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Poor HDMI Review for Evo

I have learned since seeing the pics and videos from actual users here on the forum... don't listen to stupid reviews... make up your own mind..
 
Disappointing that the TV wont mirror whats on your phone, regardless of what it is.


Oh well, most likely saving some money on an HDMI cable :D
 
This doesn't sway me at all. HTC should have, in my opinion left this feature out altogether (HDMI out).
 
Pretty ridiculous that a place called "pcmag.com" apparently doesn't realize that blockiness in videos probably isn't caused by the quality of the HDMI.

I'm not concerned about the quality complaints.

As far as unlocking the HDMI so that it works across the board, XDA will probably fix that right up for us. It probably won't be too tough to set it up to mirror everything on the screen / send all screen data to the HDMI.
 
Roman G. said:
Good thing I did not buy it for that, just another gimmick to try to sell more phones.
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A standard digital output on a handheld device capable of outputting a HD feed and that has the processing power to play a variety of different formats is definitely not merely a gimmick. That's a pretty powerful feature, and one that definitely helped to sell me on the device.

I think it's cool as hell that I'll be able to watch Netflix on any TV in my house without having to buy standalone boxes. I'm waiting for an enterprising Android development house to develop a solution that will stream AVI / MKV / DIVX / whatever files over whatever connection you might have from your media server and let you output it through the HDMI.

Anyhow - not a gimmick!
 
PC Mag also said the voice quality was harsh in their review... Everyone else has had a positive voice experience. The output is going to depend on the source material.. I mean if it is standard def or designed for the mobile then yes it is gonna look like crap on a High def TV. Load an actual 720p video on the Evo and output it... I bet it looks great like it does when other reviewers did that. No where that I have found says that the device upscales to 720p.. That is a different thing all together IMHO. Also, and I could be wrong on this but I remember seeing them playing a racing game on a big projector at the launch... Trying to find that video. Could have just been a camera viewing it and putting it on the big screen so don't hold me to that
 
My first response was to question many on this site who attack anyone who finds fault with the evo, but after a second reading of the article, I agree that they should have used a file at 720p. Why they didn't put a video on microsd at this level doesn't make sense, unless I missed something? The point about blowing up a 1 mg picture to poster size is right. it makes sense that youtube hq videos would work better. Try taking a video from itouch at mpeg4 and exporting it to the television through their expensive $45 cables which I took back by the way after I looked at the quality of the picture.

With that said, htc and sprint should have given some direction on this before they sent it out for review.
 
cmanbrazil said:
My first response was to question many on this site who attack anyone who finds fault with the evo, but after a second reading of the article, I agree that they should have used a file at 720p. Why they didn't put a video on microsd at this level doesn't make sense, unless I missed something? The point about blowing up a 1 mg picture to poster size is right. it makes sense that youtube hq videos would work better. Try taking a video from itouch at mpeg4 and exporting it to the television through their expensive $45 cables which I took back by the way after I looked at the quality of the picture.

With that said, htc and sprint should have given some direction on this before they sent it out for review.
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Um. I'm not sure HTC or Sprint should have to hand out directions on how to do reviews or use the features.. Again I think it is common sense to use an HD source if you want an HD output. I get where they are coming from in the sense that they want the HDMI output to send everything over in high def but come on..... Really? I stream 600x480 video to my 1080p set via my PS3 which is a much more powerful device and it looks ok.... It is pixelated and noisy.. Not much to do about that... I don't say the PS3 outputs crappy video via HDMI do I?
 
what a bunch of hacks. testing the HDMI out with and SD video source. whoever did that review should be fired. embarrassing.
 
-"Only videos and slideshows play on the TV - the rest of your content is stuck on your phone, including still images, games, and presentations."

Videos and slideshows, that seems fine to me. Why would you need still images if you have slide shows, why would you need an HDTV to play 800x480 games, and what presentations would you have to display? This is a phone, not a work tablet.

-"The Viewsonic TV read our signal as 480p and delivered a horribly blocky, artifact-filled image. The Samsung TV did better. A stored, 640-by-480 MPEG4 video played smoothly, although there were some visible artifacts. An H.264 video displayed horrible artifacting in any scene with much movement."

