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Author Topic: outputting to hdmi display  (Read 7665 times)

Chrysalis

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outputting to hdmi display
« on: October 06, 2016, 01:24:22 AM »

So currently I use a Samsung S5 901F as my main phone.
For the most part its a great phone, my 2 main annoyances are the ram isnt enough to keep many apps loaded at once and the lack of FM radio which I had on my older phones.

When watching F1 I output the F1 timing app to my second monitor so I can see live timing, and to do this I use a MHL adaptor which works very well.  MHL was only invented a few years back but it seems its now already obsoleted on newer phones.

If I upgrade my phone the device I am considering is a LG G5, mainly because I still want a removable battery, it has a FM radio, 4 gig of ram and a better cpu/gpu combo. Speaker placed at bottom vs the back.

The downsides of upgrading to this phone would be.

IPS screen vs AMOLED on my current phone, I do own a oneplusone which is IPS so I can sort of see the comparison already of what to expect, IPS is by no means bad, but AMOLED screens are very nice.
Soft buttons, will probably intially take some getting used to, but I think in the long term may prove an advantage as they can be moved around the screen.
Now the big one, the change of connectivity.  The G5 uses a usb3 type C socket, which immediatly makes my existing cables, chargers, MHL cable void to use on it, obviusly I would get a charger with the phone, but I assume would need to buy a new cable to connect to my pc or laptop, and find a new way to connect it to a monitor.

Which leads to my question, has anyone been using a new phone on a HDMI screen and if so how do you output to it, or even if you not but know how, please reply, thanks.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2016, 09:14:45 AM »

I don't currently have any android devices, and know very little about them,  so may be talking tosh.   But I vaguely thought there was an inexpensive device called a Chromecast, which provided among other things, screen mirroring?
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2016, 09:58:55 AM »

indeed it seems that will work but at £30 I dont consider it inexpensive :(

I wonder also with it been wireless if it introduces lag.
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kitz

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2016, 03:45:05 PM »

I got a chromecast 2 for xmas last year.  Curry's had them on sale for ~£22.   Curry's ebay store also sell them cheaper eg here - scroll down for new other.

Unfortunately they do lag slightly.
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j0hn

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2016, 04:08:53 PM »

I used to use my MHL cable everyday with my S3 & S5. Since buying a Chromecast I never use my cable now. For playing any files in my phone I use ES Chromecast which is a plugin for ES File Explorer. There's absolutely no lag when doing this. It handles most files including mkv files with AC3 audio.
Most apps like IPlayer, Demand5 etc are Chromecast compatible and again have no lag. The Chromecast connects directly to the likes of iPlayer, you only use your phone to initiate the starting of video playback.
The only time I experience a little lag with Chromecast is when using the screen mirroring function. This should work with most devices running Android 4.4+. There isn't many occasions when I need to use this though as Chromecast handles most things natively.
They are on offer on an almost weekly basis for around £22. Check out HotUKDeals and do a quick search for Chromecast and you'll see what I mean. They are often on offer for £22 with a free DVD from 1 particular site, though delivery is often slow. The likes of Currys/Tesco etc will almost certainly have them on offer for £20 in the run up to Xmas.
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2016, 11:16:09 PM »

i would be using it for screen mirroring
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2016, 08:24:12 PM »

Well an update.

I was 50/50 on either dropping to sim only price or upgrading to the G5, the upgrade date came and I checked EE's website for the offer, no upfront fees and a monthly drop in price made me too tempted, so the order has been done and its arriving tomorrow.  Also to further drop the price I picked the 1 gig instead of 2 gig package given I never went over 1 gig usage except for one single month last year.  I figured given they have a payg topup system that I can use when needed it made more sense.

After the order, I looked for accessories to order, mostly a gel cover for the phone, but also found an interesting one which has a fold out stand thing so ordered that also, and then went about looking into the hdmi situation.

It seem's what has happened is there was a format war, MHL on one side and slimport the other.  MHL has been abandoned by samsung, but slimport the one picked by LG apparently still works on G5 phones, so I ordered a slimport hdmi adaptor alongside a micro usb to usb-c adaptor to allow it to work and will report back on here if it works or not.  Of course smartphone accessories are a mine field for cheap clones and what not, I couldnt find an official slimport sold in the uk (only in america) so picked one off ebay and hoping for the best.

The only thing that may annoy me is if the screen feels like a downgrade as samsung use amoled and LG use IPS.

The chromecast I consider as a backup plan should this not work.  Bear in mind john the screen mirroring function is what I want to use.
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kitz

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2016, 11:25:53 AM »

Good luck with the new phone. :)

>> The chromecast I consider as a backup plan should this not work.  Bear in mind john the screen mirroring function is what I want to use.

I only use the chromecast for mirroring these days, as I bought a Now Box for streaming anything else I want.   The box was £15 and came with 3 months entertainment package.  After 3 months I cancelled Now TV but it still allows you to use the box for lots of the freeview type apps.
Admittedly Ive not mirrored for several months now, but I do recall a ever so slight delay... from memory it seemed to be more with sound rather than picture.   

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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2016, 03:03:54 PM »

phone is here and is a lot nicer than samsung I feel, I like the always on time/date as an example.

accessories all should be here by wednesday hopefully.

