Watching Movies

antodeco

Hi all,
Im just wondering what software people are using for putting movies onto your devices, and what resolution you are putting them at?

Going to have a long journey soon, so might stick a few episodes of something on it!

Thanks

Abelloid

Drag and drop, Rock player.

antodeco

Thanks for that.

Will Rock convert them down?

jimmycrackcorm

antodeco wrote: »

Thanks for that.

Will Rock convert them down?

Convert from what format? Rock plays avi, divx and mkv natively

Abelloid

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Convert from what format? Rock plays avi, divx and mkv natively

^^ This. Life is too short for converting video files.

antodeco

Sorry, i should have said compress! I dont fancy putting on a 1Gb movie for screen which only needs a smaller resolution due to its size!

M450

Unless you've got HD movies then I don't see any reason to compress them. All 700MB to 1.2GB movie files I have are at a smaller resolution than the Desire's screen anyway. Although I suppose it depends on which phone you have...

Desire: 800x480
Legend/Hero: 480x320

A random 1.2GB avi file I have on my phone: 640x272

partyatmygaff

Pretty much all of them are below the screen's resolution anyway. All seem to be 640x272 (Not even DVD quality)

You could try encoding them in H264 if you want to save some space but it won't do much good and even at that it will take a good while to finish encoding.

antodeco

Thanks for all the replies. Its more so for space reasons than anything else. I have video encoding software on the mac anyway, so might see what size I can get the files down to, without sacrificing quality.

jumbobreakfast

I'd imagine that lower res uses less power but higher compression such as H.264 might compromise battery life. I wonder what is the sweet spot?

partyatmygaff

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

I'd imagine that lower res uses less power but higher compression such as H.264 might compromise battery life. I wonder what is the sweet spot?

Snapdragons (And pretty much every other CPU used for Android) have hardware H.264 decoding built in to their circuitry so technically they should use less power than other compression methods.

nedd

Hey,

I just did a search on the Market for "Rock Player" and it gave me 3 different option:

RockPlayer (ARMv6+VFP)
RockPlayer (ARMv7)
RockPlayer (ARMv6)

Which of these should I use on the Desire?

Thanks

partyatmygaff

ARM V7 for the Desire and similar phones.

jumbobreakfast

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Snapdragons (And pretty much every other CPU used for Android) have hardware H.264 decoding built in to their circuitry so technically they should use less power than other compression methods.

Ah cool, that makes sense

Beefy78

Quick bump rather than starting a new thread. I bought a couple of BluRays last week and they both came with digital copies. I've installed them on my laptop fine but both had mobile phone versions too, in .wmv format. I've saved them onto my SD card, but when I use Rock Player to play them the picture is scrambled. I can run other .wmv files so I think it's a copyright/DRM issue, but I haven't done anything wrong! How can I get these files to work on my HTC Desire?

kearneybobs

just did a quick Google search there for ya

http://www.talkandroid.com/android-forums/evo-4g/5201-guide-converting-video-files-work-evo.html
On that webpage it suggests using this
http://removedrmfromwmv.com/
That might solve it for ya. But I would have no idea if it works though.

Beefy78

Cheers buddy. You're making me feel very lazy though - I did search google first, honest!

5starpool

RockPlayer for me has a big red 'R' in the top left corner. I use ArcMedia which plays all those formats as well, and has no watermark, and doesn't keep prompting me to activate or buy.

Beefy78

5starpool wrote: »

RockPlayer for me has a big red 'R' in the top left corner. I use ArcMedia which plays all those formats as well, and has no watermark, and doesn't keep prompting me to activate or buy.

I just tried arcMedia and it looks pretty good. The video is still scrambled on this file though.

I can't be the only person with this problem. Digital Copies are commonplace on Blu-Rays nowadays and I'd have thought that someone would have tried to put one on their Android.

M450

Beefy78 wrote: »

I just tried arcMedia and it looks pretty good. The video is still scrambled on this file though.

I can't be the only person with this problem. Digital Copies are commonplace on Blu-Rays nowadays and I'd have thought that someone would have tried to put one on their Android.

Just out of curiosity, how big is the file for the mobile version?

Beefy78

About 700mb

Ample Free ...?

5starpool wrote: »

RockPlayer for me has a big red 'R' in the top left corner. I use ArcMedia which plays all those formats as well, and has no watermark, and doesn't keep prompting me to activate or buy.

When RockPlayer first leaked there were two diffent versions. One with said red 'R' and one without. I had the red 'R' one too but quickly found the other version. I'd imagine it would still be readily available online.

Beefy78 wrote: »

About 700mb

What's the bitrate. I find videos with a bitrate higher than 2500kbps tend to make the videos loose sound or crash.

5starpool

Ample Free ...? wrote: »

When RockPlayer first leaked there were two diffent versions. One with said red 'R' and one without. I had the red 'R' one too but quickly found the other version. I'd imagine it would still be readily available online.

Ah right, cheers.

I'm happy enough with ArcMedia thingy anyways.

gbob

Imp4movies.com , hundreds of movies in mp4 at around 300 to 600 mb, use it lots

BenEadir

Lads,

I'm off on a long trip next week and would like to have as many movies as I can fit onto my 16GB SD Card.

I've two questions I'd appreciate help with:-

1. Can someone post a link to instructions or summarise how to rip/compress DVD's I already have so that I can save them to the SD card and play them?

2. Is there some way to filter the movies on http://www.imp4movies.com so that only the non premium movies are displayed? All I can ever find are movies which need a premium account in order to download.

