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The Nexus 6 doesn't support hw acceleration of VP9? So you likely can't watch 4K Vp9 without stuttering and if you can it probably isn't without excessive batte

by aroch 12y ago

The Nexus 6 doesn't support hw acceleration of VP9? So you likely can't watch 4K Vp9 without stuttering and if you can it probably isn't without excessive battery drain

TD-Linux 12y ago
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 in the Nexus 6 fully supports VP9 hardware acceleration. Though I'm not sure about the benefits of 4K video on a 6 inch screen.
- aroch 12y ago
  I swear last I checked the 805 only supported hw accel. VP9 up to 1080 not 4K. The Qualcomm spec sheet says it supports up to 4K but reports out in the wild suggest that is "best case" and it doesn't really work beyond 1080.
d0ugie 12y ago
Say it ain't so! Sigh... Well, not a lot of green in the VP9 column here: http://kodi.wiki/view/Android_hardware#Compatible_chipsets http://kodi.wiki/view/Android_hardware#Compatible_chipsets
danmaz74 12y ago
What's the point of watching 4K video on a 6" screen?
- asadotzler 12y ago
  For people with good vision, a 4K 6" screen held 18" from the eyes will look better than a 1080p screen, all other factors being equivalent. Held further than about 18", 4K won't make a a difference for most people. For a 60" TV that sits 10 feet away, you're not going to see much difference. Move that TV to 4 feet away, and you'll appreciate the extra pixels. For virtual reality, and other applications that put the screen much closer to your eyes, the extra pixels will make a huge difference. It's all about the viewing distance.
  - danmaz74 12y ago
    I completely agree if you talk about virtual reality, but here we're talking about VP9 or HVEC compressed video, which will also need to be resampled as the display isn't 4k but something in between 1080 and 4k.
- guelo 12y ago
  What's the point of the Nexus 6 having 1440 vertical pixels in landscape mode? Nexus 6's 1440 pixels is a third of the way between 1080p and 4k. So, presumably, scaled down 4k video would look better on it than scaled up 1080p video when the device is held closely.
  - danmaz74 12y ago
    A very high pixel density makes a real difference when you're looking at printed text and, in general, images with very sharp lines. That's not what VP9 or HVEC are good for anyway, so I would bet that scaling down 4k video or scaling up 1080p (for the same bitrate) won't make any noticeable difference. But of course that's just a matter of opinion unless we do a blind test with real use cases.
- TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
  At 20/20 vision, we can resolve ~300 pixels/inch at 10-12 inches from the eye. [1] For a 6" screen, that works out to ~1800 pixels. So maybe not 4k, but the next step down from 4k generally is 1080p, which is less than the figure I gave above. So yes, there is a point. (And that's not getting into other factors either, such as panning and stroboscopic effects.) [1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#Physiology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#Physiology)
  - TD-Linux 12y ago
    6" is the diagonal measurement. So that's 1800 pixels diagonally. 1080p is 1920x1080, so about 2200 pixels diagonally. I absolutely love the look of the crisp text on the Nexus 6, but I don't think that it would be very visible in most video content.
    - TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
      Oh ok. I retract that argument, then. Though one thing I will still mention is panning. While you're panning, at sufficiently high framerates you're still effectively having 1 pixel for every 2. (Look at what happens when you draw a one-pixel-width horizontal line. In general, with non-integer position, it'll take up 2 pixels high, in some proportion.) Still not an argument for quite as high as 4k though.

by aroch 12y ago

The Nexus 6 doesn't support hw acceleration of VP9? So you likely can't watch 4K Vp9 without stuttering and if you can it probably isn't without excessive battery drain

TD-Linux 12y ago

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 in the Nexus 6 fully supports VP9 hardware acceleration. Though I'm not sure about the benefits of 4K video on a 6 inch screen.

aroch 12y ago
I swear last I checked the 805 only supported hw accel. VP9 up to 1080 not 4K. The Qualcomm spec sheet says it supports up to 4K but reports out in the wild suggest that is "best case" and it doesn't really work beyond 1080.

d0ugie 12y ago

Say it ain't so! Sigh... Well, not a lot of green in the VP9 column here: http://kodi.wiki/view/Android_hardware#Compatible_chipsets http://kodi.wiki/view/Android_hardware#Compatible_chipsets

danmaz74 12y ago

What's the point of watching 4K video on a 6" screen?

asadotzler 12y ago
For people with good vision, a 4K 6" screen held 18" from the eyes will look better than a 1080p screen, all other factors being equivalent. Held further than about 18", 4K won't make a a difference for most people. For a 60" TV that sits 10 feet away, you're not going to see much difference. Move that TV to 4 feet away, and you'll appreciate the extra pixels. For virtual reality, and other applications that put the screen much closer to your eyes, the extra pixels will make a huge difference. It's all about the viewing distance.
- danmaz74 12y ago
  I completely agree if you talk about virtual reality, but here we're talking about VP9 or HVEC compressed video, which will also need to be resampled as the display isn't 4k but something in between 1080 and 4k.
guelo 12y ago
What's the point of the Nexus 6 having 1440 vertical pixels in landscape mode? Nexus 6's 1440 pixels is a third of the way between 1080p and 4k. So, presumably, scaled down 4k video would look better on it than scaled up 1080p video when the device is held closely.
- danmaz74 12y ago
  A very high pixel density makes a real difference when you're looking at printed text and, in general, images with very sharp lines. That's not what VP9 or HVEC are good for anyway, so I would bet that scaling down 4k video or scaling up 1080p (for the same bitrate) won't make any noticeable difference. But of course that's just a matter of opinion unless we do a blind test with real use cases.
TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
At 20/20 vision, we can resolve ~300 pixels/inch at 10-12 inches from the eye. [1] For a 6" screen, that works out to ~1800 pixels. So maybe not 4k, but the next step down from 4k generally is 1080p, which is less than the figure I gave above. So yes, there is a point. (And that's not getting into other factors either, such as panning and stroboscopic effects.) [1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#Physiology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#Physiology)
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  6" is the diagonal measurement. So that's 1800 pixels diagonally. 1080p is 1920x1080, so about 2200 pixels diagonally. I absolutely love the look of the crisp text on the Nexus 6, but I don't think that it would be very visible in most video content.
  - TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
    Oh ok. I retract that argument, then. Though one thing I will still mention is panning. While you're panning, at sufficiently high framerates you're still effectively having 1 pixel for every 2. (Look at what happens when you draw a one-pixel-width horizontal line. In general, with non-integer position, it'll take up 2 pixels high, in some proportion.) Still not an argument for quite as high as 4k though.