Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Based on previews and forum posts, there seems to be no general consensus of agreement on:

1. Video playback from files on device. Some pre-reviews say "it plays almost everything we threw at it great" and some say basically the opposite of this.

2. For Flash, some reviews said the N900 played great and had no problem with heavy Flash content and Flash video. A new review at Ubergizmo is as an example of contradiction and says it does not play Flash well and can not even play Youtube very well- just "OK". What??

My non hardware accelerated G1 plays Youtube and Jetflicks (Standard def streaming video site) perfect on wifi or 3G with very good 480X320 quality and sound with no stuttering.

Frankly, some of these pre-reviews make no sense to me. Are they trying to play Flash sites or media with a dozen other apps or web sites running in the background and do not understand this?

It would seem common sense that the N900 should perform better with video than my wimpy G1 and inefficient Android OS, but why all of the contradictions before release?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

There are about 100 videos on youtube showing both. Its easy enough to make your own decision. From what I have seen both work just fine, amazingly well really.

also mynokiablog.com has lots

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

your g1 plays videos from those sites but thats doesnt mean that is playing flash content.

Afaik G1 dont have flash support.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Point is the review "said" Youtube plays "OK" and not great. I am wondering if some of these previewers have a bunch of apps running at the same time.

Please read the Ubergizmo review. They suggest the N900 is not that good with video or Flash. Polar opposite of other reviews, but some have also mentioned issues. Why the inconsistencies?

I suggest the less favorable reviews are done with multiple apps running at the same time, but would appreciate people that actually have the N900 to state their opinion from a practical perspective (since they have the device).

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

This has been asked and answered several times before and I give you the same answer here as the previous threads. Go find the soccer youtube video playing on the n900. It shows the device playing a soccer game on youtube out to a TV. Its so smooth it could be a live match.

Found it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryaO9WHaxlo

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Thanks. Can you see my point that there appears to be no consistent opinion on this by previewers? It is about 3:2 ratio of favorable, but with th N900 hardware, it should be a slam dunk.

My theory is the good reviews are with just a few intense apps open and the less favorable are due to the previewers lack of appreciation for the impact of too many apps being open.

One point about the Ubergizmo review in regards to the VR chip is I do not think they appreciate that the poly counts are theoretical and the actual power output to poly count curve is probably similar for what these type of chipsets will produce (at 65nm).

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Well yes I can see your point - but I can also draw my own conclusions by watching real time video (and that was a prototype device - even before the 300) I can see from that video that it plays just fine.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

I seen every reviews and i am absolutely certain that the reason some Youtube videos are not playing smoothly is due to 2 things. The reviewer got bad internet connection at the time they did the review or Youtube server is slow and therefore displaying video lag.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

I agree that it is obvious the N900 should be fine with Flash and video, but still surprised some tech sites may not consider the actual environment of their tests (what apps are running, internet connection speed to content, etc).

My topic was rhetorical rather than intending to assert a problem.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

I wouldn't call that perfect though. It's clearly choppy in some places. Especially in the beginning but also later on in the video. Take an example. It jumps a little at 2:04 where the goalie walks and the camera pans along.

here's the soccer video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_TEd1CG5Ts

no jump at that spot (0:31) on my computer. So " "OK" and not great " is pretty accurate imo. That said, it's a pre-release, so it's a preview, not a review.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Either way, Flash 10 should be out next year and should bring some much improved playback.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

I think those reviews/opinions are skewed. The same features are not being compared between the N900 and other devices.

I don't own an N900.
From all the reviews I've seen youtube videos played from the youtube.com website itself are NOT perfect. They are a little choppy.
The only difference between this and the G1 is the G1 doesn't play the embedded videos at all. What you are seeing is the G1 opening the videos in it's youtube client.

I can get perfect quality youtube videos on my old N800 right now when using youtube clients such as mTube, and @scene by Digia. I assure you the video is perfectly smooth. If I try playing the same youtube videos from the youtube website, my N800 plays them but they are extremely choppy, some more watchable than others, but still not something I like to watch.

I'm sure such clients will be available for the N900 (if they're not already.) The nice thing about the G1 that the N8X0 doesn't do, is that it asks you to open the video from the webrowser into the youtube client. I like that feature. Hopefully the N900 will allow that as well.

So to summarize,

-The N900 appears to be much more capable than most other devices in the sense that it can directly play embedded videos while others cannot at all. btw I also hope that with Flash 10 they will look better when embedded but no idea really.

-It appears from other video playback reviews that the N900 is a great device for playing back higher quality videos as well, and that it beats the pants off of most of the competition.

hope this helps

BTW: hopefully someone with more technical knowledge can shed more light on this issue. What are the youtube clients doing exactly? are they playing/requesting a different video format from youtube? Why is it easier for these devices to play those videos through the clients as opposed to the embedded ones?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

watched full series of tv shows I normally watch on big screen, i was most impressed of the quality :)

(normal ~350mb episodes, no transcoding, fast action)

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

All right so discussing it further with some more "expert" users on IRC channel #maemo, I've learned the following.

