iPhone 5 and 10-bit MKVs
 

There are posts like that floating all over the place, so I decided to dispel the rumours. Many other people have also asked me about 10-bit MKV decoding on the iPhone 5. Thus, I have made a video showing the iPhone 5 handling these 10-bit files like butter. It will decode any 10-bit MKV you throw at it without any colour defects, framerate drops, typesetting problems or sluggish rendering. In fact, it's the only smartphone I've tested that does so.



I have owned many devices, and even with flagship Android devices such as the SGS3 and the Nexus 7, I still occasionally see a hiccup or colour defects when it comes to 10-bit files. No such thing on the iPhone 5. And Windows Phone...don't even start talking about it.

Files tested:
[UTWoots]_Sword_Art_Online_-_09_[720p][0B30EF7C].mkv
[Commie] Psycho-Pass - 01 [F4BCFB1E].mkv
[gg]_Chuunibyou_Demo_Koi_ga_Shitai!_-_03_[F0F2EAFB].mkv
[gg]_Code_Geass_Akito_the_Exiled_-_01_[B785F404].mkv
[UTW-Mazui]_Little_Busters!_-_03_[720p][D04E264A].mkv

This post is a bit dated, but for those who can't readily play 10-bit mkv files on their mobile iOS devices, Handbrake does offer the capacity to convert them into mp4 and m4v formats. I say the post is outdated because the current stable build of Handbrake can do the conversion without any issues, but the link is supplied for any party who wishes for a brief tutorial on how the process is carried out.


The iPad is NOT 'a small plastic toy'. Deal with it :eyebrow:

Nice. What is the app you're using for playback?

People with an iPad (3rd gen) or iPhone 5 shouldn't really need to convert at all, but those with previous generations can occasionally run into sluggishness when it comes to 10-bit. Conversion can certainly help.

HD Player Pro.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Other apps for video playback that I've tried have been less than useful.

Nice. Might have to upgrade from my 4S...

1. I don't think any of the episodes you tested have particularly heavy subtitles. 720p 10bit works on just about any modern hardware nowadays, even netbook class stuff, but subtitles can bog any system down if heavy enough. The only heavy subtitle in recent memory would be UTW Shinsekai Yori 3 prologue -> part a transition. Can you try that?
2. All of the episodes you tested are 720p I think (airing stuff usually isn't 1080p). Try some 1080p?

Anyways, in Fluff's defense, it would be a good idea to note that the iPhone 5 is about twice as fast as any iOS device preceding it. Things change quickly in tech, saying that TheFluff was spreading a rumor would be like saying all the people saying that the iPhone can't copy paste when it still couldn't copy paste were spreading rumors. It's not a rumor, it was something that was true then, but isn't now.

Can you back this up? The iPhone 5 is twice as fast as the iPad 3, AND has less pixels to push.

I don't think the iPad 3 would handle 1080p flawlessly, but trials show it can take on moderately subtitled files at 720p. From a personal standpoint, I do conversions on the grounds of space economy rather than anything motivated by performance.

That said, I don't think the iOS devices should be considered as 'small plastic toys'. They are reasonable forms of technologies used for a specific purpose, and older models simply lack the hardware to run processes that are now more common, such as playing back the latest and greatest videos :)

To be honest, typesetting is always easy. It's the correct rendering of 10-bit that has always given people problems. That's why I chose scenes that have very high framerate or color contrast/saturation to show that the iPhone 5 treats it like a piece of cake.

However, it's true I should have put more comlex typesetting in. I just wasn't focused on that in the first video. So, I made a video just for you. If anyone else wants something to throw at the iPhone 5 before wanting to upgrade, feel free to ask me. I will be happy to test them for you.



File Tested:
[UTW]_Shinsekai_Yori_-_03_[h264-720p][FCD25C53]

Unfortunately, 10-bit 1080p has colouring defects and occasional slowdowns. It's playable, but certainly not watchable from our standards. Thus I don't think there's any need to make a video for that. However this is more than good enough for any airing series, and that's the main point. If you download something in 1080p, wouldn't you want to watch that on a screen that has more than 1920x1080 pixels?

It will do 8-bit 1080p no problem though, that I can tell you.

But the iPad (3rd gen) was already out by the time of that post. :P

I can actually. I made a video for iPad (3rd gen) before, but back then there still wasn't an app that can render ASS subtitles fonts accurately. However, you can still at least see that the framerate isn't really a problem with the iPad. Subtitles are displayed as if they're SRT with no formatting. I know the Retina Display is huge, but the video itself is still 720p...



Naturally, the iPad is able to render subtitles now.

Of course! People who think like this end up buying tablets. I didn't buy a tablet for the performance. I bought a tablet because it's portable, has amazing battery, and a great screen. It's all for the sake of movability and content consumption.

I still use a MacBook Pro to actually get work done.

