Playing movies, but only getting Audio... PLEASE help.

[steveninspokane]

I put Bolt and Alvin and the chipmunks on my SD card, everything worked great, and movies played fine. I tried to add a few more movies, but they wouldn't play, all I got was a black screen however I could still hear the audio.

If I slide to the middle of the movie, I will see the picture and the frame that it is in, it will play maybe 2 frames (about a split second) and then pause on that frame yet the audio keeps playing.

I have tried so many different formats and none of them worked. It was after I just realized that the first 2 movies aren't working that it must be some problem I am having with my Droid.

Can anyone help?

PS I am using 2.2 FR01B

And I have tried ACT 1, Real player, and Droids default player, all the same results.

 

[Nathanv.1]

try doubletwist. i have been using that since i had that same problem.

 

[steveninspokane]

I just installed doubletwist, same results. only sound no video.

It seems I have looked around, and no one knows how to fix this problem.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

I put Bolt and Alvin and the chipmunks on my SD card, everything worked great, and movies played fine. I tried to add a few more movies, but they wouldn't play, all I got was a black screen however I could still hear the audio.

If I slide to the middle of the movie, I will see the picture and the frame that it is in, it will play maybe 2 frames (about a split second) and then pause on that frame yet the audio keeps playing.

I have tried so many different formats and none of them worked. It was after I just realized that the first 2 movies aren't working that it must be some problem I am having with my Droid.

Can anyone help?

PS I am using 2.2 FR01B

And I have tried ACT 1, Real player, and Droids default player, all the same results.

You posted in the Video section before (http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-audio-video/71170-full-screen-movies-no-black-bars.html), so I'm not sure why you posted a video topic in here, but anyway, in your post there, you mentioned (in quite a few posts) the software you were using for converting your movies (Daniu).

Assuming that nothing has changed there (no update or changed settings) it's possible that you tried playing a corrupted file, and some people on these forums have mentioned that if they play a bad file, all good files after that wouldn't play anymore either. A soft-reset/battery-pull fixed the issue for these people.

While not directly related to your software, many people have reported similar issues with the recent versions of Handbrake, where due to the way their quality-system works, the bitrate of the video exceeds the maximum of what the Droid can handle.

Try playing your created video files that do not play on your computer in Quicktime, and see if they play. (yes, people like VLC better, but because it does play everything it's not a good tool to test video files. Quicktime is more picky with files, and thus provides a better method for compatibility testing) If it plays in Quicktime, look at the "Movie Inspector" (in the top menu, Window > Movie Inspector) and check to make sure the reported datarate doesn't exceed 1660 Kbps (1500Kbps video + 160Kbps audio)
Preferably it should be lower than 1500 Kbps.

If that still fails, try converting your videos with different software, or contact the developer and see if they have any ideas.

 

[steveninspokane]

Yes, I did post in that sub forum before, and the reason why I didn't this time, is because in theory sub forums are great, realistically they are not as effective. I have been working on this problem for a few days now, and just was trying to get my question out there for people to see. Through this process I have had to wipe my hdds and reinstall 7 and xp, including having to force itunes to work with xp 64bit. So I thought the more people see my question, the better my chances of it getting answered.

With that said, I think the problem is like what you said, where when I play a video that is not corrupted, but maybe encoded wrong, it will also ruin watching anything else till I reboot. I guess maybe an answer that will help is, what are the exact specs I need to use to play movies on my Droid. I'll look into it.

By the way, I tried your software last night; DVD Catalyst 3. First I was having a few problems though after installing the trial of AnyDVD I found it to be a great product and I will be purchasing it. It produced very nice samples, hopefully the trial version is the same as the Paid for. I tried handbrake as well and was not impressed. Keep up the good work.

 

[lewblue83]

are you overclocking? when i had my moto droid, if i overclocked at anything above 1ghz it would only play the sound and not the video of a movie. i turned the overclock down to 900mhz and never had a problem again.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Yes, I did post in that sub forum before, and the reason why I didn't this time, is because in theory sub forums are great, realistically they are not as effective. I have been working on this problem for a few days now, and just was trying to get my question out there for people to see. Through this process I have had to wipe my hdds and reinstall 7 and xp, including having to force itunes to work with xp 64bit. So I thought the more people see my question, the better my chances of it getting answered.

Oh, I understand the reasoning for your posting in this section, it's just that there are a limited amount of people willing and capable of answering video-related questions, and don't dig through other sections of the forums. My DF bookmark goes directly to the video-section, which I check multiple times a day, and while I do skim through the other sections, this is at most twice a week.

With that said, I think the problem is like what you said, where when I play a video that is not corrupted, but maybe encoded wrong, it will also ruin watching anything else till I reboot. I guess maybe an answer that will help is, what are the exact specs I need to use to play movies on my Droid. I'll look into it.

The Droid/Droid 2/Droid X can play video files with the following specs:

854x480 (some people say 848x480 because it needs to be in parts of 16 for better compression, but I don't see the difference in quality. 854x480 is the exact resolution for the Droids, 848x480 will get you some black borders on the side)

Video quality can be up to 1500Kbps (Constant Bitrate) in H264 format. With constant-quality or 2-pass conversions, where the bitrate fluctuates (less for slow scenes, more for fast scenes) during the movie, you will experience the problem you are having, or in some cases the movie will play, but when a fast-moving scene comes up, it will display something about unplayable. The Droids have hardware support for H264 video, which means that a build-in chip takes care of the decoding. While players like RockPlayer are capable of playing other video file-types, this is done with the actual cpu of the phone, which results in faster battery drain.

