How to play .avi video files on iPhone 5?

[tymaster50]

Originally Posted by Vundu

Oplayer has no iphone5 support and AC3 has been removed.
AVplayer used to be the best but has been removed from the App Store.

There are not decent movie players in the App Store IMO.

A big shame as I would not mind paying for a decent stylish one.

that hassle I would go through doing all this would be offset by just using videora converter, takes about half an hour or so but it's not like I'm in a rush.

[IsaacM]

Oh wow... Why in the world was AVPlayer removed from the App Store? It's the best player. Apple is so stupid sometimes.

[Vundu]

Originally Posted by IsaacM

Oh wow... Why in the world was AVPlayer removed from the App Store? It's the best player. Apple is so stupid sometimes.

I think it is because they never removed AC3 while the licensing gets sorted out.

I posted on the devs site but no replys have been posted in quite a while.

I have resorted to handbrake and the stock video app.

[CyberMew]

Yea, recently a lot of the video players have gotten their AC3 feature removed except for the cinexplayer app, so make sure you know that before a purchase.

[Cod3rror]

Originally Posted by kiantech

The app isn't €15 ($20). It is €2.21 ($3). It's up to you if playing your pirated videos is worth the investment.

I'm not the type of person to jump on someone, but I see so many people complain about a €2.21 ($3), €1.47 ($2), even $.99 apps, yet they will go eat out multiple times a week.

You paid €150 ($200) for a phone and pay > €74 ($100) a month for the contract. If you are that short on money that €2.21 ($3) one time is a stretch, then having a smart phone might not be the best 2-year commitment.

I use cinexplayer. It works great at playing AVIs. It is €1.47 ($2) on the app store. It plays files locally, not streaming.

Oh please, get off your high horse will you please, Judge Dredd?

You want me to believe that you've never downloaded an mp3 before? Never watched a porn video on the web? Never saved a copyrighted image to your drive? Come on Kiantech...

As for the app prices, haha, yes, it is strange and true, I can go out and spend $20 on some food, yet if an app costs $3.99, I'm like "no way! Too expensive!".

But, it's all relative. And the problem is that, if people just pay up whatever the price is set, it won't be long till the prices are jacked up back to the 29.99 territory. You have to remember that for every budget conscious, tight consumer, there is an equally greedy developer.

Why do apps for the iPad cost twice as much as for the iPhone? And at least 4-5 times more for the Mac?

Take for example Clear, it's already overpriced for the iPhone for what it does, it's $1.99, should be 0.99c IMO. For the iPad it costs twice as much and for the Mac it costs $15... why? Only because the developer is greedy, there is no other explanation. Even 'The Verge' call him out on that.

Personally for me, 0.99c apps are perfect and I buy them. Call me greedy, whatever... If it's more, I'll either wait till the price drops or I get an alternative. The same went with the OPlayer, I used other players and the "lite" version, then one time the developer dropped the price to 0.99c and I bought it immediately.

[tymaster50]

Originally Posted by Vitruviux

Oh please, get off your high horse will you please, Judge Dredd?

You want me to believe that you've never downloaded an mp3 before? Never watched a porn video on the web? Never saved a copyrighted image to your drive? Come on Kiantech...

As for the app prices, haha, yes, it is strange and true, I can go out and spend $20 on some food, yet if an app costs $3.99, I'm like "no way! Too expensive!".

But, it's all relative. And the problem is that, if people just pay up whatever the price is set, it won't be long till the prices are jacked up back to the 29.99 territory. You have to remember that for every budget conscious, tight consumer, there is an equally greedy developer.

Why do apps for the iPad cost twice as much as for the iPhone? And at least 4-5 times more for the Mac?

Take for example Clear, it's already overpriced for the iPhone for what it does, it's $1.99, should be 0.99c IMO. For the iPad it costs twice as much and for the Mac it costs $15... why? Only because the developer is greedy, there is no other explanation. Even 'The Verge' call him out on that.

Personally for me, 0.99c apps are perfect and I buy them. Call me greedy, whatever... If it's more, I'll either wait till the price drops or I get an alternative. The same went with the OPlayer, I used other players and the "lite" version, then one time the developer dropped the price to 0.99c and I bought it immediately.

It's because apps don't benefit your life as much as food does. If the app was like important to what I need I would buy it but for that reason if I can save myself $3 to use on an essential app I would do it. Yeah people go out to eat but hey food is a necessity of life.

[iEs]

Download "ace player" on the AppStore! There's a free version! It plays almost any movie format! Its the best IMO. Try it out

[Merkie]

Originally Posted by IsaacM

Oh wow... Why in the world was AVPlayer removed from the App Store? It's the best player. Apple is so stupid sometimes.

They removed it themselves. They apparently have some major issues with the app that they have not yet been resolved?

Source: reply on an email I sent them.

