I have researched and tested and have found the proper solution to playing any movie or video on the Bolt center display by pushing the Gallery button.
First, the movie/video must be in MP4 Format, and only a couple of resolutions will play.
The preferable resolution is 1280 by 720 pixels, which will display and use nearly the entire screen.
higher resolutions will not work. Slightly lower standard resolutions may work, but the picture is too small on the screen.
Unfortunately, very few Utube videos or movies are in the desired resolution.
Fortunately, there is a high quality Freeware program available that can convert virtually all other format videos to the desired 1280 by 720 MP4 format. It is: HD Video Converter Factory, by WonderFox.
It is exceptionally easy to use. You select the video to convert. Then you select the MP4 format. Then you slide the selector to the 720P resolution. Then you click the RUN button. It will remember the MP4 format after the first one, but you have to re-select the 720P resolution for each file.
If you wish, you can purchase the Pro version of the program for $25, which allows even higher resolutions, including 1280P and 4k ones, as well as allowing you drag/drop batches of files to be converted.
In addition, WonderFox has DVDRipper Pro for an additional $10, which can convert DVDs and ISO images to any video format.
I have researched and tested and have found the proper solution to playing any movie or video on the Bolt center display by pushing the Gallery button.
First, the movie/video must be in MP4 Format, and only a couple of resolutions will play.
The preferable resolution is 1280 by 720 pixels, which will display and use nearly the entire screen.
higher resolutions will not work. Slightly lower standard resolutions may work, but the picture is too small on the screen.
My experience has been different. Some mp4's play, some do not. Resolution is not relevant - even at exactly the same resolution, some play, some don't. I've had no problem getting full screen display of lower-resolution files, so I have no need for conversion software.
I am curious as to why some mp4 files do not play. But not curious enough to do a lot of testing...
I did go so far as to create two 30-minute files using exactly the same capture, recording, and conversion software. Exactly the same settings, resolution (not a typical/standard resolution), frame rate, etc., just different content (two different half-hour TV shows). One played, one did not. This suggests to me that there is may not be an easy answer.
Or, if you want something that works on both Linux, Mac and Windows, and no upsell, go with Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php). Handbrake does not break encryption (you have to go elsewhere for that), but I've never had an issue with a file converted using their "Android HQ" profile.
I have had some mp4 files that did not play, even though they were the full 720P resolution. But when I ran them through the WonderFox Converter, then they did play. It may be some weird condition of compression level being wrong on some files, I am not sure.
Probably the Bolt decoder is not sophisticated enough to handle all of the variants that MP4 files can have.
I also like using the 1280 by 720 resolution so the picture is as large as possible, because us old people need all the help we can get.
Yeah, baxically any standard good quality USB stick up to 64 gb works fine. Bigger ones may work, but I haven't tested any because I am too cheap to spend on one yet.
Mp4 is a container. The files (video and sound) are inside and compressed with different codecs. The reason some files dont play is that the bolt doesnt have a full set of codecs installed
Or they don't enable it. If you troll through the FOSS licenses (warning it's long) there are a lot of shared libs compiled in. Including, I noticed, FLAC my favorite format. But you can't play FLAC, unless you do a trick apparently of naming it to .wav. Well anyhow it looks like the format is included but they didn't allow it in the file parsing.
I tried this and Android Auto stop working and local videos (on SD card) can't find a way to play it.
So phone was so buggy with my Bolt, I have to do a factory reset..
Is there anyone on the latest software (14.4.2) who can confirm that video playback is still possible?
I just got my car last night, it came with 14.4.2 and I can't seem to get the gallery to even see my video files let alone play them. I don't even have a movies tab in the galley only a pictures tab. I'm thinking this entire feature might have been removed.
It's clear now. After talking with others, no more videos whit the new update. By now, CarStream not working anyone have another solution to see videos from USB? Passengers will surely love it...
CarStream still works. Use it all the time. They've got instructions on the page on how to get it working. Isn't too hard, there's a free APK cloner utility that seems to bypass the Google Blocks.
I read at "gm-volt.com" that the Chevy Volt can also play videos on its screen from a USB drive. I do know that many Ford vehicles with larger displays do play videos by using the RCA jacks inside the center console area between the front seats, but you have to attach a portable DVD or video source to do it. Some F-150 truck owners have defeated the video source switch and play videos while driving!
After creating around 50 sample video files with different resolutions, filenames, lengths, profiles, bitrates, sound codecs, I came to the conclusion that video files matching the following rules, work:
video codec: H264, profile level: 3.0 (5.2 does not work)
audio codec: AAC (even though the manual states that Dolby Digital (AC3) works, unfortunately it does not.), in Stereo (Surround stutters)
resolution: max. 720P (non-standard resolutions like 720x424 Pixels, also work.)
size doesn't matter (of course file size is limited to 4GB, on FAT32 formatted USB-Sticks (from the 2020 Bolt, NTFS can be used also))
filename length doesn't matter, also special characters don't matter
After creating around 50 sample video files with different resolutions, filenames, lengths, profiles, bitrates, sound codecs, I came to the conclusion that video files matching the following rules, work:
video codec: H264, profile level: 3.0 (5.2 does not work)
audio codec: AAC (even though the manual states that Dolby Digital (AC3) works, unfortunately it does not.), in Stereo (Surround stutters)
resolution: max. 720P (non-standard resolutions like 720x424 Pixels, also work.)
size doesn't matter (of course file size is limited to 4GB, on FAT32 formatted USB-Sticks (from the 2020 Bolt, NTFS can be used also))
filename length doesn't matter, also special characters don't matter