Audio: up to 160Kbps AAC audio.

non-DRM iPod/iPhone/iPad compatible files, as well as MP4 files created for Blackberries will play as well.

By the way, I tried your software last night; DVD Catalyst 3. First I was having a few problems though after installing the trial of AnyDVD I found it to be a great product and I will be purchasing it. It produced very nice samples, hopefully the trial version is the same as the Paid for. I tried handbrake as well and was not impressed. Keep up the good work.

Thanks

AnyDVD is in most cases not needed, however, Bold is a picky one.

 

[steveninspokane]

Thanks Lewblue that just might be the culprit. I am OC'n with chevyno1 2.6.32-lowV-1.0Ghz kernel, and just the other day changed my oc from 800mhz to 1000. I will lower it to 900 and see if that helps. it also might help another problem with the phone itself, sometimes after a reboot, the screen will freeze for like 30 seconds or so before I can do anything.

 

[steveninspokane]

UPDATE

Ok, so I lowered my OC back down to 800, that might of been what was causing the problem.

I have used DVD Catalyst 3 to successfully convert 2 movies on to the Droid that play great.

The next test will be converting Avatar to a nice 720p format for the Xbox.

Thanks again Lew and DVD.

 

[steveninspokane]

Hey dvdcatalyst... I am noticing a problem while trying to convert the movie RV for my Droid, it gets to about 3 minutes left and then just pops the DVD out. Everything else is working great.

Also, What format is going to give me the best picture for use on my 42 in Plasma using Windows Media Center? I am converting Avatar right now, and the settings are for HD 720p HQ Xbox, But it says the res is only 856x480, so not sure about that.

Is there a preset I am suppose to use? I have my Xbox 360 set up on my network to use the MCE to play movies, and want the best picture possible, especially seeing I am used to my blu ray movies.

 

[lewblue83]

UPDATE

Ok, so I lowered my OC back down to 800, that might of been what was causing the problem.

I have used DVD Catalyst 3 to successfully convert 2 movies on to the Droid that play great.

The next test will be converting Avatar to a nice 720p format for the Xbox.

Thanks again Lew and DVD.

nice!! glad i could help. i remember how annoying it was for me when it happened.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Sorry Steve. I received a few email notifications from both your post and the other one, but did not get the one for this one, otherwise I would have replied yesterday.

Hey dvdcatalyst... I am noticing a problem while trying to convert the movie RV for my Droid, it gets to about 3 minutes left and then just pops the DVD out. Everything else is working great.

This could be due to a couple reasons, lack of file-space, dust/scratch on the DVD or the DVD drive itself, or if you have AnyDVD still running, it could be that as well. If it would be something with the protection, it would happen at the beginning (between start and the second scene) and if it would be a problem with scanning the DVD, it would happen when you actually start the conversion. 3 minutes out from the end is actually new to me.

Also, What format is going to give me the best picture for use on my 42 in Plasma using Windows Media Center? I am converting Avatar right now, and the settings are for HD 720p HQ Xbox, But it says the res is only 856x480, so not sure about that.

The resolution you see is the original resolution of the DVD. By default (you can turn it on) DVD Catalyst does not upscale video to a higher resolution, for the main reason that it actually reduces quality rather than improve. The resolution specified in the DVD Catalyst profile is used as a limit during the conversion to maintain compatibility. If the source video is higher (MKV bluray rips for example) then the video would be down-scaled, otherwise, the selected resolution is only used for the full-screen black border removal options.
Blurays have a higher resolution, but in turn, they are way bigger in filesize, which stores that information, and a 4-8GB DVD just doesn't have the information for a higher resolution. While there are upscale DVD players that render DVDs at a higher resolution, the process involves pixel-doubling and a slight blur thrown on top of it. The video player application (MCE, XBOX, WMP etc) has upscaling capabilities, so it's better to have that do it with the video at its original resolution than to increase the pixel-size during conversion and end up with a bigger file of the same or less quality.

More info can be found here:

Why is the resolution different than what you have selected? | Tools4Movies, the official home of DVD Catalyst

The bottom 2 screenshots should give you a better understanding.

Is there a preset I am suppose to use? I have my Xbox 360 set up on my network to use the MCE to play movies, and want the best picture possible, especially seeing I am used to my blu ray movies.

It depends on what you use to play the files.

The Droid-resolution is very close to the official DVD resolution, so if you want to convert your movies just once, I would suggest to use the Droid HQ2 profile. When you slap these files on a USB stick and plug it into your 360, they will play just fine. Doing this will save storage space, and I find that they look really good when I play them on my 360 hooked to a 32"

Another option, and this works with DVD's only, is to select "Experimental" > Copy VOB/MPG". This produces the best possible quality. It rips the DVD tracks (movie/episodes) to MPG files. No compression/conversion is applied, so the process is as fast as your DVD drive (and your harddrive to store the files) can handle. Unlike DVD rippers like DVDshrink/DVDFab, which rips the DVD into a DVD structure (multiple 1GB VOB files with IFO files) this method rips the movies/episodes as an actual individual MPG files. The disadvantage is that it takes up as much storage as it does on the DVD itself, so Avatar would end up as an 8GB MPG file.

If you do want to convert your video's twice, one for the Droid, and another for TV playback, you could use one of the HD 720 or HD 1080 profiles, but you will only benefit from using those if you use HD source videos (MKV's, M2TS etc)

I hope this helps.