Was the viewsonic fed 720P HD content? PCMAG doesn't specify and says it was horrible. Then playing a 640x480 video (less than standard def) and then saying it has horrible artifacts. Thanks PCMAG, I would of never guessed feeding less than standard def on an HDTV would look horrible.

-"YouTube videos in HQ mode played decently over Wi-Fi; non-HQ YouTube videos were unwatchable."

Oh ok, so when we do get HD content, it plays "decently"? Non HQ Youtube was unwatchable? What do you expect PCMAG!? Its not high def!

-"TV shows from CBS's TV.com app and mSpot's Mobile Movies app played on the screen in standard-def in a small window surrounded by black bars, but they played smoothly."

Yet again standard def on a high def screen. PCMAG you're really reaching here just to complain about nothing.

-"Sprint TV refused to play on the screen at all."

Fair enough, SPRINT TV should be able to play through the HDMI out. I give PCMag that.

So is the HDMI out on the EVO poor? Or was it just PCMag doing a poor job of reviewing the EVO?

Check out PCMag's history on the preview of the EVO 4G, they never liked this phone to begin with. Within their preview of the EVO, they dogged the 4G, without even mentioning its other features, such as 720p, front facing camera, mobile hotspot, etc.
 
sikclown said:
Um. I'm not sure HTC or Sprint should have to hand out directions on how to do reviews or use the features.. Again I think it is common sense to use an HD source if you want an HD output. I get where they are coming from in the sense that they want the HDMI output to send everything over in high def but come on..... Really? I stream 600x480 video to my 1080p set via my PS3 which is a much more powerful device and it looks ok.... It is pixelated and noisy.. Not much to do about that... I don't say the PS3 outputs crappy video via HDMI do I?
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Your right, but if your selling a product with certain features that you are promoting, then their should be a line drawn from hardware to the utility of it, like using qik for the front facing camera. Someone realized that there would need to be an app to utilize it. Maybe a 720p short video given with the device that would work well with hdmi output.
 
I hope the app makers of Qik, Google Video Chat, SlingMedia, etc can modify their software to allow for the HDMI output. If not I will still hope for a 3rd party solution to allow everything out through the HDMI. :(
 
cmanbrazil said:
My first response was to question many on this site who attack anyone who finds fault with the evo, but after a second reading of the article, I agree that they should have used a file at 720p.
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Agreed, I figured it was another case of someone saying "... could be better" and the forum responding "OH MY GOD UR SO WRONG DIE NOW," but that article is bush league.

You would think that at the very least the dolts who wrote / published this would realize that if they take the same source video, play it on two separate TVs and get two separate results, then perhaps there's more in play here than just the phone.
 
So basically a heavily compressed video at 640x480 looks bad streamed from a device that does up to 720p and on to a monitor set at 1920x1280?

Imagine that!! I use my HDTV as my computer monitor and 640x480 videos compressed to hell with h.264 or any codec are gonna look like just that! They didn't even mention the bitrate which is most important of all.

I've seen lower res videos look pretty damn watchable on my TV but they were encoded at a high enough *bitrate* so you aren't trying to squeeze everything into a little 256-512k/sec stream.

A decent encoding makes a world of difference with this stuff. The guys demoing it knew this and that's why they made sure it looked good.

These clowns grabbed their video from who knows where.
 
cmanbrazil said:
Your right, but if your selling a product with certain features that you are promoting, then their should be a line drawn from hardware to the utility of it, like using qik for the front facing camera. Someone realized that there would need to be an app to utilize it. Maybe a 720p short video given with the device that would work well with hdmi output.
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Ok valid point for endusers however these are demos sent out to the press to review.. The press that handle literally 100's of devices per year. I haven't even held the device yet and I know how to handle at least the basics on the device. I mean if a reviewer needs the instruction manual than they need to not review electronics (ok that is a bit over the top but you get my point). I saw a two second unboxing from the floor of Google I/O event and I know that I can simply use the front facing camera for a self portrait by switching to it in the camera app.. Now as far as telling the press and public in general what features and programs you are selling ... Aren't the specs as well as mention of specific programs utilizing the features all over print ads and the Internet? Again I agree with you from an endusers stand point and if this review had been Bob Smith from Lubbock, Tx and this is one of his first smart phones... You are absolutely correct but it isn't... This is this guy:
http://www.pcmag.com/author_bio/0,1908,a%3D2974,00.asp. Does he sound like he needs an instruction manual?
 
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