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    What formats are supported for video?

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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.

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              • 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

                      This post is deleted!
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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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                                      • tatonutaT Offline
                                        tatonuta @advocatux
                                        last edited by

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                                        • tatonutaT Offline
                                          tatonuta @advocatux
                                          last edited by

                                          @advocatux said in What formats are supported for video?:

                                          @Giiba have you tried to play videos with UTMedia (https://open-store.io/app/utmedia.nfsprodriver)?

                                          There are some issues with the default media player on Nexus 5 but UTMedia works for me.

                                          @advocatux This solution works for me too. (Playing regular videos with H264 - MPEG-4 AVC codec). I run Ubuntu Touch on RC on Nexus 5.

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