Echogram - TV for Telegram

I'll send you a video showing the issue. Lately, I've been uploading videos to Telegram in h265 HDR10 E-AC3 5.1 format. The video stream plays without problems, but there's no audio. And yes, with Just (video) Player, you have to download the entire movie to your local device to play it.

Yeah thanks I also assume it's both things you wrote but I'll give it a look

@Ro1li I had a little chat with Google. Maybe it could be a solution for you, since you hate libvlc 😉 And manually selecting a player for different Szenarios is maybe also not the best and most comfortable (from a user perspective) and maybe your app gets even smaller then 🤷‍♂️ Here is googles solution (translated from German): „Yes, the developer can extend the ExoPlayer with software decoding and thus completely save libVLC. This is technically absolutely possible and exactly the way that apps like Just Player go. By default, the naked ExoPlayer only relies on what the smartphone chip can decode in hardware. However, Google has built ExoPlayer (now Jetpack Media3) so that you can insert (expand) software decoders afterwards. The developer would have to implement the following steps: 1. Install the FFmpeg extension (For the sound) The biggest problem with 2–4 GB movies (often in MKV format) are audio tracks like AC3, DTS or TrueHD. The developer downloads the official expansion module from Google (media3-decoder-ffmpeg). Since Google is not allowed to deliver the FFmpeg library completely compiled for licensing reasons, the developer must compile it himself once for Android. After that, the ExoPlayer uses software decoding to understand any audio track that could also play VLC. 2. Add video extensions (For the image) If the movies are available in formats that older phones cannot decode in hardware (such as the modern AV1 codec or 10-bit HEVC), the developer can activate additional software modules: Media3-decoder-av1 (for AV1 videos). Media3-decoder-vp9 (for Google/YouTube formats). 3. Change the decoder priority in the code In order for the player to know when to use the software, the developer must adjust a line in the code: By default, ExoPlayer is "Use only hardware". The developer must change the mode to EXTENSION_RENDER_MODE_PREFER. This means: ExoPlayer first tries hardware (saves battery), but switches automatically and unnoticed to th

Because your hardware have hardware support for Dolby Atmos (eac3) I guess 🤷‍♂️ that’s why exo have no problem

Yeah probably, but that's what I said from the beginning lol. I'll see if there's a pre-compiled ffmpeg extension for exoplayer that is still maintained and consider adding it. Will definitely increase the app size by around 20MB

If it works, libvlc could be deleted eventually in future and saves more space then 😁 But I would suggest a testing time of a few months where both are still implemented. Just in case.

Nah.. it won't replace vlc. exoplayer ffmpeg is just for audio.

🤷‍♂️

I had another „chat“ with Google. 😁 Since it seems that we won’t get rid of libvlc anyway, an automation in background, where exoplayer switches automatic to libvlc when an error occurres (I think of the h264 level 6.2 problem back then) without user interaction, could be a solution maybe. This way a manual selection wouldn’t be necessary anymore. Google says: „Seamless libVLC Fallback on ExoPlayer Decoding/Playback Errors Hi! Since Echogram already has both ExoPlayer (Media3) and libVLC integrated, it would be an incredible UX improvement to implement an automatic background fallback. Currently, certain video files—like rare H.264 profiles (e.g., Level 6.2 with extreme bitrates), older containers (AVI), or files with broken headers—cause ExoPlayer to fail with a decoder or playback error. Instead of showing an error or an infinite loading spinner, the app could catch this error and silently switch the playback to libVLC at the exact same timestamp. Implementing this is very straightforward and would take only a couple of hours since both player engines are already in place. Here is a technical breakdown of how this can be handled in Kotlin/Java: ## 1. Catching the ExoPlayer Error (Player.Listener) You can attach a Player.Listener to ExoPlayer and listen to onPlayerError. We want to filter for decoding, decoder initialization, or general source loading failures. exoPlayer.addListener(object : Player.Listener { override fun onPlayerError(error: PlaybackException) { // Check if the error is related to decoding or hardware capabilities if (error.errorCode == PlaybackException.ERROR_CODE_DECODING_FAILED || error.errorCode == PlaybackException.ERROR_CODE_DECODER_INIT_FAILED || error.errorCode == PlaybackException.ERROR_CODE_IO_UNSPECIFIED) { // 1. Save the current playback position so the user doesn't lose track val currentPosition = exoPlayer.currentPosition

Last reminder. The pricing changes are included with the upcoming version. Lifetime option will be completely removed. Only monthly and yearly subscriptions will be available. Existing lifetime/monthly subscribers will not be effected.

Then you have to complain to the Google developers. They are probably not so good. 😂

Jellyfin, Plex and co Switch in background to libvlc if exo makes problem. The user doesn’t notice it.

🇪🇸 Gracias,nos vemos en la sección correspondiente 😉