can n900 play mkv files?
 

can n900 play mkv files?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Still waiting for mine, but I installed the Maemo 5 SDK.

gst-inspect-0.10 matroskademux

Yep, it's there, in package gstreamer0.10-plugins-good-extra.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Who knows？

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

What resolution and bitrate are you talking about?

As long as they are within the realms of whats the N900's possessor can handle I would assume so. But you may need to wait for the community to port a codec or to.

Or just wait for mplayer ;)

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

720p variable bit rate mkv files....i'll want to know if i'll be able to use as a portable HD player

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Ahh... I too would love to do this...

However I don't think its possessor could candle it. My Pentium 4 desktop has some trouble with 720p video playback. So i get the feeling 600mhz wont cut it. :(

And the screen is not 720, its 800 x 480, more like DVD resolution. So id say stick to DVD rips. (which my n810 plays back perfectly with mplayer)

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Unless the container is absurdly inefficient, it should playback ok. The iPhone (3gs) can playback 1080p quicktimes.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

sorry, but, that do you mean with "Unless the container is absurdly inefficient" which one do you think is better?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

@Erebo: I don't know.

But the N900 and iPhone 3GS has virtually the same CPU+GPU (Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX 53x).. so at the very least, the N900 should be able to play 1080p quicktime (w/ h.264) streams too, given the same hardware acceleration support and optimizations.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

If you can give a link to a test file, then maybe those people with an N900 can try it.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

According to specs of processor it should be able to handle it, and not every 600 MHz is equal. You're comparing different architecures. Means really nothing.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Good idea,
Here are two samples
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1184943/m...ain-sample.mkv
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1184943/m...sal-sample.mkv

How do they play?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

thanks for the links, i'm excited about this, hopefully somebody can try it

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Just like this:

The.Lion.King.1994.HDTV.480P.X264.AC3-CHD.mkv
Format : Mk
File size : 896 MiB
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 1526 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-08-01 00:15:17
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.2.0 ('Turn It On Again') built on Mar 4 2008 12:58:26
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Video #1
Codec : MPEG-4 AVC
Codec/Info : MPEG4 ISO advanced profile
PlayTime : 1h 20mn
Width : 848 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 24.500 fps
Title : wth123jordan@CHD
Audio #2
Codec : AC3
Codec/Info : Dolby AC3
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48 KHz

Can n900 play it?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

kyoleon, FYI, the info you posted is for a 480p video file, the ones I linked to are 720p.

I'm very sure that it can play 480p as long as the software has the right codecs.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Mplayer and VLC will be ported, they will support Matroska (mkv) files. The defaut media player uses gstreamer framework, someone can port codecs needed for mkv as a plugin.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Yes, Matroska isn't supported out of the box. The media player doesn't even index these files.

And apart from it, 720p could be possible with some highly optimized codec, but it won't be easy.
I haven't found any 720p video that the N900 plays.


VLC and mplayer try to play the 720p videos, but they are very slow and completely unwatchable.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

it is sad, i don't fully understand why? if the 3Gs can.....:(
........
....
...
anyway, I WANT MY N900 :D :D :D

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

My guess is because the 3GS had the videos converted to a bitrate that the device could handle, and possibly had them in a slightly less compressed format so that less cpu power is needed to read the video data.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Really?

I have seen several videos showing the n900 playing 720p without issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYgiO...layer_embedded

This is a fairly nice example of 720x400 being played at a respectable 4.2Mbps.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

720p means that the vertical resolution is 720px, so 720x400 != 720p, it'd be more like 400p. ;)

I think 720p and especially 1080p content would have to be really low complexity and bitrate to play back on a 600 MHz Cortex CPU/DSP… and the decoder would have to be optimised for NEON or something similar.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

@bratag: 720p means 1280x720 or so.

Here's an older thread about running (non-mkv specific) high def stream on cortex A8 devices:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=30917

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Ahh my bad - was thinking 720 pixels - not 720p. New baby making brain drip out ears.

Still a damn nice vid though :)

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

720x400 is not 720p.
720p is defined as 1,280x720.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-de...ay_resolutions
In HD the resolution is measured in the number of vertical pixels.

EDIT: Opps, Someone beat me to it ;)

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

It's a shame N900 if can't play existing 720p vids without down-converting.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

So it couldn't play the sample videos that were posted?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

It is a bit of a shame but personally I'd down-convert to native res for battery and space improvements.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

I don't know, as I don't have an N900. I was going by yerga's comment:
Has anyone else tried the sample files to get a second (or third) opinion?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

It should be possible, my i8910, which has the same hardware plays 720p video without a problem (and many 1080p videos also). Heck, the i8910 can record in 720p, so the hardware here really shouldn't be the limiting step in the equation...

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

To get the n900 media player to recognise mkv files, you need to do as root after installing the extra gstreamer packages:

tracker-register-mimetype -c Videos -a video/x-matroska

I guess someone should create a meta package for all the container types not supported and have this kind of command added to the postinstall of the package

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

As far as I understand, Fremantle mplayer hasn't been optimised yet for the OMAP chipset. VLC has been optimised a bit, it uses NEON, but it doesn't use the DSP.

If one of those players could use both the optimisations and the DSP, I bet we could get 720p video...

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Yes, but the screen is not 720p, so we would need more power to scale the video down, along with require extra space for the video.

DVD quality seems idea for the tablets IMO.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

So why is the i8910 able to play them but not the N900? Maybe not out of the box, but i think it should be able to handle such vids...

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Why was MKV support not built-in? I understand the issues surrounding OGG support, but surely MKV does not have the same issues?

That said I think all the MKV files I have seen are 720p, SD people usually seem to prefer XVID/DIVX than H264. That said I am not even sure why MKV is preferred over AVI or MP4 containers (perhaps MP4 as it has patent issues).

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

It would be useful if the N900 could play these 720p .mkv files and output the result by DLNA/uPNP. And if you have a TV/Receiver that can receive it and display it.

HD output by composite should be fairly useless, keeping in mind how crap composite is. Showing it on the N900 screen aswell as it is to small to even notice the difference against a lower resolution XviD.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

mkv offers chapter metadata, sane vorbis support, sane vfr (variable framerate) support, and softsub support, as well as multiaudio and subtitle support.

vfr is nice for animated content, and softsubs are nice when your target audience is split between those that want subtitles and those that do not.

avi actually has multiaudio too, but few players support it. Vfr and vorbis are also possible, but very few players support vorbis in avi, and even fewer encoders can create it properly. Both vfr and vorbis in avi is horribly inefficient, with huge overhead.

I encoded a bunch of videos for someone on irc with n900. Iirc, h264 only worked if it was baseline, and properly identified itself as baseline. What worked perfectly for 480p didn't work with same settings in 720p, came up with an error message.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

I think time is better spent on reporting performance issues, profiling and improving the current gstreamer setup. There are already dsp accelerated mpeg4, h264 base profile, divx, wmv, h263 gstreamer elements on the n900 and I believe at least the h264 one could be made faster and that we'll see 720p files play without much of a sweat. Also with the qos handling in gstreamer it is possible to make the codecs not decode fully and just have macroblocks with same pixel colour when the load is too high and so not skip.

The scaling down is done by the gpu so is not really a cpu drain. however of course working on 720p frames means more memory access etc.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

Rygel will export them if you do the tracker-register-mimetype i mentioned in a previous post on thread over dnla/upnp. If you have a dnla client that supports mkv like the new samsung lcds then you will be able to watch mkvs stored on your n900 on your tv.

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

is there any mkv player now?

Re: can n900 play mkv files?
 

This didn't help?