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    What formats are supported for video?

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      • P Offline
        prog-amateur @dobey
        last edited by

        @dobey thank you for your reply. I confirm the unreadable files are :

        • mp4 - Quicktime - H.264
        • mkv - Matroska - H.264

        And like @Giiba , I start to become pessimistic about watching any movie on UT (media player can't read those formats, while Uplayer is buggy and does not launch most of the time). It's a basic feature.

        AppLeeA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AppLeeA Offline
          AppLee @prog-amateur
          last edited by AppLee

          @prog-amateur said in What formats are supported for video?:

          It's a basic feature.

          Please can you avoid this kind of comment.

          What you as a end-user consider basic is not an easy task to perform.
          And video as you understand is not simple task.

          There are dozens of codecs and many containers, most phones rely on a hardware video decoding and those rarely come with open source drivers.
          So no it is not basic. Everyone is well aware that video player is an important feature so no need to wine about it, it won't change that it's not an easy task.

          I know it's frustrating, but you have to be patient or even better help like you did by making detailled bug reports.
          Or you can help contributing to the documentation trying to pin point what is working for each device so other like you might understand how hard it can be to fix it for everyone.

          Cheers

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          • P Offline
            prog-amateur @AppLee
            last edited by

            @AppLee I understand all what you say, but please, understand that the priority sometimes shall be done on basic features.

            What I call basic feature is call, camera (picture/video), movie/audio player, and browser. They shall be ready almost at start.

            Then you have the basic features which may not work at day 1 such as bluetooth, GPS, etc. but shall be important too.

            Rather than focusing on one feature or another, I think we already need to get the basic features working. After the new features are a very good thing, but they should not take priority over the essential things.

            If we just find it normal that Video player only works on certain videos (for 2 years), we risk saying "it works, pretty well, the rest we'll see later" and we leave it aside for another 2 years ?

            It would be better and more logical to prioritize this feature, and please, no offense don't take it personal, somebody have to raise this issue.

            AppLeeA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • AppLeeA Offline
              AppLee @prog-amateur
              last edited by

              @prog-amateur It's hardware related too, software decoding of large full HD video requires more CPU power...
              And codec are not free so it's not something we can fix but don't want.
              A way to avoid that is to use hardware with the right codecs to play those videos.

              I don't know your exact situation (what phone, what kind of video) but there is no easy answer to something you consider basic.

              Basic for a phone is : call, SMS
              For a smartphone : photo, internet, media player
              Everything is there with restrictions due to the lack of open source drivers at least

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              • P Offline
                prog-amateur @AppLee
                last edited by prog-amateur

                @AppLee thank you for your explanation. On my side, my device is a Nexus 7, so this is why playing videos is very important for me (I don't call / use GPS / etc. just web browsing and watching videos with it).

                I understand the codecs are not free, but how did Debian do with their player (GNOME Videos = Totem) ? As far as I know, I am not sure they pay for codecs. Maybe we can port their player to Ubuntu Touch, do you think it is an easy task (I ask that because I am not a developer) ?

                AppLeeA dobeyD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • AppLeeA Offline
                  AppLee @prog-amateur
                  last edited by

                  @prog-amateur
                  I'll try to summarize that the best I can.

                  To play a video you have to decode it.
                  For that you have to use the codec (coder-decoder), that is the first problem : free codecs and large variety of codecs.

                  But regardless of the codec issue there is the computing time.
                  Hardware decoding is what is best, you buy the proprietary licenses with the chip, it's reliable and doesn't charge your CPU.
                  When you cannot use hardware decoding due to proprietary drivers, you can try using the CPU and free codecs but the result on such devices is not nice.

                  The video can lag or even freeze, you can have audio and no image, it has to be dealt with individually.

                  At least this is my understanding of the problem. With a computer with enough power there is no problem. Plus almost any GPU for computers are available on Linux.

                  You're right on this point : we can try to port something like VLC to use CPU power to get the best out of each device. It works with Libertine I think and if I'm right people thought about changing the skin to make it usable on phones or tablets.

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                  • P Offline
                    prog-amateur @AppLee
                    last edited by

                    @AppLee yes, and about VLC I have asked this question a few days ago, but the answer was that hardware acceleration is not supported by Libertine, therefore it can be limited.

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                    • dobeyD Offline
                      dobey @prog-amateur
                      last edited by

                      @prog-amateur said in What formats are supported for video?:

                      @AppLee thank you for your explanation. On my side, my device is a Nexus 7, so this is why playing videos is very important for me (I don't call / use GPS / etc. just web browsing and watching videos with it).

                      I understand the codecs are not free, but how did Debian do with their player (GNOME Videos = Totem) ? As far as I know, I am not sure they pay for codecs. Maybe we can port their player to Ubuntu Touch, do you think it is an easy task (I ask that because I am not a developer) ?

                      Debian doesn't ship non-free codecs by default. So you almost certainly installed them by yourself.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • M Offline
                        MarkG_108
                        last edited by MarkG_108

                        I posted the same question a while ago. What I discovered is that the default media player does not work on the Nexus 5 (which is particularly awkward for viewing videos that a user has taken with their camera, since the nonworking media player makes this impossible).

