Watching movies on Asus Transformer

[Peterlh]

Hello.
I got my Asus Transformer two days ago, and so far I'm very pleased with it.
I have one problem however. When I try to watch some of my MKV movies in 720 or 1080p, it is very laggy and there's no sound. I have tried with the standard movie player and several other ones found on the market.
After searching the internet, I found that Honeycomb doesn't support the MKV format, so to be able to play movies, I have to convert them to mp4.

The converted movies play fine on my transformer, but after trying many different programs for converting, I found that the fastest program takes 3 or 4 hours to convert a single movie, and I just don't have the patience for that.

What do you guys do when watching movies on your tablets?

Thanks.

 

[pfr19681]

Hi Peterlh,

you might want to try either ArcMedia (free) or Vplayer (which has a trial period).

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Android Tablet Forum

All the best

 

[fgdn17]

3 or 4 hours is a huge movie...try this

AVS Video Converter: perfect for home video conversion. Convert video fast & easily!

 

[Peterlh]

pfr: I'll try them when i get home, but I don't suppose that they will play the movies fluently, since it's a honeycomb problem as far as I understand.
fgdn: thanks for the tip, I'll try that too once i get home.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

pfr: I'll try them when i get home, but I don't suppose that they will play the movies fluently, since it's a honeycomb problem as far as I understand.
fgdn: thanks for the tip, I'll try that too once i get home.

There are programs that let you "remux" the video and audio from your MKV into an MP4 file, which doesn't actually perform conversion, or only convert the audio, however, the video format (likely H264) used in most MKV files has numerous advanced options that cause playback issues on the Transformer (and Tegra2-tablets in general) so conversion is your best bet.

As for conversion speed, it really depends on the specifications of your computer, the conversion tool used, as well as the settings you selected. If you are converting a 1080 MKV to a 1080 MP4, it will work (I managed to play videos at 1920x1080 @ 20MBps on my Xoom), but since the TF screen resolution as well as the HDMI out is limited to a lower resolution, it doesn't really serve a purpose, unless you use your MP4's for something like a HD media player (in which case I would hold on to the MKVs for that). If you convert your MKV's to match the resolution of the TF, you will gain some speed without any noticable quality loss, as well as considerably smaller file-sizes.

If you are using a multi-core system, and tried DVD Catalyst before, I would recommend giving the latest Beta a shot, which makes full use of all the cpu cores for conversion.

For more information:

DVD Catalyst Guide Collection (DVD, Video, Bluray)

 

[Peterlh]

Ok, I'm back with a little update.
I tried the AVS video converter, but it turned out to be just as slow as the other ones, maybe it's just my computer?
I also tried the different players, but they where both lagging immensly when playing the MKV movie. Vplayer did play the sound however.
So I guess that I will just have to be patient and convert all of my movies then.
Do you know if Honeycomb will support the MKV format when the 3.2 update comes out?

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Ok, I'm back with a little update.
I tried the AVS video converter, but it turned out to be just as slow as the other ones, maybe it's just my computer?
I also tried the different players, but they where both lagging immensly when playing the MKV movie. Vplayer did play the sound however.
So I guess that I will just have to be patient and convert all of my movies then.
Do you know if Honeycomb will support the MKV format when the 3.2 update comes out?

The tablets that already have the 3.2 update are not capable of playing MKV directly, so I doubt that the Transformer will be able to.

But it is not the MKV format that is the actual issue. MKV, just like avi and mp4 is just a "container". It can contain video and audio in a large variety of formats (h264,mpeg2,divx,xvid, mp3, mp2, ac3, e-ac3, aac etc).

Players like MoboPlayer separate the video and audio from an MKV, and if possible, it will try and play the video part using the build-in hardware acceleration or using software-mode. At HD resolutions, software-mode just isn't powerful enough to decode the video (the stutter you experienced) so for smooth playback it needs hardware-mode. The hardware-support is what doesn't like some of the advanced features used in creating the video content. This is a Tegra2 limitation.

The reason for your no-audio is because of the audio format used in your MKV's. Older formats like MP3, AAC and AC3 will decode just fine, but the newer Bluray audio formats, E-AC3, DTS-HD Master and TruHD for example cause complications.

 

[Peterlh]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Since it's the Tegra2 and not the software that limits the video playback, I assume that I will have to convert the movies to mp4 no matter which future updates will come.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Since it's the Tegra2 and not the software that limits the video playback, I assume that I will have to convert the movies to mp4 no matter which future updates will come.

Currently yes, but my guess is that eventually, the ffmpeg library that Mobo/Rock/vPlayer etc use to enable support for multiple formats (mkv, avi, etc) will be optimized to make better use of the Tegra2 chip. While the Tegra2 is a low-power chip, running at full-blast (some people reported success with 1.5ghz overclocked kernels and 720p MKV's using Mobo) it should be capable in decoding HD H264 video.
But, if you do create video files that are compatible with hardware-support, your battery will last a bit longer as well.

 

[PavtubeVideo]

below is an article talking about this, you can have a look, you may find something useful

Enjoy MKV videos on ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101