Introduction:
I spent the better part of this past week playing with codecs and formats to get the optimal performance video play back out of my HTC EVO.
I was planning my trip over to Europe for business and figured it might be wise to get some videos onto the EVO and take the HDMI cable along with me in case TV sucked over in France. After 15 mins of google searching, I was not able to find much info on supported formats for the EVO. So I started to tinker.
Encoding:
I’m not going to get very technical here but it helps if you understand some of the issues I had with encoding. First off the EVO supports MP4 files or so they say – I had a hell of a time finding the right configuration of MP4 Before even figuring out the rest of the details. Another big issue as the post title says we are working with HD video so you can assume we are going to have some fairly large file sizes, well the EVO will not play videos over 2 gigs in size – yea…. what the fuck !
This file size issue pissed me off, I wanted to rip my bluray and have it compressed but still large enough to play via HDMI output to enjoy on a TV in my hotel room. I figured at least 3 gigs for a 720P video file any less and video would look like shit.
Skipping ahead a few days I found the right mixture of file size, frame rate, and compression. I created a preset for handbreak that will help you get your videos onto your EVO with out any of the fuss.
My preset will work for standard and HD videos. just load up your video choose the preset and hit start. Handbreak and the preset will take care of the rest regardless of size and resolution.
Conclusion:
So how will it look on your HD TV only being 2gigs in size, It looks damn good on the EVO and the TV.
I tested both HD videos and SD videos. Of course the SD formatted videos are smaller in file size and reflects respectively on the video output but the HD is somewhat amazing to watch and show off on the EVO.
If you have any questions or need any help getting things working on your EVO let me know, also here is a link to a sample video I encoding that will work on your EVO if your curious about quality or want a file for reference.
~MN
Awsome post man thank you very much, Been trying to figure this out since I got the Sprint evo and the preset worked like magic
hey if your coming to europe i can recommend you using a sumvision cyclone micro. they are dirt cheap and you can just load up a SD card with movies. you’ll have problems with MKV files but everything else will work ok. they are really dirt cheap like £22 and you simply hook up a hdmi cable to the telly and away you go. dead easy. might save you the stress of having to convert things on your phone.
I love this post when I get my macbook working again I will be doing this. Thanks for the help!