with no lag at all, for me it really is the best app of this kind.
to convert videos, try XMedia Recode or Format Factory
I use ImToo Video Ultimate Converter..
choose convert to android specification
Pavel.Hritonenko said:
It's possible to play video on this device? How can I convert my video files to files which x8 understand?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are lots of software players that play almost everything including mov and mpeg
Hi, Ive used RockPlayer quite extensivley and it played nice (even with subtitles) up untill last week when all of a sudden the video lagged awfully. I tried all the other players (yx, qq, arc...) and each and every one of them lags.
Now, Ive updated to the latest x8 software (from the first 2.1 release) and hoped it would help, but playback is the same.
Tried to enable JiT now, but that didnt help.
Any ideas why would something like this happen seemingly out of the blue?
EDIT: I might add that this is all in software mode (even for files that work in hardware mode). Id like software mode to work however because transcoding is kind of a pita job.
EDIT2: Found the culprit. H.264 @300kbps is too much for this phone period. Both xvid and divix play nice even at 1000kbps.

[Q] 720P playback on G Tablet - Is there a fix to make these videos play correctly?

I just picked up my gtablet yesterday and have been spending my time installing tnt lite and installing several apps. I bought it because when I go on trips I wanted something that could browse the net, and play videos. I installed RockPlayer and put a 720p mkv file onto the machine, however playback is very choppy and its almost like the device cannot handle it. I know that several people have gotten 1080p to work good, and I am wondering if there is a setting that needs to be enabled to make 720p work better? I did some digging and saw that someone said to edit a line in the build.prop file (set the media.stagefright.enable from true to false), but I cannot edit my build.prop file. And I am not entirely sure that this will fix the problem. Are 720p videos playable on this machine?
What profile did you render the movies in? Try changing the MKV extension to AVI... Sometimes some renderers treat containers differently even though they are using the same codecs.
just tried to rename the extension from .mkv to .avi and still same choppiness and eventually the videos stops playing all together. I am not sure what rendering is, but the file is encoded AAC 2.0 H264
h264 is not the issue, it's what profile its encoded in
I have this in my FAQ section (in my sig). h264 is supported, but the Tegra 2 cannot handle h264 encoded in high profile. It can handle main profile.
This is confusing to people. So, what I would recommend is to download the excellent "mediainfo" tool (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en) and it will show you how your videos are encoded.
As for container support, I think MP4 plays a little better than MKV, but Rockplayer (in the Market) seems to be able to handle MKV and using hardware acceleration. Again, as long as it's h264 main profile.
This is not just an issue with the GTab - all the Tegra 2 devices will have this issue as its a limitation of the chipset, or so I've read. Vega, Folio, even the mysterious Adam will probably have this same limitation.
Reference on h264 and main / high profile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
Thank you for clarifying. I am wondering can I convert the video to the main profile and then get it to work?
Maximus1000 said:
Thank you for clarifying. I am wondering can I convert the video to the main profile and then get it to work?
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Yeah, that's the tricky part. I haven't been able to figure that out yet, although granted I haven't put much time into it. I think these "profiles" depend on how you encode and which tool you use.
If you try the Tron Legacy trailers, they are 1080p but main profile. A good example of how nice videos can look on it, when encoded the right way.
I have to play around more with something like ffmpeg to see if I can pin this down. Another reason for transcoding is to keep the sizes down, since we have the 4GB FAT32 file size limitation to deal with. Yuk.
I've incoded a 1080p high profile to main. sound was in and out then tryed a few things and lost sound. Video played great anyways.
I guess it depends on the encode. I dl a 720p music video off of youtube, mp4 avc [email protected] (according to mediainfo) and it plays just fine.
japhule said:
I guess it depends on the encode. I dl a 720p music video off of youtube, mp4 avc [email protected] (according to mediainfo) and it plays just fine.
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Could be a lower screen resolution that full 720p (not all 720p's are alike).
I also read today that Tegra 2 720p should work in high profile, but 1080p definitely does not. But, Android itself might be limiting even 720p, so it's a crap shoot.
Just out of curiosity why do you guys want those big files on here anyway? Is it to output to a TV? I wouldn't think you would need such a high quality file to watch stuff on the G tab.
Sent from my VEGAn-TAB-v1.0.0b2 using Tapatalk
Sprdtyf350 said:
Just out of curiosity why do you guys want those big files on here anyway? Is it to output to a TV? I wouldn't think you would need such a high quality file to watch stuff on the G tab.
Sent from my VEGAn-TAB-v1.0.0b2 using Tapatalk
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It's not about storing large files on the gtab...its more about having video portability. I keep my movies and videos on a server that I stream from my living room and bedroom. It would be ideal if I can play files on any device without having to reencode the video.
I did test 1080p files from YouTube and they did not play (high profile).
Ok, makes sense. I do the same thing using upnplay and my server. Thought you were wanting them on the tablet.
Sent from my VEGAn-TAB-v1.0.0b2 using Tapatalk
Sprdtyf350 said:
Just out of curiosity why do you guys want those big files on here anyway? Is it to output to a TV? I wouldn't think you would need such a high quality file to watch stuff on the G tab.
Sent from my VEGAn-TAB-v1.0.0b2 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
A two hour 720p movie runs ~4GB, so it's close to the limit in FAT32. And you could easily go over the limit when encoding, which would require you to break the file up. Annoying.
The problem here is that none of the vendors want to agree on a replacement file system for portable devices (wow, no surprise there). MS wants exFAT, the open source community would prefer EXT3/4, and I assume Apple would prefer HFS+.
