[Nickos-V]

N80 (RK3066 @ 1.6 GHz, 1024x768) plays Hi10p Anime very well. =)

UPDATED

I tested with 3 Anime files. Two MP4 (H.264) @ 640x360 (360p). One MKV @ 1280x720 (720p). I guess not all the Anime out there is encoded at 720p.

I use MX Player. Make sure to download & install that video player and use HW (hardware) decoding. HW offloads some of the work onto the VPU.

• HW was working well. HW+ was giving me some graphic glitches.
  
• HW was perfect for MP4 files. It caused some blockiness in some frames for MKV.
  
• SW (software) decoding worked perfectly on all video files.
  
• Anime was in sync for HW & SW decoding. It may have been a little out of sync for SW 720p in a few parts.

HW for 360P MP4. Took 20-35% of CPUs.
HW for 720P MKV. Took 25-50% of CPUs.

SW for 360P MP4. Took 35-65% of CPUs.
SW for 720P MKV. Took mostly 65-85% of CPUs but sometimes going to 100%.

ie. SW 720P will require at least 1.5 GHz dual Cortex A9 to work well.

Strong CPU is really needed to play 720p Hi10p in SW mode but should really use HW mode so some of the work goes to VPU.


I used Micro CPU Monitor to visually see CPU use during video playback. It has two bars for the two CPUs which I changed to full screen to better determine the CPU percentages above.

CONCLUSION
RK3066 @ 1.6 GHz w/1024x768 can playback Hi10p in 360p or 720p resolution with either HW or SW modes.

8726-MX "should" play Hi10p in HW mode but no idea if 8726-MX's VPU can work with Hi10p. 8726-MX will be unable to play 720p Hi10p in SW mode because requires lots of CPU processing power but can probably handle 360p version.


PS, Hi10p should play on other RK3066 tablets with 1024x768 or 1024x600 resolutions. 1280x800 tablets may or may not work. Someone will have to test that out for you.

PPS, I grabbed the Hi10p files from here:
http://archive.org/s...ensource_movies

Edit: cleaned up and rewrote the content on this post to be more informative

This post has been edited by Nickos-V: 06 January 2013 - 02:23 PM

[Nickos-V]

I could not figure out how to get actual onscreen frame rate or playback resolutions. I only found the encoded video resolution & frame rates.

I would assume that the videos were playing at full frame rates because the CPUs would only hit 100%, in SW mode, for less than a second every 15-30 seconds on the 720p MKV.

I should have been getting full frame rates since the CPUs were staying mostly below 85%.

This post has been edited by Nickos-V: 06 January 2013 - 02:34 PM

[Nickos-V]

Did some better testing and updated & rewrote post #1 & #2.

[sukanime]

Nice info.
Some anime have heavy subtitle, so what anime you have test?
Could you try this http://www.nyaa.eu/?...info&tid=278988 , this anime have more complex subtitle efect.

Btw, one of my anime fans friend, have try CUBE U30GT to play some anime, with SW cannot play smoothly, get alot of sync issue

ps: Anime much better play with SW , i have Anime 8 bit, when play with HW, the colour is not as good as with SW.
pps: my friend and me using MX Player too.

Thanks.

[Nickos-V]

OK. I tested that one out. It gets slightly out of sync in some parts and the audio cuts out here and there too.

MX Player is multi-threaded and should be able use all CPU cores. So, getting quad core tablet would be the only way to play this Anime clip back with SW mode. The A31 has very similar CPU performance to RK3066 so no good for you. ATM7029 has weak 3D (& 2D) GPUs so bad choice also. Your only options then are Exynos Quad (1.4 GHz x 4 = 5.6 GHz) or RK3188. RK3188 should be better chip choice but you will have to wait maybe 2.5 months for tablets to come?

SW decoding only uses the CPU for video & audio but you should use HW to offload to VPU because: #1. CPU will get hot being used to decode 720p/1080p, #2. battery life will suffer more, #3. VPU (for SOC) or GPU (for desktop/laptops) have built in support to efficiently handle certain high resolution codecs (like H.264)

This is why I would tell you to use HW mode for 720p & 1080p videos. Especially for 720p Hi10.

HW mode is for: H.264, H.264 Hi10, H.263, MPEG4, VP8 (RK3066)
It may also support: WMV/VC1 & MPEG2

I noticed that HW mode does not work that well with MKV format. So,
#1. Find and download only MP4 (H.264) versions for Anime to properly work with HW mode
#2. Use a video converter to change video file from MKV to MP4. Careful about getting the "free" converters because they usually install spyware or toolbar onto your computer.
Both #1 & #2 should allow you to use MP4 file version instead. That will allow HW mode to playback your Anime perfectly.

I noticed that 360p MP4 played back without any graphic issues in HW mode. Same should happen for 720p MP4. MKV playback with HW mode gave graphic problems.

CONCLUSION
Your options are #1. get quad core tablet (with Exynos Quad or RK3188) & use SW mode to play MKV back or #2. get/convert to MP4 and use HW mode on RK3066 (or 8726-MX?) to play back the Anime.

[sukanime]

Thanks for testing Fate/Prototype BD 720 Hi10p.
I have read Exynos performance somewhere, Bakatbt, animesuki or XDA, i forget.
The performance is not that good for playing Hi10p.

The only option is RK3188, and i'am willing to wait, because i have Ainol Novo7 Aurora II now.
And i need SoC that capable for playing Hi10p smoothly with SW, and i don't care with batery life, because i will transform it to Media Player for my Samsung TV.
So it will always when i play Anime Hi10p it will connected to Keyboard+Mouse and Charger

I avoid using HW for Playing Anime, because the colour production is not that good.
btw, Amlogic 8726-MX is capable for paying Hi10 with HW codec but for new Hi10p codec, it get alot of artifact.

