Tablet for playing movies in ****, divx, mkv/avi containers, etc?

[yacoub]

I have most of my DVDs/BluRays ripped and I want to watch them while I travel. Thing is, they're encoded for playing back here at home on 720p/1080p and HD/5.1 audio when possible.

For travel, I have an iPad2 and found an app that seems to play them video-wise, but they have no sound because most of them are ripped with 5.1 or HD sound and apparently the iPad2 can't decode that properly.

Is that up to software or a hardware limitation? I don't know. The iPad2 is running iOS6.x.

Rather than re-rip all the movies, and since the iPad2 is getting old anyway, I'd like to know if there's a tablet that's capable of playing the sound in addition to the video, even if it downmixes the sound to stereo.

I don't care if it's just outputting stereo sound, so long as there's sound playing alongside the video, i.e., a functional playback of the movies.

Would an Android tablet such as the new Nexus7 be able to handle the audio portion as well as the video? Does the new iPad mini or the iPad retina have a way to process it that my older iPad2 doesn't?

 

[dawheat]

Only issue I've ever had on my Android devices using MX Player Pro are videos with I believe a certain type of 10 bit audio. Otherwise no issues on all types of formats and encodings.

 

[Raduque]

A Nexus tablet should be powerful enough that a good player like MX should be able to use software decoding to handle any file, and it can use hardware decoding where available.

IMO, a 7" tablet isn't big enough to enjoy movies, though.

 

[Chocu1a]

try Plex media server. It should decode & stream fine for you.

 

[lopri]

Nook HD has 7" screen and $129, and Nook HD+ is 9" incher at $149. They both are very capable on paper, but I know nothing about their performances.

 

[yacoub]

try Plex media server. It should decode & stream fine for you.

To clarify, the files would be on the iPad/device itself, not streaming from another source. I have AirVideo which works great for streaming from my home PC within my house, but I want something self-contained to use on the road. Also, I did try Plex before AirVideo and it never worked right even for that type of remote streaming/decode-on-the-fly like AirVideo does.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I did use my Nexus 7 on my trip a year ago to Asia. It worked well but I always felt it was too small. Maybe I'm used to my laptop and stuff, but a 7" tablet with movie watching just begs for you to be much closer. The experience feels a LOT better with my Nexus 10.

I noticed that Dice Player doesn't play HW accelerated on my N10? It drains battery pretty fast. Like 10-15% per 1 hour of TV I watch. On my N7 I felt like I could watch for much longer. MX Player seems to have MUCH lower CPU utilization though. I havent' gone on a TV watching spree on my N10 in a while though.

 

[yacoub]

Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I have a HUGE mkv collection, and my Tegra 3 tablet plays 99% of it with MX Player.

 

[Raduque]

Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.

Google expects you to buy and stream everything from them. That's why they limit storage on Nexus devices.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.

This is exactly what I hate. First, it was all the Apple haters screaming "Oh but I can drag and drop and put whatever I want and play whatever file format I want on my tablet." But even with that I'm now limited to 32gb. Great.

Yeah I can put a bunch of lower quality TV shows on my tablet, but HD movies are a no go. 1-2 tops on that 32gb and its done. Instead I can get away putting a whole season of TV shows which ends up being like 15-16 hours of entertainment... I just have to hope the plane has good movies so I don't consume all my media too fast.

 

[yacoub]

The other catch is that even if you did get the LTE/4G model, most cellular plans limit you to around 5GB/month, which is maybe one or two HD movies streamed from your own personal server or an online service. So it's not like you actually end up with a device that provides true freedom to watch your media on the go anywhere anytime unless you can find free WiFi or pay for WiFi access at hotspots.

 

[lopri]

The other catch is that even if you did get the LTE/4G model, most cellular plans limit you to around 5GB/month, which is maybe one or two HD movies streamed from your own personal server or an online service. So it's not like you actually end up with a device that provides true freedom to watch your media on the go anywhere anytime unless you can find free WiFi or pay for WiFi access at hotspots.

Are you sure about that? AT&T's Mobile Share plan starts with a set amount of data and beyond that its "eat as much as you want at your cost." I thought carriers were happy to charge for overage.

If you really need an SD slot you can go with Note 8 ($$$) or Nook HD+ ($$). For movie viewing only, I would go with the Nook HD+. It's got a great screen (quality, size). Note 8 is an all-arounder w/ SD slot, LTE support. Great screen and sound quality but it's 8" compared to 9" of Nook HD+'s, and it's quite a bit more $$$. My friend got his for $200 from AT&T with his S4 plan and I honestly don't know how much that thing exactly goes. It's going to be quite a bit more than Nook HD+.

Or be realistic and content with the USB-OTG support of the Nexus 7. The beauty of Android ecosystem is that you have choices.

 

[lopri]

BTW, before you decide you many want to check on the performance of the tablets and your source materials. Media player apps from Play store deal most codecs/formats very well, provided that the material (bitrate, usually) is within the tablet's capability.

 

[AnMig]

This is where android shines with different media file types.

My nexus 7 (orig) and nexus 10 tab with MX player can play almost every file type except for
a weird encoded MKV file.

storage is an issue but you can play files off a usb stick.

peace

 

[gorcorps]

Looks like the new Nexus 7 is pretty good, just surprised no storage expansion options. 32GB doesn't fit a whole lot of HD movies for a 1080p display.

I haven't tried it, but the Nexus 7 supports USB OTG. It lets you use a usb drive as extra storage. It's not as nice as a built in SD card slot, but it's an option.

 

[cronos]

I haven't tried it, but the Nexus 7 supports USB OTG. It lets you use a usb drive as extra storage. It's not as nice as a built in SD card slot, but it's an option.

The last time I tried on my friend's Nexus 7, the USB OTG support for it does *not* natively include storage. Keyboard and mouse will connect, no problem, but external drive/sdcard reader won't. There's a way to make it work though. I believe it involves flashing a custom kernel.

It is possible that they fixed this with 4.3, as my experience was before it was released.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Nexus 7 and install DicePlayer.

 

[QueBert]

Stupidly expensive, but a 128gb iPad 4 jailbroken + XBMC would be about as good as it gets imho.