Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Traded in my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S2 for a Skyrocket
First things first. XviD hardware decoding performance on the Skyrocket is really terrible where the Galaxy S2 always did this flawlessly. Surprisingly the DivX and 1080p and 720p MKV are flawless on both devices. Zooming into very large webpages are choppy on the Skyrocket. You will not notice any difference on small websites. The bigger screen is a bit nicer I must admit. Flash video seems to run without hiccips on the Skyrocket where the original S2 seemed to struggle with this at times. On the other hand any flash app that demands all the horsepower you have will indeed be significantly slower. For example I used to be able to play bejeweled Blitz on Facebook on the S2 and it used to make sense to do so. On the Skyrocket don't bother. It will be too laggy for it to be playable. Just giving people a point of reference with these examples. One nice thing you may notice on the Skyrocket is that the microSDHC card is removable without removing the battery. Lastly, 3D is noticably choppier. It does not matter to me at this point because I dont play any 3D games but I will be looking to play GTA III when it comes out. It may or may not make a difference. I just wish they improve the XviD performance.
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Hi
ReplyDeleteI just find your message on the divx forum about the xvid codec on the skyrockets. Me too, I was desapointed about this.
But finally, I was able to find a player that play xvid perfectly thanks to the hardware decoding. It,s better than the native player.
Try dice player on the market.
You can try the trial version.
I,m very happy now.
I find your blog on Google because you use the the same nickname on the divx website.
Enjoy …… :)
Hi Nicolas. I appreciate you going out of your way to share the information. I actually bought DICE player today. Dice player is still not as good as what the i777 can do, but it is noticeably better. I am trying to stir the pot so that Samsung or Divx updates their player or codec in the next release. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteReally? Not as good a the i777? I'm surprised because the kind of xvid that I play with dice looks like perfect (too me of course)
ReplyDeleteBut you know, my phone before this one was the HTC magic (10 times slower than this one > based on quandrant benchmark...) so maybe that's why he looks like wonderfull to me :)
If you have any news, please send me an email later :)
Thank you.
I think it depends on the XviD files that you have. I played XviD files I had downloaded 1-2 years ago, and they looked better. But pretty much all XviD files that are being encoded today, are choppy on the Skyrocket.
ReplyDeleteIf your XviDs are fairly new, and if you really want to see how smooth the framerate should be, download "BS Player Lite" and use BS Player HW decode (which is on by default). It is really buggy right now, but the framerate it can do is perfect, just like i777. But I'll warn you, that it is like taking the red pill and it will make you want to wish that you never saw what your phone is not capable of, at least for now. But it is a proof of concept that the Skyrocket will be capable if this developer can iron out the kinks, or Samsung/Divx can iron out their issues. I doubt that the developer will find a solution quickly as he he doesn't actually write the XviD decoder himself. I just hope he doesn't do what the others do which is include a slower but less buggy decoder like everyone else.
If I had to take a stab in the dark what the problem is, it seems like the b-frames are being thrown away because the Snapdragon processor on the Skyrocket doesn't use the current method that the current decoder is using to decode b-frames. So instead of rewriting the b-frame decoding for our processor, it just just skipping over them and what you get at the end was choppy playback.
Haaa.. You're right..
ReplyDeleteToday, i find an xvid that was not perfectly smooth :(
When you say: '. I am trying to stir the pot so that Samsung or Divx updates their player or codec in the next release'
What do you mean by 'next realase' ? Next version of android on this phone?
Next release as in, possibly a Android OS 4.0 update, or a update to gingerbread.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to post a reply to that thread for a week now but that forum is broken I believe. I just sent them an email instead.
Man, this problem bugs me everyday. It is like buying a new sports car, then finding out that the engine is not as good as the family sedan.