And about mp4 file, i don't need my tablet for playing the anime, i can directly play it from my Samsung TV.
And i have set up Router 3G TPLink MR3220 + HD 3TB and OpenWRT + MiniDLNA for enjoying my anime from My Samsung TV with DLNA.
Sometime i have convert my anime to mp4 too with my computer.
( my computer is powerfull for playing Hi10p, buat i hate the sound of fans from the Case and PSU , and i dont want to built HTPC, i rather go to Tablet )

PS: since 2011, alot of fansub releasing their work in Mkv Hi10p, so finding mp4 is dificult.
thereis some site that convert it to mp4, but converting anime to mp4 is reducing their quality, and i don't want it.


Now i have to wait RK3188 or i have to spent more money to get Tegra4, i hope one of this SoC capable for playing Hi10p.


Best Regrads.

[Nickos-V]

sukanime, on 07 January 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

PS: since 2011, alot of fansub releasing their work in Mkv Hi10p, so finding mp4 is dificult.
thereis some site that convert it to mp4, but converting anime to mp4 is reducing their quality, and i don't want it.

Now i have to wait RK3188 or i have to spent more money to get Tegra4, i hope one of this SoC capable for playing Hi10p.

OK. Sounds good.

I did an online conversion of that video from MKV to MP4 and quality was not that great. ie. it had artifacts, glitches and some blockiness too. I also noticed the size was 3X bigger when going from MKV to MP4. That is probably why everyone is doing MKV instead. Smaller file size. It plays without problems on VLC 2 on my laptop but VLC for tablet did not work well.

Tegra4 should be able to play it. RK3188 very likely too. RK3188 tablets I believe will clock at 1.6 GHz x 4 = 6.4 GHz. It will not get the full 6.4 GHz but 70% or better. 6.4 GHz is 2X 3.2 GHz (RK3066: 1.6 GHz x 2). ie. will give double the CPU power of RK3066. SW decoding mode is all about CPU computing power.

Interesting about Exynos Quad because that chip should have worked. RK3066 came close to playing it good with 1.6 x 2 (3.2 GHz). Exynos Quad has 1.4 x 4 (5.6 GHz). ie. way more total computing power over RK3066. No idea why Exynos chip would not be able to handle that video in SW mode.

MX Player says, "MULTI-CORE DECODING - MX Player is the first Android video player that performs multi-core decoding. According to the test results on dual-core devices, it shows up to 70% performance improvement than single-core devices." So, if MX Player supports quad core CPU properly (with multi-threading) then it should play 720p Hi10 MKV in SW mode with either Tegra4 or RK3188.

This post has been edited by Nickos-V: 08 January 2013 - 12:19 AM

[sukanime]

Thanks for the reply,

I don't know either why Exynos (Samsung Galaxy S3) is not that powerfull, but perhaps different arsitecture?
i have AMD Athlon II X2 3Ghz compared to Intel i3 3Ghz when converting video, Intel is much faster 2 times than AMD.
So Clockspeed doesn't mean anything.

Someone put new info in RK3188 thread, the CPU speed is up to 1,8 Ghz and lookslike 2D/3D performance is good too.
Now let's hope this SoC come out soon.

Yes, MX Player support Multicore And MX Player is the only Player that support Subtitle A.S.S with it's Karaoke effect , the other player only converting A.S.S to S.R.T style.

[Nickos-V]

sukanime, on 08 January 2013 - 06:28 PM, said:

I don't know either why Exynos (Samsung Galaxy S3) is not that powerfull, but perhaps different arsitecture?
i have AMD Athlon II X2 3Ghz compared to Intel i3 3Ghz when converting video, Intel is much faster 2 times than AMD.
So Clockspeed doesn't mean anything.

Exynos 4 Dual & Quad are both Cortex A9. Same as RK3066. So, architecture is not an issue.

MX Player says up to 70% performance increase when going from single to dual core.
"According to the test results on dual-core devices, it shows up to 70% performance improvement than single-core devices." Also, "MULTI-CORE DECODING".

Problem is they do not say what they compared with because lots of single cores were Cortex A8s. Also, no idea on clock speeds either. ie. to be fair, they have to test single & dual Cortex A9s at same clock. Otherwise that speed increase can be from changing architectures or higher clock speeds on the duals.

Assuming MX Player is right about 70% performance gain per additional core and the app is really multi-threaded for 4 cores (and not just 2), then Exynos 4 Quad should perform very well and better than RK3066 for SW video decoding.

ie.
Expected performance in MX Player assuming 70% increase per extra core
RK3066: 1.6 (x1) + 1.6 (x0.7) = 2.72 GHz
Exynos Quad: 1.4 (x1) + 3 X 1.4 (x0.7) = 4.34 GHz

In other words, RK3066 dual 1.6 GHz would equal the performance of single core Cortex A9 @ 2.72 GHz. Exynos Quad 1.4 GHz would equal the performance of single core Cortex A9 @ 4.34 GHz.

A fairly big GHz difference between them.

[sukanime]

Hmm, Sory i don't understand the point you try to explain. (my english not that good)

FYI, Here some info:
Even Galaxy S3 with Exynos 4412 Quad Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9 ( http://www.gsmarena...._s_iii-4238.php ) have 4,34Ghz total,
But in Real test, to Play Hi10p 720p not that good, you can read in here http://forums.bakabt...p?topic=35042.0