Apple actually wants you to think that we're in something called a "Post-PC" era where for many people, tablets can serve as their only computers. Now that we're seeing Microsoft's Surface for $499 that runs Windows RT, we can see that this is definitely not a joke.

For more and more casual users, a tablet will very likely be all they ever need.

you're almost certainly wrong about this but I can't be bothered to prove it right now

(there is no fucking way that you can decode 720p 10-bit video in realtime on a 1.3ghz dualcore armv7 and still have enough cycles left to render animated subtitles on top of it. it's not even remotely plausible.)

I get rather close with my Samsung Galaxy SIII with MX Player, but do get the slightly laggy video; just laggy enough for me to get bothered by it.

It's a shame too, because the Galaxy's screen looks so vastly superior to my factory-made Sony VAIO's screen that it was starting to make me consider putting a few anime series on it to just carry around (not my usual thing, watching stuff on the go without my lappy). Looks like it works nicely, but you haven't touched the files in any way? My friend tried this on his iPhone 5 and it had held off even worse than my Galaxy did.

And yes, he did try different codecs and players to no avail.

The problem is, it does work perfectly. I use my iPhone 5 to watch almost 2 hours of anime every day on the bus to Uni and back, and I've never encountered any issues.

As a side note, the iPhone 5 actually uses a ARMv7s SoC. It's a bit different from the standard ARMv7 architecture, and has VFPv4 support. Just felt like adding that in.

Yeah, MX Player is as good as it gets on Android devices. I have tested the SGS3 and I've found that with some 10-bit files it can do it fine, but others have color defects at times, as well as framerate drops. S/W is OK but if you try H/W it just dies completely. The system isn't optimized for it.

I didn't touch the files in any way. There's not much point for me to lie here...of course, did he try HD Player Pro? That is the app I used in all of my videos. I see no reason why it shouldn't work. I can't stress the importance of choosing the right player. Most players in the App Store are rubbish.

Meh, it's not something I absolutely need, like I said.

As for the iPhone, didn't want to imply you weren't telling the truth, sorry. I'm just curious because my friend tried for ages to get it to work with no results. He actually did try HD Player Pro, which is the interesting bit. Don't exactly know why it didn't work for him, but he's moved on anyways, so it's not really too important.

Oh, I wasn't angry or anything. xD Don't worry about it. I think I know the problem. As I said Hardware Decoding should never work, so he needs to turn that off. He needs to turn off Hardware Decoding for MKV files, and also turn off Multitasking. Then it should work.

Cheers, just thought I'd make sure- better safe than sorry. I'm not certain on if he did that or not, so I'll have another check with him. Thanks for the info. :3

THANK YOU for pointing me to HD Player Pro! I've been looking for an app that does subtitle rendering properly, and HD Player Pro seems to do the best job of them all (trust me, I've tried them all). I would have overlooked it because of the low rating and somewhat negative reviews, but seeing your post I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately
Hi10p decoding on the iPad mini is a bit jerky (really wish they had put an A6 processor in there... oh well, maybe next year) but on the iPhone 5 it works beautifully.

HW+ seems to be the solution for certain Android devices running MX Player.

Decode video on CPU, audio and subtitles on GPU.

hi, this thread is for iphone5 but i'll ask my question here :

i have a iphone 4s and have trouble getting anime to work on it. it either lag, have artifact problem, or simply dont work at all.

is hd player pro the best solution for me ? i watch 720p 8/10-bit stuff mostly and dont want to go through the trouble of re-encoding all my animes...

tried quite a few free video player app but neither done the trick, and i dont want to buy an app that turn out to be as bad as the others

Anyone else vouching for HD Player Pro? It does seem to have bad reviews, and most video apps are worth almost the same price. Reviewers are also saying that the app no longer supports AC3 audio (?)

I'm guessing that since the 4th Generation iPad has superior horsepower than the iPhone 5, it should run even smoother?

trying out HD player pro atm, seems to work pretty well for most 720p 10-bit anime

However for some graphically intensive(?) scenes i find it lags a bit (Tried UTW subs Fate Zero episode 15 on 720p, the anime lags a bit during the charging up of Excalibur when all the golden particles were flying out of the ground.)

Hi,

You can almost assume all players don't support AC3 anymore (due to patent issues). For the meantime, HD Player Pro team made a really nice workaround:
http://atk-inc.com.vn/support.php?pr...logue_name=iOS

I've tested a lot of mkv apps so if you want another opinion and alternatives I recommend the following, most of the time they will all handle 720p (10bit) and 1080p (8bit) mkvs really well:

1. HD Player Pro:
+ Correctly render stylised softsubs (might be the only app).
- No forward/rewind gesture yet, which is a letdown to me.

2. yaPlayer:
+ Chapters support (might be the only app).

3. AV Player:
+ Supports AC3 natively.

Hope that helped.