Utilities6 min read
When a Card Scanner Picks the Wrong Card
Reprints, regional variants and similar artwork all confuse image matching. How to spot a wrong match and correct it before it lands in a collection.
61 articles · page 3 of 3
Utilities guides, page 3
Articles 49–61 of 61, newest first. The introduction to this reading list, its topic hubs and the guides other articles cite most are on the first page.
Utilities articles 49–61
- Utilities4 min read
Android App Permissions Explained
Install-time, runtime and special permissions, how to review what your apps have, and why a permission list is only half the privacy picture.
- Utilities7 min read
Android Video Players Compared: Scope, Decoders and What Each One Is Actually For
Local playback, network streams, subtitles and speed control are different problems. How to pick an Android video player for what you actually watch.
- Utilities4 min read
Audio Codecs Explained
Lossy and lossless, AAC, MP3, FLAC, Opus and Vorbis, why multichannel audio fails on phones, and what passthrough actually does.
- Utilities4 min read
AV1 on Android: What Support Actually Means
What AV1 is, why decoder support matters more than the format itself, how Android's requirements changed, and what to do when a file will not play.
- Utilities4 min read
Frame Rate and Resolution Explained
What each controls, why bitrate matters more than either for perceived quality, and how judder, interlacing and scaling produce visible artefacts.
- Utilities4 min read
Google Play's Data Safety Section, Explained
What developers must declare, how collection differs from sharing, what the section does not tell you, and how to read it before installing anything.
- Utilities4 min read
Hardware and Software Video Decoding Compared
What each does, why the power difference is so large, how to tell which one your device is using, and what to do when hardware decoding is unavailable.
- Utilities4 min read
Remuxing and Transcoding: Know Which One You Need
Remuxing rewraps streams losslessly; transcoding re-encodes and loses quality. How to tell which your problem needs, and why remux is worth trying first.
- Utilities4 min read
Subtitle Formats Explained
SRT, ASS, WebVTT and image-based subtitles compared — what each can do, why some do not display, and the difference between embedded and external tracks.
- Utilities12 min read
Video Codecs Explained: Compression, Bitrate, Bit Depth and Why Newer Is Not Always Better
How video compression works, what bitrate and bit depth actually control, and why a newer codec means a smaller file and less certain support.
- Utilities10 min read
Video File Formats Explained: What Is Actually Inside an MP4, MKV or MOV
What a container really stores, how MP4, MKV, MOV and transport streams differ, and why remuxing fixes problems that re-encoding should not.
- Utilities7 min read
Why Your Video Won't Play on Android: Containers, Codecs and Local Files
MP4 and MKV are containers, H.264 and AV1 are codecs, and the difference explains most playback failures. A practical guide to fixing them on Android.