Sprdtyf350 said:
Just out of curiosity why do you guys want those big files on here anyway? Is it to output to a TV? I wouldn't think you would need such a high quality file to watch stuff on the G tab.
Sent from my VEGAn-TAB-v1.0.0b2 using Tapatalk
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Can't speak for everybody else, but for me I'd want to just use the video files I broadcatch from the NNTP groups. Ideally, I wouldn't want to have to reencode video to watch it, just access it directly from my media server. Standard definition avis work okay, but eventually these will not be offered and of course the HD versions look way better. Over the years it's been harder to come by a regular source of SD resolution TV Series feeds. The 720P encoded files quality are noticeable versus SD even on this smaller screen. Ideally we would get high profile 720P MKV at least to work as it seems this is what the guys doing NNTP TV Series seem to be encoding in.
What I would see happening is that a video player on the GTablet will access the files off the media server and stream, not play files directly off the local Internal SD. Regardless of where the file resides, it looks like it needs to be refined to play these files more fluidly.
I'm not saying this will be the only nor primary method of viewing video files, but having the flexibility and option is always nice. Especially when all the tvs are watching something else. ;P
dkhilo said:
Can't speak for everybody else, but for me I'd want to just use the video files I broadcatch from the NNTP groups. Ideally, I wouldn't want to have to reencode video to watch it, just access it directly from my media server. Standard definition avis work okay, but eventually these will not be offered and of course the HD versions look way better. Over the years it's been harder to come by a regular source of SD resolution TV Series feeds. The 720P encoded files quality are noticeable versus SD even on this smaller screen. Ideally we would get high profile 720P MKV at least to work as it seems this is what the guys doing NNTP TV Series seem to be encoding in.
What I would see happening is that a video player on the GTablet will access the files off the media server and stream, not play files directly off the local Internal SD. Regardless of where the file resides, it looks like it needs to be refined to play these files more fluidly.
I'm not saying this will be the only nor primary method of viewing video files, but having the flexibility and option is always nice. Especially when all the tvs are watching something else. ;P
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First rule of Usenet.....
roebeet said:
First rule of Usenet.....
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Okay I'm doing the Madagascar penguin "you didn't see anything gesture" now. LOL.
Sent from my GTablet-TnT-Lite using Tapatalk
japhule said:
It's not about storing large files on the gtab...its more about having video portability. I keep my movies and videos on a server that I stream from my living room and bedroom. It would be ideal if I can play files on any device without having to reencode the video.
I did test 1080p files from YouTube and they did not play (high profile).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please share how you are thinking about doing that using movies/pictures/videos on Windows Media Center share or NFS mount.
I tried very same thing as some of my movies still in vob format or mpeg2 (home recordings of kids), tv recordings using microsoft format or streaming pics, and nothing seems to work. I was able to use upnpplay (android program in the market place) to browse my stuff on the shared drive, but can't play mpeg2, vob or other format.
does anyone know what's the best way to do this?
G Tab supports H.264 1080p main and high profiles
Detailed specs on what Audio and Video formats G Tablet supports are listed in the manual downloadable from the Viewsonic web site.
But in a few words - it does support up to 1080p, both baseline, high, and main profiles for H.264 with certain limitations for each, and MPEG4 simple profile.
rob_z11 said:
Can you please share how you are thinking about doing that using movies/pictures/videos on Windows Media Center share or NFS mount.
I tried very same thing as some of my movies still in vob format or mpeg2 (home recordings of kids), tv recordings using microsoft format or streaming pics, and nothing seems to work. I was able to use upnpplay (android program in the market place) to browse my stuff on the shared drive, but can't play mpeg2, vob or other format.
does anyone know what's the best way to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My entire system is redundant. I have my windows 7 share as well as my htpc/nas running tversity, orb and audiogalaxy (music only). Everything is shared in every way. First I try just streaming the file through Windows 7 dlna, which generally works fine. I too use Upnplay. If something doesn't work (very rare) I move to looking for it through Tversity which attempts to detect the dlna device and scale it so it works. I've never needed to use Orb on the GTab since I really got everything up and running, Orb is for when I actually am on the road and want to watch sth. from my home network. PlayOn may actually work as well - it has a free mode which allows you to use it to share files on the local network using VLC codecs.
Video Playback
I'd like to add to this conversation with, I hope, clarification of how to get higher definition video playback working on the GTab.
I've tried four video files that are 720P or 1080P. None of them works well in Movies, DoubleTwist, Rockplayer, or VitalPlayer.
G Tablet, TnT 4.21, OE kernel. Market fix. Various apps.
Videos all playing from /SDCARD
Here is some more information about those videos, using Mediainfo:
Touring Car race:
720P MPEG-4 50FPS AVC ([email protected]) (CABAC / 3 ref frames)
AAC Stereo
Big Buck Bunny:
http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/
1080P OpenDML AVI 12Mbps 24FPS MPEG-4 Visual ([email protected])
AC-3 audio
Audi R8:
720P AVC Matroska 800Kbps 29.970FPS AVC ([email protected]) (CABAC / 2 ref frames)
AC-3 audio
Donington LG demo:
1080P BDAV M2TS 35.5Mbps 29.970fps AVC ([email protected]) (CABAC /3 ref frames)
AC-3 audio
Are all of these simply too much for me to get away with playing on the GTab? I've played most, if not all of these, using a Broadcom 70012 Crystal HD decoder card on a Dell Mini 9 (Atom N270) with few problems.
Thanks for the help.

