Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

I picked up my n800 after letting it sit in a drawer for a long time. I have 2008 on it and wanted to see how well it did with my collection of WMV files. I had the n800 fetch and install mplayer, I installed it and it performed - poorly.

Short of re-encoding (sort of defeats the purpose of an internet tablet if I need to convert content that I download before I can consume it), can I do anything to configure mplayer for better performance? Does the n810 work better? I think it has a much faster processor.


I have not even tried to go to youtube yet - I think I know what will happen there. It was slow before, and I do not anticipate that much has changed.


Feel free to flame on me for not digging deeper for an answer before starting a new thread, I can take it...

I like my n800 and prepared to start using it again, I just want to make the most of it.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

The N810 has the same processor as the N800.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

So I decided to take the experience to youtube... The experience is acceptable. The voice was not out of sync, but the frame-rate is a little slow. I am suprised that the n810 and n800 use the same processor.

For the most part I love my nokia gear. I will get an N95-3 pretty soon to compliment it... Sadly, my 9300 sits in a drawer now... I miss that phone.

I hope someone has some insights into playing WMV files on the n800. FLV support is nice, but I certainly want to view windows media content.

JJG

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

See my sig for software that will run under Windows (and very, very soon OS X) and convert all your videos into a format optimized for the N800/N810

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

nokia video converter actually slow down my videos... is there any other app which is easy to use?

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Try this:
https://garage.maemo.org/projects/mediaconverter/

or use whatever videoconverter you want (I recommend iSquint for the mac) and follow the guidelines here: http://maemo.org/community/wiki/VideoEncoding/

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

IMO, Mplayer is miserable playing any video format. I found that the default Media Player is the best and just stick to supported formats, converting anything else to MP4.

Besides the Nokia Video Convertor, I found the free RAD Video Tools converts Quicktime files nicely (among other formats), and have used the free Handbrake and MediaCoder as well.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

That is also my experience, as well as feedback from tablet users too. However, upon streaming video, mplayer can start playing video when buffer is filled (under 5 seconds) while the media player, sometime, returns with error statement "video format not supported". And of course, if you willing to take the trouble to dl the copy, media player is now more than able to play it, it even plays better than mplayer. Go figure. I have observed similar trends via videocenter and kmplayer.

Bottom line, if a streaming video gives a blank screen with media player, try to watch it under mplayer. Chances are, it may render something. And while mplayer is struggling doing it, try to dl a copy of the video and then play with media player. Why is this so clumpsy? You asking me?


bun
__________________________________________________ ___________________________
World TV on your N8x0:http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=19044
VideoCenter TV:http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=18769

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

*blink* What? Can you please explain this?

Or wait, do you mean with mplayer? In which case, yes, mplayer doesn't handle certain files as well as the native media player. The files that ITVC puts out are optimized for the native player.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Uh, you're kidding, right? O_o MPlayer consistently plays way more stuff way better than the built-in media player. :\

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Hmmm I've found that as well :) Even the official guide I linked to in my earlier post says that mplayer can render videos MUCH better than the built in media player

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

For certain video/audio codecs combination, that is indeed true

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Mplayer is generally better than the builtin player. What a shame that I have to convert videos though. Is there a utility that will convert the videos on the tablet itself? Having to tether off of the PC clearly diminishes the usefulness of the tablet.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

The tablet doesn't have the horsepower to do any kind of useful video conversion. THat process is very CPU-intensive

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

mplayer rc2 should fare better with wmv and flv files, you can try it, but keep in mind it is experimental.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Thank you. There should be no harm in giving it a try... I am kinda new to maemo.org. I have mplayer 1.0rc1-maemo.26.n8x0 installed. Where can I get rc2 to play with?

Sorry for the dumb question...

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

When trying video podcasts, I've found mplayer better for some (tekzilla in xvid codec) and the native media player better for others (anything by cnet). Cnet videos look like a slideshow in mplayer.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Like bundyo says, for wmv, his mplayer rc2 is recommended.

And have you noticed wmv plays better with sound disabled?
(-ao null -nosound)

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Umm, mplayer is not in any case mine :)

That said - yes, i noticed in some occasions. Maybe decoding wma is taxing.

EDIT: Just replace the executable without deinstalling the current one (or rename it first to keep a backup):

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ht=mplayer+rc2

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

I know :). I mean in a maemo, general sense as u compiled it :)

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

That would be nice if a player engine could be broadly integrated in the tablet. The default player plays almost none of my videos. D:

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Hence my original suggestion to transcode the videos using the ITVC.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

In case its not clear, the 400MHz ARM CPU just does not have the power
to decode full-resolution videos. Its a pity as the screen has such high
resolution. Some "downloaded" AVIs are low enough resolution, and
mplayer seems to be the best bet.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Not entirely accurate. Due to the oversized screen and the 3rd-party LCD controller that necessitates, we're prevented from using the full potential of both the main ARM core and the IVA video decoder that's built-in.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

why does mplayer play divx movies so slowly? is there a way to make divx movies play faster? its actually pretty annoying when im watching a movie at about 15 fps.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

What DivX movies, what resolution, how do you play them?

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

ln my experience, video playback is CPU-limited. LCD controller bandwidth is limited, but I usually max out the CPU first.

I think the DSP has the most potential to improve video playback, since it's virtually unused.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Yes and no. The controller prevents us from using the IVA (well, perhaps more accurately, made Nokia decide not to use it—for whatever reason), which would help a LOT with video decoding, but there's also things involved with the controller that impact the efficiency of decoding (someone with better knowledge of mplayer could speak to this more completely than myself), so just because it's pegging the CPU doesn't tell the full story.

Well, since the stock kernel drops CPU to 330MHz when DSP is in use, you'd actually get worse playback.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

By IVA, you mean the onboard graphics, right? Being a Linux user, l guess I just assumed there'd never be driver support for advanced features of the graphics "card". :(

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

True, but since it's not a limitation of the hardware, it's easily fixed. :)

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Wrong - it is a hardware limitation - the DSP won't work on bigger frequency.

Don't mess IVA (part of the processor, 2D) with the PowerVR OpenGL ES accelerator (part of the processor, 3D, external vendor) - I'm sure Nokia will use IVA if they could on this big screen, while the 3D acceleration needs different driver and probably licensing fees.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

MPlayer is still not fully optimized for ARM11 yet and there are still some optimizations possible. I'm not saying that it will be able to decode any "downloaded" AVI file, but video playback support can definitely become better than it is now.

As for WMV video files, most likely slow WMA audio decoding is at fault (one can run mplayer with -benchmark option to see what is taking most of the time). That is unless WMV9 is duscussed in this thread, which is much more heavy and hard to decode even for desktop PCs.

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

Actually, no, he's correct, stepping down to 330MHz is a software issue, easily solved by a new kernel. The argument you could make is that the DSP couldn't handle some mp3 decoding stepped down when the ARM core is at 400MHz, but I haven't seen any information as to what the DSP can and can't handle at certain clock speeds. Either way, best not to assume Serge doesn't know what he's talking about. ;)

Re: Performance of mplayer playing back WMV is miserable
 

I realize you can't have full CPU speed and full DSP speed at the same time.

I've read (and my experience agrees) that OS2008 prioritizes DSP speed over CPU speed. That's a software limitation.