Hey all,
So I'm trying to figure out what the best streaming video player is for the iPad Mini. I have read many of Menneisyys2's posts on video players, but they aren't particularly organized by whether they support SMB/CIFS streaming.
The main issues appear to be 1) the removal of Dolby codec support by most developers 2) who has implemented any kind of MKV hardware decoding. My needs are a bit more basic though - I'm having trouble decoding even 720p MP4 files with AAC audio over SMB at the moment.
I tried a few free players and managed to narrow it down to two, but even they are ho-hum. I'm not convinced the OPlayer uses hardware decoding in such a case, even with "Use Quicktime" set to on in the settings - though turning it off and turning on 'Use FFMpeg" in the settings makes things less choppy and a bit more watchable. I'm also not sure but I think that instead of using the Videos interface when ostensibly hardware decoding, as I'm pretty sure it did a few weeks ago, the new version now uses OPlayer's own UI during 'hardware-assisted' playback. When playing MP4 videos with multiple audio files, the reported length of the movie is always very wrong - 2hrs longer or more (an issue I've also noticed in xbmc/OpenELEC for the Raspberry Pi...). But anyway it's worse than this - while most low-bitrate XviD/MP3 SD content (old TV) work great, "higher bitrate" AVIs (still SD, and by high I mean 'relatively', like, 1.5Mbps) will stutter. And of course AC3 issues. Now, most of my playback right now is in fact watching old TV shows, so this app is serviceable...but it's not a solution when my viewing habits inevitably change.
eXPlayer seems to work a bit better. It has a nicer interface (more generic but also more legible) and less behind-the-scenes options than OPlayer. But more than that, it actually does have hardware acceleration enabled for SD and 720p mp4s. 'High-bitrate' SD AVIs are hit-and-miss. MKV playback is of course abysmal in both and neither of these do AC3.
Here's the kicker though: MP4 decoding in software is pretty bad, even for 'high-bitrate' SD content. Now, if hardware decoding works, you ask, then what's the problem? Well, Apple's internal player can't deal with multiple audio tracks. It just plays them all at once...which is an interesting experience but of course, er, not terribly useful. (On multiple audio track mp4s, the 'way too long length bug' is also apparent here.) When using the hardware player, eXplayer also can't deal with text-based subtitles.
So: is there a player out there that
a) can do hardware decoding of MP4/MKV video
b) can do so with multiple audio tracks and subs
c) can do so whilst decoding AC3
d) doesn't choke on SD content, period, and,
e) can do all that while dealing with an SMB share as a source?
This is what I've gathered so far:
So...any recommendations? Or am I out in the cold? AC3 support is kinda-sorta negotiable, since I can do something about that (transcode using eac3to/qaac), and anyway a good amount of content I've got still uses low-bitrate MP3 *shudders* for audio. But multi-track support with hardware acceleration and SMB are not. So right now I'm leaning towards Buzz or Good, but need to know more.
...So...does this thing exist? Thanks for listening folks.
So I'm trying to figure out what the best streaming video player is for the iPad Mini. I have read many of Menneisyys2's posts on video players, but they aren't particularly organized by whether they support SMB/CIFS streaming.
The main issues appear to be 1) the removal of Dolby codec support by most developers 2) who has implemented any kind of MKV hardware decoding. My needs are a bit more basic though - I'm having trouble decoding even 720p MP4 files with AAC audio over SMB at the moment.
I tried a few free players and managed to narrow it down to two, but even they are ho-hum. I'm not convinced the OPlayer uses hardware decoding in such a case, even with "Use Quicktime" set to on in the settings - though turning it off and turning on 'Use FFMpeg" in the settings makes things less choppy and a bit more watchable. I'm also not sure but I think that instead of using the Videos interface when ostensibly hardware decoding, as I'm pretty sure it did a few weeks ago, the new version now uses OPlayer's own UI during 'hardware-assisted' playback. When playing MP4 videos with multiple audio files, the reported length of the movie is always very wrong - 2hrs longer or more (an issue I've also noticed in xbmc/OpenELEC for the Raspberry Pi...). But anyway it's worse than this - while most low-bitrate XviD/MP3 SD content (old TV) work great, "higher bitrate" AVIs (still SD, and by high I mean 'relatively', like, 1.5Mbps) will stutter. And of course AC3 issues. Now, most of my playback right now is in fact watching old TV shows, so this app is serviceable...but it's not a solution when my viewing habits inevitably change.
eXPlayer seems to work a bit better. It has a nicer interface (more generic but also more legible) and less behind-the-scenes options than OPlayer. But more than that, it actually does have hardware acceleration enabled for SD and 720p mp4s. 'High-bitrate' SD AVIs are hit-and-miss. MKV playback is of course abysmal in both and neither of these do AC3.
Here's the kicker though: MP4 decoding in software is pretty bad, even for 'high-bitrate' SD content. Now, if hardware decoding works, you ask, then what's the problem? Well, Apple's internal player can't deal with multiple audio tracks. It just plays them all at once...which is an interesting experience but of course, er, not terribly useful. (On multiple audio track mp4s, the 'way too long length bug' is also apparent here.) When using the hardware player, eXplayer also can't deal with text-based subtitles.
So: is there a player out there that
a) can do hardware decoding of MP4/MKV video
b) can do so with multiple audio tracks and subs
c) can do so whilst decoding AC3
d) doesn't choke on SD content, period, and,
e) can do all that while dealing with an SMB share as a source?
This is what I've gathered so far:
- yaPlayer has a reputation for solid hardware decoding, but doesn't do SMB and doesn't do AC3.
- AVPlayerHD does AC3 and also has a good reputation, but can't do SMB.
- GoodPlayer apparently has good hardware decoding, can do SMB, but can't do AC3.
- 8player is intriguing. FFmpeg AC3 libraries can be added after the fact, and while it doesn't have SMB support (disappointing) it does have support for DLNA servers. As it happens, I have one of those set up in order to stream music to my receiver...but it seems to have issues streaming anything at all to 8player (log on the server says an index-out-of-bounds error...sloppiness). Shame because 8player has a really nice interface - basically a touch version of Sony's XMB, or CrossMediaBar. I haven't quite given up on this because of the interface and the promise of AC3, and would like some advice on what the best DLNA server is, or how to configure the one I'm using (Universal Media Server) properly to use with 8player for further testing.
- CineXPlayer can apparently do everything, but reviews on the appstore say streaming support is poor and causes it to crash. Menneisyys2 also claims it has poorer hardware decoding than some other players.
- BuzzPlayer might be the answer (except for not having AC3 support). I don't know what its performance is like playing back from SMB shares and don't know how it handles multiple tracks.
- What the situation is when playing multiple audio tracks in conjunction with hardware decoding is completely unclear.
- What the situation is when playing 'high-bitrate' SD content is completely unclear.
So...any recommendations? Or am I out in the cold? AC3 support is kinda-sorta negotiable, since I can do something about that (transcode using eac3to/qaac), and anyway a good amount of content I've got still uses low-bitrate MP3 *shudders* for audio. But multi-track support with hardware acceleration and SMB are not. So right now I'm leaning towards Buzz or Good, but need to know more.
...So...does this thing exist? Thanks for listening folks.
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