Notices

Can the Maemo community lend a hand in this regard?

The way I see it, there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to take a video from my computerl, copy it to my N900, and play it wherever I am. I have tried copying a movie over that was .avi format and was not able to. I used HandBrake to transcode the movie into .mp4 format, at which point i was able to copy it over. Yet, when I want to play it via the media player, I get an error message saying "Unable to play media. Media format not supported." Anyone know if VLC will be able to clear this up with all its built in codecs?

i cant play a simple flv file. I'm ready for vlc now

I second that

Urm, I was able to move an xvid file (The Office episode) from my computer to the N900 and play it in the default media player. The few who were at the DFW N900 Meetup saw it playing just fine.

install gstreamer0.10-plugins-flv and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg then try and play the flv file

zoutube has no problems playing the "simple" flv files.

There is actual a reason why you should not be able to copy a video and play it.

If you're using a non-DSP-accelerated codec, beyond a certain resolution, you'll just run out of CPU. From my non-scientific tests, you can play MPEG-2 Video at DVD resolution in real-time. But if you add audio decoding, software de-interlacing, and, well, PulseAudio overhead, then you do noticeably loose frames, although it remains watchable. The Cortex-A8 is much more powerful than any other ARM processors in earlier smartphones, but it's not as fast as a PC.

Also, currently I believe only gstreamer can use the DSP. So mplayer or VLC or whatever non-gstreamer thing will have to do the decoding on the Cortex. Not only am I not aware of any DSP support plans for non-gstreamer apps, but I am not sure if the DSP arbitration allows for third party application.

I agree that VLC would be nice to have now- if optimized for the N900. Too many videos do not work that I have tried and this includes some MP4's that work on the Droid and G1. One of the advantages of the N900 is no need to convert, but not seeing that advantage yet. Sure it will come, just not seeing it yet. As long as the videos are less than 720p, I would expect avi, divx, mpeg, mp4 and wmv to play with no problems- just like VLC.

Again, the Archos 5 from last year has the same chipset and does play everything. Why are the current codecs so picky on the N900?

From: the Linux Journal (re archos 5):

"My biggest gripe is that there is no out-of-the-box support for playing h.264-encoded video. This is a major limitation. It's not a question of ability, because there's a plugin you can purchase to enable it (which I did reluctantly). The plugin bundle to enable h.264 video, AAC audio, HD video support and MPEG-2 video support costs 30 euros, which worked out to about $43 at the time I purchased it. The three plugins separately are 15 euros each, so I guess I'm getting a good deal, but it just feels like Archos is trying to fleece me. On top of that, the HD plugin is not yet available. "

Nokia have provided the TI DSP codecs for decoding. These will not do 720p like the HD pack but an enterprising dev or company could create better optimised codecs and sell them on ovi store or provide them in extras. However it makes less sense on the N900 with no way of outputting on anything larger than 800x480 (tv-out is just a composite video output).

UPDATED: I went and looked on archos's site and they say for the hd plugin: "Support WMV/VC1 AP at 720p / 24fps / 6Mbps max. Support Mpeg4 ASP w/o qpel and gmc at 720p / 24fps / 6Mbps max." So there is no 720p H.264 either. Also from what I have read there is no mkv support either. I think using the Archos 5 to beat down the N900's video playback qualities is counter-intuitive!

480p is HD and should be a good fit for the n900. Downscaling 720p on-the-fly so you don't have to transcode doesn't seem reasonable to me. Get an ION netbook if you want to watch 720p. And like someone said, the TV out is only PAL and NTSC.