Cheers all.

Ben

gbob

BenEadir wrote: »

Lads,

I'm off on a long trip next week and would like to have as many movies as I can fit onto my 16GB SD Card.

I've two questions I'd appreciate help with:-

1. Can someone post a link to instructions or summarise how to rip/compress DVD's I already have so that I can save them to the SD card and play them?

2. Is there some way to filter the movies on http://www.imp4movies.com so that only the non premium movies are displayed? All I can ever find are movies which need a premium account in order to download.

Cheers all.

Ben

1. DVDdecrypter & Handbrake are usually what i use, but it's always hit & miss getting a good conversion for me.

2. imp4movies, most movies i click on have several download options, but it really is worth the 1.99 per month for the fast download from its own servers.

kenyard

didnt realise that the desire could handle mkv. this is excellent news

BenEadir

I have the Samsung Galaxy with RockPlayer Universal installed. As a rule what format should I converting to or looking for? I guess it's a trade off between picture and sound quality, file size and compression. Which format is easiest on batter life?

I'm assuming MP4 is the way to go but would appreciate your thoughts before I start ripping my DVD's.

Ben

Chrizfitz

BenEadir wrote: »

I have the Samsung Galaxy with RockPlayer Universal installed. As a rule what format should I converting to or looking for? I guess it's a trade off between picture and sound quality, file size and compression. Which format is easiest on batter life?

I'm assuming MP4 is the way to go but would appreciate your thoughts before I start ripping my DVD's.

Ben

If you downlad a digital copy of your dvd saving you countless hours of encoding is it still considered piracy?

I have 32gig in my sgs so space isnt an issue and the stock player plays .avi and .mp4 the only reason I have arc installed is to play .flv I rip from sites like ted.

spooky donkey

will that app work on the samsung galaxy s? im goning to try get it now anways.

BopNiblets

The default video player on SGS plays mkvs for me, what's with all this extra app business?

gbob

Chrizfitz wrote: »

If you downlad a digital copy of your dvd saving you countless hours of encoding is it still considered piracy? .

No, you've paid for the content when you buy the dvd, thats how these movie dowload sites are still in business.

spooky donkey

BopNiblets wrote: »

The default video player on SGS plays mkvs for me, what's with all this extra app business?

what is the default player called then? Im kinda new to my phone and have yet to press all the buttons or read the manual for that matter.

BenEadir

I can confirm RockPlayer Universal works on the Samsung Galaxy.

I've two new questions (great way to spend a bank holiday eh?)

1. What is the benefit of Rock Player over the standard Samsung Video Player? I loaded to MP4 files onto my SD card today and they play the same on the stock Video Player as they do on RockPlayer, at least as far as I can tell.

2. What is the best resolution to save video files for playback on the Samsung 4 inch screen? Is is H264 1024 x 600?

Beginning to get the hang of this now and really looking forward to watching a few seasons of The Wire on my flight. The box set I got for my birthday has been gatering dust here for a few months, I never got past season 2.

Ben

BopNiblets

spooky donkey wrote: »

what is the default player called then? Im kinda new to my phone and have yet to press all the buttons or read the manual for that matter.

It's called "Video Player" surprisingly enough, default position in the apps menu is on the second page at the bottom, green icon with a film reel, dunno how you missed it.

Samsung stuck a good few codecs and stuff to play vids on the phone, nice of them.

Since the screen resolution is 480 x 800 so 480p would be the most you're actually going to get.

This thread on XDA developers is good reading: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=726163

And they even have a free test video recommendation to test the difference between 480p and 720p:
http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/

Chrizfitz

gbob wrote: »

No, you've paid for the content when you buy the dvd, thats how these movie dowload sites are still in business.

My feelings exactly so I think anyone wasting time ripping when they can just dl is insane.

mickoneill30

BenEadir wrote: »

1. What is the benefit of Rock Player over the standard Samsung Video Player? I loaded to MP4 files onto my SD card today and they play the same on the stock Video Player as they do on RockPlayer, at least as far as I can tell.

Does the Samsung player play AVI files? I've no idea as I've the Desire (which doesn't).

It plays MP4 files too. But I've piles of files in avi format. Normally when I think of putting some TV or movie on my phone is 2 mins before I'm heading out the door. To get it to MP4 means spending time converting the files. So I normally didn't bother.

With RockPlayer or ArcMedia you just copy the files onto the phone with no messing about. Sure they're bigger files but if I'm watching one TV episode, I just watch it and delete it.

Chrizfitz

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Does the Samsung player play AVI files? I've no idea as I've the Desire (which doesn't).

It plays MP4 files too. But I've piles of files in avi format. Normally when I think of putting some TV or movie on my phone is 2 mins before I'm heading out the door. To get it to MP4 means spending time converting the files. So I normally didn't bother.

With RockPlayer or ArcMedia you just copy the files onto the phone with no messing about. Sure they're bigger files but if I'm watching one TV episode, I just watch it and delete it.

Yeah the samsung has played everything I have thrown at it so far even hd.mkv but the resolution can be an issue. I use the phone for browsing and media most, and you just cant go wrong with the tv out through the 3.5mm jack.

I have 32gig in the phone atm and it is more that enough for my needs the only time I might need more space is if I was travelling. And now with 2.2 I can play flash so I have infinite shows/movies. I also have 3 batteries and I always have one of them charged for a backup.

Best media phone I have ever had, I knew that the min I used the stock music and video players.