I have some nice Android gadgets, and I like to read what happens for them in the community over at XDA forums. A question that pops up relativey often is "what's the best video player?" and usually it ends up in a flurry of replies that might be pretty weird. Sooooo.... I decided to test the ones that got more mentions! Rockplayer, QQ player, Mobo player, MX player and Dice Player. Aside clearly the system player, to have a base line. The test have been ran on two very different devices, a Samsung Galaxy Tab (you know, the original 7" one) running Gingerbread, and an Asus eee pad Transformer running Honeycomb (3.2). The files were varied but meaningful, two simple mp4 at 720p (h264, aac) in the form of videogame trailers downloaded from the PSN, an anime episode 480p in mkv and subtitles (again h264, aac and ssa subs), another anime in mkv with subtitles but this time in 720p (still h264, aac and ssa) and finally the opening for another anime.... in 1080p. This last one had karaoke subtitles and AC3 audio, a real nasty mkv.
Rock Player and QQ player failed HARD. Stuttering, jumping audio and/or loss of audio, video decoding artifacts, loss of sync... a real disaster. Rock Player had some performance issues on the most lightweight trailer, while on the other hand QQ Player decoded subtitles, but with timing and color information shown on screen as text. Ouch.
Mobo Player turned out to be fairly ok, with generic performance issues but nothing too tragic.
MX Player and Dice Player actually won. Who loses is the user, sadly.... see, Dice Player is very fast and it looked like the developer knows what he's doing, since it decodes via hardware everyhing supported by the hardware, and via software whatever's not supported. But no subtitles! On the other hand MX Player didn't perform as well, but it did show subtitles while still outperforming the "other" players. So I say get both of them, and hope that nothing with subtitles requires too much power.
Ah, but I mentioned two devices, I'm sure this leaves an open question, dosen't it? What device worked better, the Transformer with that dual core Tegra 2, or the Galaxy Tab with only one core?
Start the drumroll.... the Galaxy Tab, hands down. Yes, I'm not kidding.
I knew before the purchase that the Transformer would've been bogged down by the Tegra 2, once I decided to try video decoding, but still to see this kind of differences is almost funny! What takes a Tegra 2 to stutter? Roughly all the test files. The only ones that worked properly were the 480p mkv (in some players) and the most lightweight mp4. However! Overclocking to 1.6ghz (160% of the stock frequency, not a joke) made the files playable on some players, with different levels of success. Not the 1080p one, that still worked bad after the massive overclock.
The best part? I recorded every test, and put toghether the most meaningful ones!
Enjoy:
In order the video shows:
1 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), Dice Player
2 ) Samsung Galaxy Tab, clock @ 1ghz, SGX 540, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), Dice Player
3 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), Dice Player
4 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), MX VideoPlayer
5 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), MX VideoPlayer
6 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
7 ) Samsung Galaxy Tab, clock @ 1ghz, SGX 540, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
8 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
7 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), MX VideoPlayer
8 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), MX VideoPlayer
9 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, K-ON!_OP1_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA v2 (1080p, mkv, h264, AC3, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
10 ) Samsung Galaxy Tab, clock @ 1ghz, SGX 540, K-ON!_OP1_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA v2 (1080p, mkv, h264, AC3, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
11 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, K-ON!_OP1_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA v2 (1080p, mkv, h264, AC3, ssa subtitles), MX VideoPlayer
Yup, Dice Player had no issues with audio or video on the Galaxy Tab even face against the 1080p file.
UPDATE: it actually turns out that Dice Player does support subtitles, and shows them without any visible performance hit. Thing is, the subtitles are shown only if the file is started from inside the Dice Player interface, and that's why it looked like it didn't support them in my test.
Rock Player and QQ player failed HARD. Stuttering, jumping audio and/or loss of audio, video decoding artifacts, loss of sync... a real disaster. Rock Player had some performance issues on the most lightweight trailer, while on the other hand QQ Player decoded subtitles, but with timing and color information shown on screen as text. Ouch.
Mobo Player turned out to be fairly ok, with generic performance issues but nothing too tragic.
MX Player and Dice Player actually won. Who loses is the user, sadly.... see, Dice Player is very fast and it looked like the developer knows what he's doing, since it decodes via hardware everyhing supported by the hardware, and via software whatever's not supported. But no subtitles! On the other hand MX Player didn't perform as well, but it did show subtitles while still outperforming the "other" players. So I say get both of them, and hope that nothing with subtitles requires too much power.
Ah, but I mentioned two devices, I'm sure this leaves an open question, dosen't it? What device worked better, the Transformer with that dual core Tegra 2, or the Galaxy Tab with only one core?
Start the drumroll.... the Galaxy Tab, hands down. Yes, I'm not kidding.
I knew before the purchase that the Transformer would've been bogged down by the Tegra 2, once I decided to try video decoding, but still to see this kind of differences is almost funny! What takes a Tegra 2 to stutter? Roughly all the test files. The only ones that worked properly were the 480p mkv (in some players) and the most lightweight mp4. However! Overclocking to 1.6ghz (160% of the stock frequency, not a joke) made the files playable on some players, with different levels of success. Not the 1080p one, that still worked bad after the massive overclock.
The best part? I recorded every test, and put toghether the most meaningful ones!
Enjoy:
In order the video shows:
1 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), Dice Player
2 ) Samsung Galaxy Tab, clock @ 1ghz, SGX 540, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), Dice Player
3 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), Dice Player
4 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), MX VideoPlayer
5 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, BAC_E3_Catwoman_Trailer_PEGI_720p (720p, mp4, h264, aac), MX VideoPlayer
6 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
7 ) Samsung Galaxy Tab, clock @ 1ghz, SGX 540, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
8 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
7 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), MX VideoPlayer
8 ) Asus Transformer, overclock @ 1.6ghz, Tegra 2, [Kira-Fansub]_MM!_01_(BD_1280x720_h264_AAC)_[022457D1] (720p, mkv, h264, aac, ssa subtitles), MX VideoPlayer
9 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, K-ON!_OP1_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA v2 (1080p, mkv, h264, AC3, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
10 ) Samsung Galaxy Tab, clock @ 1ghz, SGX 540, K-ON!_OP1_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA v2 (1080p, mkv, h264, AC3, ssa subtitles), Dice Player
11 ) Asus Transformer, clock @ 1ghz, Tegra 2, K-ON!_OP1_[1080p,BluRay,x264]_-_THORA v2 (1080p, mkv, h264, AC3, ssa subtitles), MX VideoPlayer
Yup, Dice Player had no issues with audio or video on the Galaxy Tab even face against the 1080p file.
UPDATE: it actually turns out that Dice Player does support subtitles, and shows them without any visible performance hit. Thing is, the subtitles are shown only if the file is started from inside the Dice Player interface, and that's why it looked like it didn't support them in my test.
