Got 10 hours and 40 minutes of movie playback on flight

**lnichols** · 08-25-2011, 05:11 AM

Well I flew from DC to Tokyo today and decided to watch movies on the Playbook to keep me awake and pass the time. Airplane mode was on. I thought I would get 8 hours max, but ended up getting 10 hours and 40 minutes of watching time and still had 9% battery life left. These were all ripped from DVD with Handbrake using the AppleTV2 setting. Sounded great with the headphones too. Just wanted to share my findings.

**marksasongko** · 08-25-2011, 05:24 AM

what os are you using?last time i only got around 7-8 hours

**kariakoo** · 08-25-2011, 05:32 AM

sound great, before latest OS update i had almost 9 hrs of movie playback on the train.

**KQ9** · 08-25-2011, 05:34 AM

Sweet! now of only RIM would use that bit of fact and market it, and call it something fancy

**rickgainsmith** · 08-25-2011, 05:50 AM

Nice! Very good result, couldn't get anywhere near that on early builds.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

**OverShadow417** · 08-25-2011, 06:04 AM

I've done some pretty good stress tests on the battery myself - with the brightness turned all the way down I got close to 11 hours with lite multitasking.

Of course, with just playing music and some moderate multitasking(Being some light web browsing and reading 400 pages of a book), I got over 16 hours.

To me the battery life is definitely not a negative aspect of the device.

Although, I've done some really heavy multitasking tests and gotten the battery knocked out in 4.5 hours - but that was what I was aiming for (Camera left on, streaming video, playing a movie, highest volume level, and that fireflies screensaver).

**d3adcrab** · 08-25-2011, 07:53 AM

awesome...have a 9 hour flight tomorrow...dont think ill get as much out has you have...saved last four chapters of deadspace for the flight

**exzibit3** · 08-25-2011, 08:30 AM

Great result, it's good to see some quantifiable results as opposed to people who keep saying "light browsing, moderate use"...all of that isn't remotely useful.

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**togardergrosse** · 08-25-2011, 09:15 AM

I can only play approx 5hrs of movie (around 2 movies).
Perhaps because both of them are 1080p ripped? (since I wanted to test it with the HDMI cable).

**OverShadow417** · 08-25-2011, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by togardergrosse

I can only play approx 5hrs of movie (around 2 movies).
Perhaps because both of them are 1080p ripped? (since I wanted to test it with the HDMI cable).

Damn! I guess so - all my movies I have on there are between 600MB and 2GB and are at 720p.

I know that with brightness set to max the battery life is much lower, but I estimated around 7-8 hours when I did the hi-brightness movie length test - admittedly it wasn't a full run through; I was at 50% after about 4 hours and 20 minutes, and I never have it on full brightness normally anyway(And didn't want to waste another 4 hours for no reason.)

Oh yeah - all tests were with wifi turned on and bluetooth connected.

**peter9477** · 08-25-2011, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by lnichols

Well I flew from DC to Tokyo today and decided to watch movies on the Playbook to keep me awake and pass the time. Airplane mode was on. I thought I would get 8 hours max, but ended up getting 10 hours and 40 minutes of watching time and still had 9% battery life left. These were all ripped from DVD with Handbrake using the AppleTV2 setting. Sounded great with the headphones too. Just wanted to share my findings.

You didn't mention what level the backlight was set to. To get that life, I bet you had it on the minimum. A full battery, with screen on and backlight at minimum, can give almost 11h of life. Playing video doesn't add significantly to that, by my measurements.

**JR A** · 08-25-2011, 02:52 PM

Originally Posted by peter9477

You didn't mention what level the backlight was set to. To get that life, I bet you had it on the minimum. A full battery, with screen on and backlight at minimum, can give almost 11h of life. Playing video doesn't add significantly to that, by my measurements.

Great write up!

As you asked at the end of your write up, I would like a battery monitor app for PB

**lnichols** · 08-25-2011, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by marksasongko

what os are you using?last time i only got around 7-8 hours

The 1.07 before yesterdays update. I didn't update to the new 1.07 till after I landed here.

The first movie I had brightness set it to min (Transformers 2 was plenty bright at that setting) and I moved it up to that 10 to 20% on second movie, Sucker Punch, because it is a darker movie and then left the brightness there for the rest of trip once I saw the battery was going to be good. International flight that length everyone has windows shut and the lights are off most of the flight.

Movies were Transformers 2, Sucker Punch, Battle Los Angeles, Robin Hood (Ridley Scott), and RED in that order.

I have a few more movies I haven't watched for flight back, and will probably play some Dead Space too.

**lophreaque** · 08-25-2011, 08:39 PM

I've had similar experiences on travel. This thing rocks for movies!
David

**lophreaque** · 08-25-2011, 08:39 PM

Now if we could only have Netflix like our Apple pals...

**Blacklac** · 08-25-2011, 08:51 PM

Man, I really wanted to watch a 10hr and 40 minutes video of a plane flight... You tricked me!

**sookster54** · 08-25-2011, 09:11 PM

I can't believe you actually spent 10 hours watching movies? Or did I read that wrong? Last time I went to JP, I wanted to sleep!

**lnichols** · 08-26-2011, 04:12 AM

Originally Posted by sookster54

I can't believe you actually spent 10 hours watching movies? Or did I read that wrong? Last time I went to JP, I wanted to sleep!

Nope you read it correct. I decided to stay up the whole flight and stay up till about 9 PM Japan time to help sleep through the first night and try to get adjusted quicker. Worked pretty good. Made it working through the first day fine, but I'm getting tired now and its 6 PM. If I would have slept then I would have been up probably most of the night and been tired for work today. I'll probably try to do the same on the return trip too.

**peter9477** · 08-26-2011, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by jranciano

Great write up!

As you asked at the end of your write up, I would like a battery monitor app for PB

Oh, that's easy... since I wrote that I released Battery Guru into the wild.

Search App World for "battery" and it will be the first result (because it's the only one that's actually useful) or dive down to Utilities -> Utilities (Paid).