The youtube files played in one of the clients on N8X0, are being handled by mplayer. I guess mplayer is better at this task, since it "doesn't have to run a UI written in an interpreted language rendering vector graphics"

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Lcuk, I know you're in the UK: please can you confirm that that n900 doesn't (yet) like the bbc iplayer? I understand the hope is that flash 10 will improve that.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

what i understood is that :

video flash plays but not correct framerate because flash 9.4 not accelerated : acceleration will com hopefully with 10.1.

the question must be : when will 10.1 be avaiable for N900*?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Which is also horribly implemented and slow even on Core 2 Duo computers...

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Another thing that concerns me, is being able to play flash in fullscreen.

In all the videos I saw, i haven't seen anyone trying the fullscreen mode of flash, and are always watiching the videos slightly croped or uncentered.

Does anyone know if it possible to watch flash video in fullscreen ?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

especially on Mac OS X Core 2 Duo computers.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

The soccer video Bratag mentioned plays fullscreen flash. It works in the fennec browser.
So the answer is yes.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

To answer all your questions,

N900 plays nearly all kind of videos.

Youtube works amazingly well on N900. I haven't seen any laggy youtube videos till date.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Thank you!!

That is what i wanted to know!!!

Eikido

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHa3AoNdglY

Look at this video about 7 minutes in. It seems like it cant even play youtube videos.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

You do realize that there are many factors that could be affecting this. If you look around youtube you'll see videos where it loads youtube quite faster. There is a connection factor that can influence the load time.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

The issue with bbc iplayer is the content is in vp6 mostly rather than h.264 and high res vp6 stutters on the N900 due to a not very optimised vp6 on the device. H.264 flash videos at similar res however play back fine with the N900 because there is a dsp based h264 decoder (and some clever tricks probably).

A BBC Iplayer native client however would be able to take say the iphone versions of the bbc iplayer content and play that back reasonably well.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

I'm pretty sure that the higher quality flash streams are h264; is it possible that everyone that's tried this so far has simply opted for the low quality version and found that it sucked, when the higher resolution may actually have worked better?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

The "HD" quality ones are H.264. Although not sure what resolution they are. Will check them out to see if they are playable soon.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

The problem presumably being whether you can find anything in the beeb's output that's watchable...

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Monty Python, The Young Ones and Fawlty Towers :) Are they on there?

Is Minder and Only Fools and Horses ITV?

I LOVE all of them shows and watched them when I lived in England :)

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

FWIW (I don't have one, so maybe not that much) the impression I've got is that youtube vids work a lot better on the N900 when in fullscreen mode.

I think this is quite visible, for example, in the example given above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryaO9WHaxlo .

When viewed as part of the youtube page there is definitely stuttering - for example at around 1m 28s in, but there is a very noticeable improvement around 1m 45s when fullscreen mode is used.

My guess would be that the youtube site has lots of other rendering going on, and this degrades the quality of videos seen in "part of the page" mode.

Wish I could try out this theory in practice..! ;-)

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Best guess re YouTube: network.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Sadly no. Iplayer only carries output from the last week on a 'watch again or if you missed' basis, I think.

Great DVD collection, though! :D

(MInder was ITV, Fools was beeb, and the 7 disk set is half price at tesco this week.... don't ask why I know that.!)

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

The problems in that particular video has nothing to do with the devices capabilities. If you look at the progress bar you see that it's the network that is too slow.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Are you serious? You're avoiding buying an N900 because it can't play videos faster than the network it's on can deliver the data?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Will that be a new feature in the next OS then? ;)

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

Does anyone have experience with Viddler or the Slashgear videos on the N900? Do Youtube "HD" videos play in dedicated clients on other devices, so that we can expect that at least in an out-of-browser dedicated client on the N900?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

There is, however, plenty of listenable stuff, primarily from Radios 4 and 7, which isn't podcast; how's the N900 at iPlayer radio?

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

^Good question. I'm thinking Test Match Special here...

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

It does if you know where to look. I am running a Sense Hero rom on my G1 and flash works.

On my G1 a few videos on newgrounds.com were unbearably slow. I can only guess that this is down to the codecs. Has anyone tried any flash games from such a site on their N900? I haven't found one game that will run on my G1, which I guess is down to it being Flash 9; but, there could be another reason.

Sadly, the version of flash in the G2/Hero won't work with the iPlayer; so I can't do a comparison.

Re: Does the N900 playback video and Flash well or not?
 

It's HQ, damnit people, stop confusing these:

SD = STANDARD DEFINITION (normal video encoded in flash h.263)

HQ = HIGH QUALITY (video encoded in h.264)

HD = HIGH DEFINITION (720 pixels tall h.264)

There will not be support for HD videos on any platform and it'd be waste of bandwidth anyway since the video resolution is larger than the device screen.