Current Android Hardware h264 Video Capability.

maderin1 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:50 pm **Posts:** 20625

i agree totally on the streaming and fad nature of "the cloud", even here in the UK both home networks and mobiles are still not solid enough in anyway to support streaming in the way the industry "leaders" would want it, its going to take may many years for it to become anywhere near a reality for the majority and i hope they see it soon just as i hope they have seen the 3D TV was also a joke!!
i think alos complanies like apple, google etc etc do have influence on hardware and maybe more and more so as time passes

Suppin · **Joined:** Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:15 am **Posts:** 167

tech7 wrote:

As a note, just because you see little artifacts on a video does not mean the Tegra 3 can playback hi10p videos perfectly (some vids will show little artifacts while other will show a lot). Software decoding is the only way to go. Unfortunately, the Tegra 3 only gives usable playback on hi10p 720p video when it's OCed to at least 1.5ghz on all cores (tested on my Transformer Prime when I was able to OC up to 1.6ghz). While usable, you still see frame drops during high motion scenes or during panning. 1080p hi10p vids are out of the question.

Even the Snapdragon S4 1.5Ghz dual-core on a lot of new phones also has problems with 720p hi10p videos too - some videos will play okay, some will play fine, others will not play well using software decoding on MX Player. I personally never test hi10p vids using the hardware decoder because no SoC, to my knowledge, can hardware decode 10-bit videos.

I actually have an HTC One S Phone. with one of those S4 1.5ghz dual cores. I just haven't had time to transfer some files to my phone (it has no sd slot so getting files to the phone are harder...) I'll try to run through some tests and give some results. Unfortunately I can no longer edit the frontpage to update the new findings (a new feature of the forum?)

About the Tegra 3. I've seen the Tegra3 in a Nexus 7 in staples play a coalgirls 1080p hi10p episode of anime. It didn't have very much high speed action, and it occassionally dropped a few frames. also the colors were a little blotchy (but really not too bad). It did play though... and was very watchable. This was using mxplayer with the new HW+ setting.

Neko · **Joined:** Sat Oct 16, 2010 10:47 pm **Posts:** 191

had the opportunity to very briefly test playback of Hi10p on an Ainol Flame/Fire - using the latest version of MX Player. The single file I had the opportunity to test was Mazui's latest episode of Tamako Market (ep 4). Remarkably, MX Player uses HW playback, and plays the 720p file perfectly smooth and in sync. However, there are artefacts in the coloring, giving the picture the old blocky DIVX look. Watchable, but not really fun. Software playback was not too good, about 50% speed. Maybe the next gen quads will be able to do 720p software decoding smoothly.

maderin1 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:50 pm **Posts:** 20625

so where is the problem here, for what you say it seems that the power is there as its all playing smoothly and in audio sync just that its got some crappy break down in the image - this sounds more like a refinement in the code is needed as im sure, hardware wise, thses are up to speed in raw processor cycles, maybe, due to it being a less used format that its just not getting the attention needed to fix it as im sure, from what tests you have done that its been a similar story for a while

Neko · **Joined:** Sat Oct 16, 2010 10:47 pm **Posts:** 191

what's interesting is that MX Player activates HW playback. No other CPU than this AMLogic one sofar, that I tried, supports this. So either the MX Player programmers found a way to use this specific CPU or GPU hardware support (but that seems odd, it's just basic ARM and the GPU core types are limited and widespread used as well), and maybe they can increase quality, or AMLogic has started to implement some basic support for Hi10p. I am looking forward to their 4 core design.

Suppin · **Joined:** Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:15 am **Posts:** 167

More very good information and a crosslink.

ASUS VivoTab Smart Tablet - from RM1,799

This fellow is testing Hi10p on an atom Z2760 processor. it also plays back 720p smoothly and most of the 1080p low motion stuff. The most interesting is where it slows down and the limitations of the processor. I believe it is very similar to the current SOC solutions right now. Keep in mind hte Z2760 processor is used in low end windows 8 tablets (they are around $450US starting around where I live), so not cheap, but still good information.

Suppin · **Joined:** Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:15 am **Posts:** 167

A Win8 Z2760 Tablet was on sale for me locally for a very reasonable price (ME400C). This gives me a good insight into the problems that have yet to be faced for android tablets and hi10p. here goes.

1) the Z2760 can play 720p hi10p effortlessly.
2) it can also play about 95% of the 1080p hi10p stuff. By 95% I mean that the high motion high bandwidth stuff is still an issue.
In order to get to this state I had to heavily speed optimize various filters, and make sure I have the fastest player/splitter/decoders around.
Without this optimization the 1080p hi10p stuff stutters quite badly (yes like current quad core processors).
3) If using my optimized configuration i believe that the next generation of intel SOC should be able to handle 99%+ of the 1080p hi10p stuff.
4) With the current state of the android tablet, it's hard to tell if the software isn't optimized enough or the CPU is not fast enough to do all the decoding.
It probably is a combination of both. Given this knowledge I am going to guess that we are about 1-2 generations away from playback of hi10p at 95%
which is very watchable, but not perfectly smooth (audio does keep in sync), and about 2-3 generations away from 99%+ playback of hi10p stuff.

Various factors may be able to boost the circumstances, the largest of which is hardware accelerated decoders (which will require at least 1-2 cpu generations), and more heavily optimized playback decoders than those current ones. Barring that the next generation 8 core tegra might give us 95%, but i don't believe it will take us to the 99%+ level yet.

In short this will take a long long time....

Neko · **Joined:** Sat Oct 16, 2010 10:47 pm **Posts:** 191

The new Atoms planned for the end of this year look very promising then... Intel seems to get it together, finally, soundly beating ARM. Or so they claim

Raz · **Joined:** Fri Jul 25, 2003 5:53 am **Posts:** 22200

Neko wrote:

The new Atoms planned for the end of this year look very promising then... Intel seems to get it together, finally, soundly beating ARM. Or so they claim

Atoms....i think they will need to meet and go beyond expectations to get people back from their miserable experiences they already had with those processors. Just thinking about the performance of my old netbook makes me laugh. I don't think the age of tablets would have come so fast and taken over mobile computing so fast if the age of netbooks didn't take mobile computing 5 steps back.

Neko · **Joined:** Sat Oct 16, 2010 10:47 pm **Posts:** 191

Actually, I was happy with my Acer netbook (720p screen, unlike most Atoms) except it was too bulky. I really wanted a tablet, but this was pre i-pad era. The Intel Silvermont architecture is really looking good - three times the performance, up to one fifth the powerconsumption.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08 ... hitecture/

Seems also we may expect quick development and new improvements as they have adopted the ticktock model for Atoms now. Finally, Intel is taking this seriously.

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