Minimizing battery drain during video playback

[dah328]

I've got a couple long flights coming up on which I'd like to use my TB as a video player. Based on a few past experiences, I was afraid that video playback would kill the battery long before I reached my destination.

I tried a couple tests with my phone in airplane mode that consisted of playing a 21-minute, 174mb AVI file with QQ Player and Rock Player.

Under QQ Player, the battery dropped 9% which translates to 2.3 minutes of video playback per 1% of battery.

Someone reported that Rock Player's custom builds for different processors with support for GPU decoding dramatically reduces power consumption, so I downloaded the ARM7 build of Rock Player from the developer's website, enabled hardware decoding in the settings, and played the same AVI. The battery dropped only 6% (3.5 minutes per 1% of battery). I then tried a 701mb, 59-minute AVI which dropped battery by 15% (3.9 minutes/1%).

I think that's close to getting me through my flights, but are there any other video players or configuration settings I should try to reduce power consumption during video playback?

 

[DaRkL3AD3R]

Display brightness. Turn it all the way down. That will help wonders but other than that, nothing else you can really do to minimize battery drain. It's really having the screen on for significant periods of time that will kill the battery the most. The actual CPU drain won't be as harsh, especially with hardware decoding.

 

[bjboucher]

You can pick up some generic spare batteries and charge them up...then you'll have plenty of juice. Or one spare extended battery!

 

[RJSAdvisors]

Anther option you might want to consider to be sure you have the power you need for a long flight is to purchase a compact external USB battery pack to take along for the trip. I bought a New Trent IMP1000, which is actually an 11,000 mAh battery pack that can fully recharge the phone more than seven times (11,000/1400 = 7.86), for this purpose. That unit should provide enough juice for you to watch videos continuously for even the longest flight day available as long as you keep your TBolt in airplane mode. New Trent sells external USB batteries in a variety of other sizes as well, so you have options. The 11,000 mAh unit may sound like overkill, but it is actually pretty compact in size, so I thought I better play it safe rather than settling for a smaller unit. There are other brands out there, but I prefer the New Trent models, and they have gotten some great reviews. The company is very responsive.

 

[TauntingBull]

Anther option you might want to consider to be sure you have the power you need for a long flight is to purchase a compact external USB battery pack to take along for the trip. I bought a New Trent IMP1000, which is actually an 11,000 mAh battery pack that can fully recharge the phone more than seven times (11,000/1400 = 7.86), for this purpose. That unit should provide enough juice for you to watch videos continuously for even the longest flight day available as long as you keep your TBolt in airplane mode. New Trent sells external USB batteries in a variety of other sizes as well, so you have options. The 11,000 mAh unit may sound like overkill, but it is actually pretty compact in size, so I thought I better play it safe rather than settling for a smaller unit. There are other brands out there, but I prefer the New Trent models, and they have gotten some great reviews. The company is very responsive.

How much did you end up paying for it?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[dah328]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had forgotten that the display's power usage always dwarfs the CPU and I had never heard of those external battery packs.

 

[jrmarinojr]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had forgotten that the display's power usage always dwarfs the CPU and I had never heard of those external battery packs.

Obviously be on Airplane Mode. Then turn down the brightness. Not much else you can do - HTC should have given us a little more juice than 1400.

 

[RJSAdvisors]

How much did you end up paying for it?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

New Trent sells their 11,000 mAh unit for $79.95 plus shipping. It weighs 10.2 oz. They also sell a smaller 5,000 mAh unit for $41.95. The smaller unit only weighs 6 oz., and it is about 1/2 inch thinner. The smaller unit would recharge the TBolt more than three times. In my experience the phone charges somewhat faster using my New Trent unit than it does from the regular AC charger for some reason. The New Trent units come with a nice felt drawstring carrying bag, and the included USB cable retracts into a very compact format. The units also ship with a variety of adapters so you can charge different typse of devices such as an Android phone, a BlackBerry, or an iPhone or iPad. The units do not have enough juice to recharge a regular laptop. Check out the New Trent website at Buy Smartphone, Laptops, Tablets & iPhone Batteries & Cases - Shop Online Now!. They even have a short unboxing video for the 11,000 mAh unit that gives you a better idea of its size and appearance.