Can't play DRM videos?

Is it something I'm missing or can we not play drm video files on the atrix?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
are you asking about playing files that still have DRM protection intact? Did you really expect it to? You would need an app that has the right DRM privileges to play them. What exactly are you trying to play?
Can't play movies/videos downloaded from iTunes even though you paid for them.
They will sync over, but not play.
Sorry - was a bit brief
Was posting from my phone so didn't explain enough there...
I have a DVD with DRM digital content. I activated it with Windows Media Player on my PC so it plays just fine there. I then went to try and sync the file to get it over to my phone but WMP just comes back and says the phone doesn't support DRM.
Followed some directions here:
http://tsukata.org/2010/08/31/how-to-use-playsforsure-droidx/
Says it works on some phones and not others. Looks like you need "PlaysforSure" and I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with that yet on thier Atrix.
If it's not possible, then I'm looking for suggestions on the best way/settings/program to port a DVD over to my phone.
Android supports some DRM schemes, but not the MS WMA/V formats. "PlaysForSure" is also a MS format which you'll never see on Android devices.
There are plenty of ways for ripping DVDs (and BDs now for that matter) to the PC (ignoring any bonus 'Digital Copy' discs). From there you can reencode and transfer it all you want. Not all methods are easy to use, and in any case that's not a topic for this forum .. Google is your friend (DVD ripping and transcoding would be good search terms to start with).
Now, a more relevant question (which I haven't gotten to researching myself yet) would be:
- What file formats does Android in general, and the ATRIX in particular, support out of the box?
- What other formats can be played by installing third-party players or codecs?
DVDFab is a great program I use to rip my blu-rays since the included digital copies have incompatible DRM Schemes. The nice thing about that app is that it works with Nvidia Cuda which uses the graphics card to help transcode the video. I just select the iPhone setting and the videos look great on my Atrix coming off of blu-rays. (have not tried it with any dvds as I did not pruchase the dvd portion of it).

[Q] Correct formats to use Flyer native software

I'm trying to convert some files into formats that can be easily read by the Flyer's stock software. Maybe this is a pipedream, but I thought I'd ask.
Video:
We know that some formats are possible, and others are not (specifically .mkv seems to be a problem at 1080p). I have DVD's that I'd like to rip to .avi (perhaps .mp4 is better). I followed youtube directions at youtube.com/watch?v=R5fsz3TWuFk and that format isn't able to be played. Other AVI files are. Something about that is written here (forums.streamingmedia.com/thread-11192-post-12576.html) but I couldn't figure out what they were suggesting. Is it possible to get the movies I make into HTC Watch, or can I only watch them though the "Connected Media" app? If I need to use .mp4, can anyone recommend a good free file converter?
Books:
Similar story. I got .epub to work, but only on some files (converting from .pdf, .lit, .doc).
Music:
I use .mp3, so everything there works perfectly, but others might have questions.
I am in a similar boat. It is difficult to choose and manage which programs to use. I think both Google and HTC are great but HTC Reader doesn't sync with Google Books and the same with HTC and Google Music. I enjoy sense but also enjoy cloud services. Hopefully in the future HTC with sync with these cloud services and not have their own separate services.
I can 100% confirm that the HTC Flyer can support XviD in the avi container and h.264 in the mp4 container. Of course max resolution the device can support is 720p
Download and install Handbrake - easy to use, yet powerful encoding software.

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