The screen definitely has worse viewing angles than samsung, it has contrast shift off angle, and contrast ratio is not as good due to blacks been perfect on amoled, but the other stuff on the phone makes it overall a better phone.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 03:12:36 PM by Chrysalis »
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2016, 07:51:04 PM »

This i turning into a review but oh well :)

The battery life even with the always on display seems fine, 5 hours after charged with clock showing on display battery is still at 100%.

I have however observed by accident parts of edge of phone feel sharp or rather not smooth.  The button to press that pops out battery is not smoothly in line and the top of phone is also some lack of smoothness, but no buttons there so examined closer to see why and it looks like part of the edge of casing stops and then starts again which is causing the feeling.  This shouldnt be a problem tho as I will be using the gel casing, like every modern phone the G5 is too slim to pick up and hold comfortably which is why I use gel cases to make them less slim and have grip holders on the side.
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2016, 10:49:47 AM »

I decided to return the device to EE, on paper its good, better cpu, gpu, ram, faster flash storage, usb-c, fm radio, and better speaker position.

However sadly in practice I have issues to overcome, which only some I have mitigated.

Some examples.

Battery drain is on average about 2-3x more than my samsung, with always on display disabled and about 6x worse with it enabled.

Developer support for custom roms/kernels is very lacking, I made the same mistake as when I got my S5, I didnt check how active the section is on XDA first, I just assumed it would be as lots of people on there said they were getting G5's but is no working custom kernels (very important for efficient performance and battery) and minimal rom's.

The IPS screen annoys me more then I expected, The IPS on my oneplusone is actually better than the one on the G5, the backlight bleed (poor blacks) and poor viewing angles keep annoying me, I have been spoilt by amoled.

The dialer has no auto redial, this to me seems a no brainer, am baffled why its not on the lg phones, but is missing, I did find an app which supposedly adds the function but it didnt work.  Its very useful to me e.g. when trying to get a GP appointment when its war on the phones when the GP opens to get an appointment.

Contact pictures during calls are very small, g4 tweaker allows it to be made bigger but then is covered by bad placement of the contact name and number.

Performance is not as expected, there is a few issues here.  First for some reason for reasons I cannot understand the phone runs slower when my sim is inserted.  A lot of tuning on the cpu governor in kernel auditor I had improved chompsms performance to very close to what it is on my s5 but other software remain laggier, even tho the cpu itself benches over 2x faster than whats in the s5.  I also noticed bugs in the cpu governor behaviour, cores dont park, sometimes I see parked cores but they get stuck parked when it happens and phone lags like crazy when it occurs, lots of stuttering on scrolling etc.  I expect the zzmoove governor would fix it as to be fair my s5 took a lot of tweaking and a custom kernel to get smooth, but the g5 lacks a custom kernel with that governor added so it is what it is.  On raw numbers the flash memory is about 8x faster than my s5, cpu about 2.2x faster per core (however across all cores the gap drops to only a 20% margin).    The gpu is way better but I dont really game on my phone.

So those are the issues, some I could probably accept and get used to, but I feel a couple of them to me are major issues and with all of them combined it overall would seem a step backwards.  Is a shame as usb-c is definitely a step forward, connecting the cable is way better than old microusb, the fast charging is very nice, and the clock always been on is also a nice touch, which of course goes back to amoled situation, the always on display would clearly be better with amoled as amoled doesnt need to power black pixels and in addition the better contrast ratio and viewing angles would make the clock so much clearer, on the g5 I have to pick up the device to get a good viewing angle as otherwise the clock is hard to see with the contrast shift off angle.

So where do I go from here?

I will keep using the s5 for the immediate future, it works, the main issue I have is its multitasking as 2 gig of ram is not enough to keep apps loaded in the background.  The g5 definitely was nice that background apps kept their state when returning to them.

Upgrading to the s7 is out of the question at the moment, its overpriced, and also I am not a fan of non removable batteries.  I may consider it after the s8 is launched as the price will drop then, I will this time check to see what kernels are available before getting the device, and sadly the s7 also has only the legacy microusb.

Another note is that on paper the wifi spec of both phones is on par, but the s5 901f has dual spatial streams so the AC is 866mbit, whilst the g5 is single stream so the AC is 433mbit.

The initial great battery life was a one off sadly.

Of course if I dont manage to relock the bootloader, then EE probably would reject the return, so returning it is subject to me managing to do that.
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2016, 09:10:09 PM »

I have swung again :D

I have fixed the battery drain and performance for most part, the only big issue I usee left is a lack of auto redialling when engaged and I have a android dev working on that for me as I type.

The recent pics I took of my pfsense box which I posted today surprised me, this phone has a much better camera for indoor use than my S5.
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Chrysalis

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Re: outputting to hdmi display
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2017, 11:55:03 AM »

The G5 was returned and I now have a S7 (non edge model), its definitely faster than the G5.  Its AOD drains faster than the G5 tho. With AOD off its drain is comparable to the S5.

I will keep AOD on when at home as I am always near a charger, but when out will turn it off.

Officially the S7 has no MHL, but I noticed in the kernel there is MHL drivers, so will test it out at some point but if doesnt work I will just use my S5 (which I decided to not sell now) to put F1 live timing on my second monitor when watching F1.  (I use MHL to get live timing app on a big screen).
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