                        Anyway, to view video files, UTmedia will work, provided you open videos as follows: 1.) open the file manager, select the video, and then copy it. 2.) Open UTmedia, select File To Open, and then paste the file into the slot. Enter this, and the video file should be cued up for play.

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                        • P Offline
                          prog-amateur @MarkG_108
                          last edited by

                          @MarkG_108 Hello, thank you for your advise. I have tried this way : open UTmedia > click on Select File > Select File Manager > click on the file you want to play and validate.
                          The file launch, but there is huge buffering. I imagine it is due to missing hardware acceleration. I have tried to install gstreamer plugins, without changes.

                          @dobey it is possible, I don't remember very well if I install the gstreamer codecs plugins or not. But you seems to be sure, so I trust you. I would be happy if UT allows to install those plugins too.

                          AppLeeA M 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • AppLeeA Offline
                            AppLee @prog-amateur
                            last edited by

                            @prog-amateur Focusing on the plugins won't make hardware acceleration work.
                            So big enough videos won't play well : buffering, lag, freeze, ...
                            UTmedia is able to read small videos recorded with the phone or some small clips : no real videos

                            Without hardware acceleration I'd say that you can try but don't hope for anything ...

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                            • M Offline
                              MarkG_108 @prog-amateur
                              last edited by MarkG_108

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                              • P Offline
                                prog-amateur @MarkG_108
                                last edited by

                                @MarkG_108 After careful consideration, I decided to uninstall Ubuntu Touch. The idea I have of a tablet is among other things to play offline videos without worrying about the format, and surf on Firefox (and incidentally some Webextensions), but with UT it's not possible. I even tried to find a solution developing a VLC version as a .click package, but before I even started, @dobey told me it would be very limited. And @AppLee tells me that hardware acceleration is not setup. So I feel like I have a beautiful but useless device.

                                I'm not saying this to criticize because from what I understand, UT is not meant to be the Debian-derived Ubuntu that everyone knows, and there are a lot of members here so it's good that all these people are happy.

                                Strictly speaking, based on this experience, I was convinced not to install this OS if I buy a Librem 5 or a Pinephone for the reasons I mentioned before. But I take my hat off to you for managing to keep an OS that was abandoned by Canonical more than 2 years ago. And I hope to be able to monitor the potential evolution of this OS.

                                AppLeeA M 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • AppLeeA Offline
                                  AppLee @prog-amateur
                                  last edited by

                                  @prog-amateur On Librem5 or PinePhone, the hardware decoding will be possible.
                                  As of VLC, I read somewhere that it plays well with libertine but it requires a change of skin to interact with the UI.

                                  I hope you'll find something that fits your needs.

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                                  • M Offline
                                    MarkG_108 @prog-amateur
                                    last edited by

                                    @prog-amateur I'm actually an end-user rather than a developer of Ubuntu Touch, so no need to deliver any such considerations to me. I was just sharing what worked for me when it came to playing video files on my old Nexus 5. Otherwise, most of the technical stuff I don't get.

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                                    • dobeyD Offline
                                      dobey
                                      last edited by

                                      Well, OK @prog-amateur . I don't know why you were unable to play an H.264 video in a Matroska container. It works just fine on my Nexus 4 here with UT.

                                      That said, there are device-specific issues with video playback (such as video playback doesn't work at all on Nexus 5). Perhaps there is a similar issue on Nexus 7?

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                                      • P Offline
                                        prog-amateur @MarkG_108
                                        last edited by prog-amateur

                                        @MarkG_108 it's a mistake, my experience sharing reply was for @Giiba (you have the same color image), not to you sorry.

                                        @AppLee : about VLC skin workaround, except if I missed something, this was a proposal that I have made, but if I understood, the same hardware limitations are raised. However, if the Librem 5 / Pinephone can use hardware acceleration, then it is interesting. I hope to follow up the development by UBports team for those projects.

                                        @dobey : it is really strange, both Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 use the same Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 SoC and Adreno 320 GPU. Maybe they can decode small videos and not long (> 20mn), who knows ?

                                        In any case, thank you for having reply and tried to help.

                                        dobeyD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • dobeyD Offline
                                          dobey @prog-amateur
                                          last edited by

                                          @prog-amateur said in What formats are supported for video?:

                                          Maybe they can decode small videos and not long (> 20mn), who knows ?

                                          I tried with a full length movie that was 1.5GB, so I doubt that's it.

                                          It seems likely an issue with libhybris or the gstreamer/pulseaudio modules using it.

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                                          • M Offline
                                            MarkG_108
                                            last edited by MarkG_108

                                            Using my Nexus 5 with UTmedia, I can watch regular full length movies without a problem. However, these are not high resolution blu-ray type movies. They're just regular DVD quality. The high resolution stuff probably wouldn't work (I doubt even my old but reliable Optiplex 755 desktop with 8 gigs of RAM could play high resolution stuff).

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                                            • D Offline
                                              doniks @prog-amateur
                                              last edited by doniks

                                              @prog-amateur said in What formats are supported for video?:

                                              is there any available codec plugin that I can install, even from terminal ?

                                              I have a nexus 7 and I had to apt install some gstreamer package ...bad or ...ugly, I guess. Can't check right now

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