Tablet for playing movies in xvid, divx, mkv/avi containers, etc

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yacoub35

Gawd
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
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Not sure where to post this as there's no tablet forum. Here? General Hardware? Home theatre?

Anyway, I have most of my DVDs/BluRays ripped and I want to watch them while I travel. Thing is, they're encoded for playing back here at home on 720p/1080p and HD/5.1 audio when possible.

For travel, I have an iPad2 and found an app that seems to play them video-wise, but they have no sound because most of them are ripped with 5.1 or HD sound and apparently the iPad2 can't decode that properly.

Is that up to software or a hardware limitation? I don't know. The iPad2 is running iOS6.x.

Rather than re-rip all the movies, and since the iPad2 is getting old anyway, I'd like to know if there's a tablet that's capable of playing the sound in addition to the video, even if it downmixes the sound to stereo.

I don't care if it's just outputting stereo sound, so long as there's sound playing alongside the video, i.e., a functional playback of the movies.

Would an Android tablet such as the new Nexus7 be able to handle the audio portion as well as the video? Does the new iPad mini or the iPad retina have a way to process it that my older iPad2 doesn't?
 
Have you tried VLC for iOS yet? It's supposed to handle all the formats of its desktop counterpart, so if those rips will play properly using VLC on your computer, they should be fine on your iPad.
 
Looks like a number of reviews for the VLC app note the same issue I have with the other app I tried: No sound on HD mkvs and similar filetypes.
 
yacoub35 said:
Looks like a number of reviews for the VLC app note the same issue I have with the other app I tried: No sound on HD mkvs and similar filetypes.
Click to expand...

Boo. That said, I'm wondering if this is something that can be patched away.
 
yacoub35 said:
Not sure where to post this as there's no tablet forum. Here? General Hardware? Home theatre?

Anyway, I have most of my DVDs/BluRays ripped and I want to watch them while I travel. Thing is, they're encoded for playing back here at home on 720p/1080p and HD/5.1 audio when possible.

For travel, I have an iPad2 and found an app that seems to play them video-wise, but they have no sound because most of them are ripped with 5.1 or HD sound and apparently the iPad2 can't decode that properly.

Is that up to software or a hardware limitation? I don't know. The iPad2 is running iOS6.x.

Rather than re-rip all the movies, and since the iPad2 is getting old anyway, I'd like to know if there's a tablet that's capable of playing the sound in addition to the video, even if it downmixes the sound to stereo.

I don't care if it's just outputting stereo sound, so long as there's sound playing alongside the video, i.e., a functional playback of the movies.

Would an Android tablet such as the new Nexus7 be able to handle the audio portion as well as the video? Does the new iPad mini or the iPad retina have a way to process it that my older iPad2 doesn't?
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat. I have been looking for a great tablet that meets the same needs which also can play HD Audio (.mkv container H.264 format) . I really do not want to re-encode my whole library.

I was thinking of getting the new Nexus 7.
 
iOS is awful for video playback.

Just get an Android tablet.

Even my ancient (2010) Android phone can play most video.
 
Try this: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/media-player-hd-pro-play-flash/id578585836?mt=8

It apparently decodes even obscure content such as 10bit mkv so I would think it would have no issues decoding your files.

As for Android tablets, most of them that came out within the last year will be able to decode 1080p content flawlessly with multi channel audio. The mini I believe has more or less the same specs as the iPad 2 and as do the first genration iPad retina. if I were to take a guess if an android tablet of the same specs of the iPad is capable of decoding 720P content, I'd say yes, but I can't say the same for iPads since IOS might limiting the amount of workload an app is able to do.
 
The newest Android tablets and phones can decode at least 720p 10bit video with the appropriate players in software mode. I don't think there'll be hardware decode until the next generation and they might skip it altogether for HEVC instead.
 
Ae you playing the files locally or streaming them from home to your device?
If you are streaming them, the app Stream2Me should work, the server app will transcode the file one the fly when it streams to the device. I use it at home as well as out and about if I have Internet access.
The only problem with the app is that it doesn't play any local files, so if its on the iPad, it can't access it.
 
Have you tried PowerPlayer ? Ive yet to have issues playing with it yet on my iPad for playback
 
I would try using the XBMC Android app, I works with every file I've tried. Just make sure to get a tablet with a decent processor (think Snapdragon S4 or better)
 
OCgamer666 said:
I would try using the XBMC Android app, I works with every file I've tried. Just make sure to get a tablet with a decent processor (think Snapdragon S4 or better)
Click to expand...

Ya, I am going to give a Nexus 7 with XBMC a try... should be more than sufficient. Cheers.
 
Does XBMC for Android have video acceleration for Tegra or Snapdragon processors?
 
jwcalla said:
Does XBMC for Android have video acceleration for Tegra or Snapdragon processors?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it is officially supported but my transformer (tf700t) has a tegra 3 and it plays everything I throw at it using Xbmc. Some tablets don't work with the Frodo version of Xbmc though, if your looking at an android tablet for this reason do some homework to find out if it has issues with Xbmc first.
 
Zepher said:
Ae you playing the files locally or streaming them from home to your device?
If you are streaming them, the app Stream2Me should work, the server app will transcode the file one the fly when it streams to the device. I use it at home as well as out and about if I have Internet access.
The only problem with the app is that it doesn't play any local files, so if its on the iPad, it can't access it.
Click to expand...


Locally on the iPad. I have AirVideo on my iPad for streaming from my PC while at home.
 
Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.
 
yacoub35 said:
Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't be surprising, you won't find an SD card slot on any recent Nexus devices. Google has been trying to steer people away from on-board storage for a while.
 
yacoub35 said:
Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.
Click to expand...
there's always the usb otg adapter and a large flash drive method. may not look pretty but it is extra storage.
 
FnordMan said:
there's always the usb otg adapter and a large flash drive method. may not look pretty but it is extra storage.
Click to expand...

You know what's funny? Check this out:
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39...nects-usb-accessories-to-your-android-device/
The list of Android devices that were tested and shown to be compatible includes the Google Nexus and Nexus 7, but with an asterisk that leads to this caveat:
*Although the Galaxy Nexus family supports many USB accessories, it does not support mass storage devices, like USB thumbdrives.
Click to expand...
How lame.
 
I have an older Lenovo 10.1 tablet running gingerbread and a Tegra 2 and it plays h264 mkvs just fine.
I compressed the files though just so I could have more movies. It's great having about 60 kids movies on the tablet for travelling.

If you don't downsize and compress them more, you could easily use 5-8gb for a native 720p, and thus be limited to only having 2 movies stored on the device at any time.

With my current method, I have about 35 movies stored on a 32GB sd card and can swap them out if need be. But I haven't had the need, because 60 movies is plenty.
 
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