Android and Anime

[DonQuigleone]

I currently own a fairly cheap Android Smart Phone, and I've had great pleasure using it to watch Anime, while in bed and whatnot. However, I've only really done so using the crunchyroll app.

I'm thinking of buying a tablet now, and so I'm wondering if anyone has any experience in this regard, particularly regarding the following:
1. What are the best Tablets?
2. What's the best software setup?
3. Is it possible to watch anime fansubs downloaded through bittorrent? Or streamed through bittorrent? If so what's the best setup?

[SeijiSensei]

I can't help you with the hardware issue, but I will recommend MX Player as the software solution. It plays pretty much everything I've thrown at it including H.264, ASS-softsubbed series in the Matroska container. Give it a try on your phone. I use it on my Samsung Galaxy S3.

I can't recall if I tried it with a 10-bit encode. I'll give it a try and post back.

[Klashikari]

Nexus 7 2nd gen is probably the best choice for watching anime on the go.
You can actually watch 10bit 720p release (1080 is still not possible for any tablet as of now IIRC), and unlike with ipad, you aren't stuck with video re-encoding.
Unless you are really concerned about size, it is also the best tablet in term of spec and price, and I think the screen size is perfect for readability and portability.

As suggested by SeijiSensei, MX player is the app of choice.

[Flower]

MX player is great esp because it has a feature for loading the fonts of whatever subtitle you tell it to. But be aware that for older, slower hardware there can be lag, esp if the file is 10 bit. Most android devices willbe able to play 8 bit mkv files, and hardsubbed formats (mp4, avi, etc) assuming the file size is not gigantic and/or there is a lot going on on the video proper. 480p or 576p are pretty much always going to work in this area. 720p (10 bit or 8 bit) is where things can begin to have problems for older devices.

But most contemporary hardware cando it fine. If it were me and my budget allowed it I would go for quad cpus and 2gb of ram for a tablet if possible.

I kinda question why anyone would want to watch a 1080 10 bit video on a tablet, but that is just because I prefer to watch 1080p on a large monitor. 720p should be fine, I would guess, for a tablet. Just personal opinions here though....

[DonQuigleone]

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

Also, what's the easiest way to get the fansubs downloaded? Bittorrent? I don't have easy access to a computer at the moment. What's the best torrent client?

Also, what's the best way to read manga on a tablet?

Also, for video, do you guys find 7 inch is good enough? How about 10?

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Also, for video, do you guys find 7 inch is good enough? How about 10?

My options are either 4.8" diagonal on my phone, or 55" diagonal on my TV. You can guess which of these options I prefer.

I've thought a bit about a 10" tablet for reading and web browsing. A 7" tablet doesn't seem enough of an upgrade in size compared to my phone.

As for manga scans, I just use Android's native image viewer in the Gallery application since the files are usually JPEGs or PNGs.

[Flower]

Fwiw if you are going to get a tablet I would go with the 7" if you forsee yourself carrying it around everywhere and a 10" if you forsee it staying mainly at home - that is, the question of portability would decide it for me. (And if you do decide to carry it around get sleeves or protective cases or whatnot, of course!)

For me 10" is definitely better for viewing video if you are gonna go with 10 bit. I recencode most video files to mp4 because of the lower draw on system resources, generally smaller file sizes and, of course, because my phablet is older and can't take 10 bit video. ^^

[Wild Goose]

Just chiming in - I've used a Samsung tab for a while, and an iPad for coming up to 2 years now. Generally, regarding a tablet, another thing to consider is the tradeoffs between portability, carrying stuff, and quality.

To an extent, I personally don't go higher than 480p when I'm watching anime on my iPad. This is partly because all tablets handle 480p fine, partly because my eyes are bad enough that I can't really tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a Retina display, and IMO 480p is the sweet spot between "Looks okay" and "Doesn't use too much space"; for instance your average 480p anime file, which would be either MKV like most people, or MP4 like UTW, will have a filesize around 150MB. This is great for carrying lots of shows on the move - I usually have around 4 or so gigs of free space that I keep for videos, so using 480p lets me carry more stuff.

As for best torrent client, uTorrent seems to be the preferred application. I've used it since 2005 and it seems to behave alright.

[Haak]

I'll just chime in with the rest and say MX Player is the way to go. I use it watch anime on my Samsung Galaxy S3 and it works great. In my experience it handles 8bit mkv files and mp4 files perfectly. I've also found that it handles 10bit 720p fine most of the time although you do occasionally get stutters when it doesn't (But even then only occasionally and still watchable). I've not tried 8bit 1080p mkv files but I'm pretty sure it can't handle them. 10bit 1080p mkv files are completely out of the question. If necessary you could always use a program like Handbrake to convert those, though.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

Also, what's the easiest way to get the fansubs downloaded? Bittorrent? I don't have easy access to a computer at the moment. What's the best torrent client?

I use the T-torrent app (paid version). I don't know if it's better than others but I just like it's format better.

Also, what's the best way to read manga on a tablet?

I use the MangaZoo app which I consider to be the easiest to use. Be careful with using manga reading apps though since they'll put a lot of memory in your cache very quickly if you read a lot of manga and you need to remember to clean it out regularly if you think it takes up too much space.

Also, for video, do you guys find 7 inch is good enough? How about 10?

Frankly I'm satisfied with a 4.7 inch screen...

[Wandering_Youth]

I highly recommend the Google Nexus tablets as they are very good entertainment devices at a very good price.

I own the first gen Nexus 7 (7")and and the Nexus 10 (10"). Video and sound is awsome on the Nexus 10, but it is a tad big to be carried around when you're mobile quite a bit.

The Nexus 7 has ok video quality but the audio kind of suffers due to no front face stereo speakers like the Nexus 10. This might be different with the new Nexus 7 (2013). It however can fit into my back packets on my pants so I can carry with me hands free so it's got more portability and feels good to be used with one or two hands. Just remember to take it out of your pocket before sitting down.

As for software, as the others have mention MX Player is a very good video player that's compatible with various video formats and it's free.

I recommend using the Utorrent app to download your anime first and then watch it on MX player. The low amount of ram and speed of ram on tablets can be poor compared to desktops so it makes watching streaming video unreliable.

[MeoTwister5]

If you have to download torrents on your phone, you can use a regular Bittorrent app from the play store. Don't expect download speeds similar to a regular desktop's torrent client unless you're willing to wiggle with the settings a bit.