Video playback on the i86 (or other android ONYX)

fuli42 · 08-09-2015, 01:58 PM

I know, these are ereaders designed for books, not tablets... However I'm watching a lot of programming screencasts, and the i86 could be ideal for that. Just as eink is better for reading, it could be better for watching presentations.

So let me share my process and maybe someone else could add to it.

What I have found that the ONYX devices (AFAIK the i86 or M96 have the same processors) are capable of playing back video (1280x720, A2 mode). The problem was that the I couldn't manually refresh the screen, so a lot of ghosting was building up.

At first I thought that the screen refresh button was not working, but in fact it's the CPU that gets overloaded so it can't process the request for the screen refresh.

I spent last night and this afternoon playing with different encoding settings to find a balance between video quality (text readability) and keeping the CPU load enough to get back the screen refresh (around 3.0).

I'm using Handbrake for the conversion and so far I've found these settings to work:

- I start of the with Android Tablet preset
- the most important factor is the video size. Around 600 width is okay. Lower is better.
- framerate: 5 FPS
- Constant quality at 21
- Encoder options:
- Tune: stillimage
- Profile: baseline <- requires the less CPU work
- Level: auto
- Fast Decode ON
- I have also set the grayscale filter ON in the Picture Settings>Filter

For the playback I'm using the VLC player, it seems to be the most reliable of all the players. With some other players (e.g. diceplayer) the screen refresh buttons works better, but the video playback is choppier.

I'm neither an expert in Android, hardware or video encoding, so any thoughts are welcome.

DarkCookie · 08-09-2015, 02:19 PM

Convert video to 480p or 360p before playback. Problem should be solved. You can try set video process priority to lower too.

seltzered · 08-11-2015, 06:59 PM

Thanks for posting this. Briefly played with watching videos in VLC and similarly enjoyed the concept but the ghosting issue was annoying.

Ideally I'd rather have something that 'forced' a refresh periodically rather than thinking about re-encoding videos - if anyone knows how to trigger manual refresh programmatically I'd be interested (no guarantees timewise) in writing a small app to do this. Alternatively, maybe a VLC plugin could be done to achieve settings similar to what you have.

08-09-2015, 01:58 PM	#1
fuli42 Member Posts: 23 Karma: 25308 Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: France Device: Bokeen Odyssey, Kobo Aura HD, Onyx M96, Onyx i86	Video playback on the i86 (or other android ONYX) I know, these are ereaders designed for books, not tablets... However I'm watching a lot of programming screencasts, and the i86 could be ideal for that. Just as eink is better for reading, it could be better for watching presentations. So let me share my process and maybe someone else could add to it. What I have found that the ONYX devices (AFAIK the i86 or M96 have the same processors) are capable of playing back video (1280x720, A2 mode). The problem was that the I couldn't manually refresh the screen, so a lot of ghosting was building up. At first I thought that the screen refresh button was not working, but in fact it's the CPU that gets overloaded so it can't process the request for the screen refresh. I spent last night and this afternoon playing with different encoding settings to find a balance between video quality (text readability) and keeping the CPU load enough to get back the screen refresh (around 3.0). I'm using Handbrake for the conversion and so far I've found these settings to work: - I start of the with Android Tablet preset - the most important factor is the video size. Around 600 width is okay. Lower is better. - framerate: 5 FPS - Constant quality at 21 - Encoder options: - Tune: stillimage - Profile: baseline <- requires the less CPU work - Level: auto - Fast Decode ON - I have also set the grayscale filter ON in the Picture Settings>Filter For the playback I'm using the VLC player, it seems to be the most reliable of all the players. With some other players (e.g. diceplayer) the screen refresh buttons works better, but the video playback is choppier. I'm neither an expert in Android, hardware or video encoding, so any thoughts are welcome.

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08-09-2015, 02:19 PM	#2
DarkCookie Developer Posts: 71 Karma: 249456 Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Poland Device: Various	Convert video to 480p or 360p before playback. Problem should be solved. You can try set video process priority to lower too.

08-11-2015, 06:59 PM	#3
seltzered Enthusiast Posts: 30 Karma: 27186 Join Date: May 2015 Device: none	Thanks for posting this. Briefly played with watching videos in VLC and similarly enjoyed the concept but the ghosting issue was annoying. Ideally I'd rather have something that 'forced' a refresh periodically rather than thinking about re-encoding videos - if anyone knows how to trigger manual refresh programmatically I'd be interested (no guarantees timewise) in writing a small app to do this. Alternatively, maybe a VLC plugin could be done to achieve settings similar to what you have.

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