Transformer supported media playback

[Guest zeuice]

Hi,

Bit of a noob here so please bare with me if I'm missing the bleeding obvious.

After buying the transformer I found I had trouble playing petty much all media files properly (very low frame rate playback if it played at all). They were mostly dvd rips I made myself with Handbrake using the 'regular -> normal' preset. I've also got a few other files which are a variety of media, ranging from DIVX to h264 HD files.

So having read up on the forums and around the net it looks likes most people are having issues with HD content, and in order to play HD content on the stock Transformer the media must be encoded with a certain profile (discussed in other posts so I won't repeat here). I seem to be having issues with stock Transformer with all content whether HD or not. I really don't fancy re-encoding the media if I can avoid it.

Firstly, I'm not sure how to find out what profile encoding my files are, I've tried using ffprobe but the output doesn't make much sense to me.

Secondly, after reading some posts here I eventually discovered that installing MoboPlayer with the optional ARMV7VFP3 codec yields much better playback results. Now I can playback pretty much all the DIVX I can chuck at the Transformer, and all my h264 DVD rips playback just fine with Handbrake's 'regular -> normal' preset.

Unfortunately, I still have issues with playback of a few h264 files and I'm trying to work out why. Some h264 media playback as if I've pressed fast forward (I'm pretty damn sure I've not, just incase you were wondering), randomly jumping forward randomly from 30-120 seconds each frame. I was hoping someone might be able to spot something that I can't to explain why some media won't playback.

Here's the difference I found with ffprobe (if it makes sense to anyone):

Working h264:

major_brand : mp42

minor_version : 0

compatible_brands: mp42isomavc1

Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 720x428 [PAR 64:45 DAR 256:107], 1879 kb/s, PAR 4096:2025 DAR 16384:4815, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc

Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 162 kb/s

Stream #0.2(und): Subtitle: text / 0x74786574

H264 file that plays back as if fast forward and skips:

major_brand : isom

minor_version : 1

compatible_brands: isom

Duration: 02:32:59.66, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2022 kb/s

Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x536, 1758 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 89071 tbn, 47.95 tbc

Stream #0.1(und): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 259 kb/s

Also, has anyone else had better luck with video playback on the Transformer? How do other people playback media that is unsupported by default? Does anyone have any idea what the future might hold for h264 playback on the Transformer? Is it just a case of wait and Asus/Nvidia will eventually produce better drivers?

Edited May 3, 2011 by zeuice