[scottw324]

Originally Posted by tymaster50

I don't want to use a credit card right now, I'm still reeling off that psn hack. Sometimes I wish they had this like future tech where you can put real money in the phone and it'll transmit it to Apple HQ and you can use it as iTunes Credit.
But I guess I will just have to convert it, damn Apple and their insistence on using mp4 -_-

You can use a edit card with iTunes. I do. What I did was setup a checking account through my bank and ordered a debit card for it. Then I set up the account with a set dollar amount of $40. Each month I deposit automatically $40 into that account for my wife and I to purchase apps, music, ringtones, and movies/tv shows. When it is gone it is gone until the next month. This helps keep us on a budget and helps with fruad issues. If someone was to get the card information the max they would be able to get would be $40. I also get emails from my bank on the account when it drops below $20 so I can keep an eye on purchases made with the card. I have had numerous issues with identify theft in the past and by doing things like this it has kept the impact of these issues limited to small amounts that do not wreak havoc on my personal financials.

That is what I recommend doing.

[ryan.apham]

I don't get it. You paid 200 for the phone, and then 100 for the bill, every month, for 24 months, meaning 2600 in total. Now you can't even pay a few bucks for an app.

Food is necessary for your life, check.
The app is not important for your life, check.
I think not watching those avi videos won't kill you either, yes?

[kiantech]

Originally Posted by Vitruviux

Oh please, get off your high horse will you please, Judge Dredd?

You want me to believe that you've never downloaded an mp3 before? Never watched a porn video on the web? Never saved a copyrighted image to your drive? Come on Kiantech...

As for the app prices, haha, yes, it is strange and true, I can go out and spend $20 on some food, yet if an app costs $3.99, I'm like "no way! Too expensive!".

But, it's all relative. And the problem is that, if people just pay up whatever the price is set, it won't be long till the prices are jacked up back to the 29.99 territory. You have to remember that for every budget conscious, tight consumer, there is an equally greedy developer.

Why do apps for the iPad cost twice as much as for the iPhone? And at least 4-5 times more for the Mac?

Take for example Clear, it's already overpriced for the iPhone for what it does, it's $1.99, should be 0.99c IMO. For the iPad it costs twice as much and for the Mac it costs $15... why? Only because the developer is greedy, there is no other explanation. Even 'The Verge' call him out on that.

Personally for me, 0.99c apps are perfect and I buy them. Call me greedy, whatever... If it's more, I'll either wait till the price drops or I get an alternative. The same went with the OPlayer, I used other players and the "lite" version, then one time the developer dropped the price to 0.99c and I bought it immediately.

When did I state I never downloaded a mp3 or pirated movie. As a person who has developed software I know how much time and work it takes. Your example of a junk app does not mean all software is crap.

Do you get on apples case for selling iPhoto for $4.99.

I just see people complain about having to pay reletivley low amount of money to get something they want when they have a top of the line apple product.

If you don't want to pay for apps that's fine. Just don't become self-entiled when the app isn't free.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Merkie

They removed it themselves. They apparently have some major issues with the app that they have not yet been resolved?

Source: reply on an email I sent them.

Yup, it was Dolby that forced them to remoe their app. As with TONS of other devs. Currrently, at least six (!) players are missing from the AppStore because of Dolby's legal actions against their devs. Among others:

Replayer(HD)
LuberPlayer and LuberPlayerHD
QQPlayer and QQPlayerHD

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Originally Posted by iEs

Download "ace player" on the AppStore! There's a free version! It plays almost any movie format! Its the best IMO. Try it out

A vote against it. In my tests, it didn't produce too convincing results. Besides, it doesn't even support the 16:9 screen of the 5th-gen iPhone / iPt. Get something better - there are a LOT of them (It's Playing, for example).

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Originally Posted by Vundu

I have resorted to handbrake and the stock video app.

Generally, you don't need to. It's far (orders of magnitude - absolutely no need to reencode the video) faster to just change the AC-3 audio track to AAC. I've posted several tutorials on it; want to have the URL's?

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Originally Posted by kiantech

I use cinexplayer. It works great at playing AVIs. It is $2 on the app store. It plays files locally, not streaming.

Another non-recommendation from me. The current, 2.x version was released back in August and, naturally, it doesn't support the widescreen on the iPhone 5. Get something that natively supports the device - or wait for the hopefully imminent release of the new version.

Besides, it's much-much weaker in many respects than the competitors - for example, MKV playback.

[tymaster50]

Originally Posted by ryan.apham

I don't get it. You paid 200 for the phone, and then 100 for the bill, every month, for 24 months, meaning 2600 in total. Now you can't even pay a few bucks for an app.

Food is necessary for your life, check.
The app is not important for your life, check.
I think not watching those avi videos won't kill you either, yes?

Yup, excuse me for wanting to play a video to pass the time when I'm not on my laptop and it's not in apple's mp4 format. The jailbreak can't come out soon enough, oh and as someone said the app isn't even updated to take advantage of the iPhone 5's screen. So I would be paying $3 + tax for an app that is letterboxed, seems like a waste.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by scaredpoet

There are some media player apps on the app store that will do this. OPlayer is one of them:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opla...344784375?mt=8

Not recommended. No 16:9 support AND generally weaker than the best titles (GoodPlayer, It's Playing etc.)

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Originally Posted by tymaster50

So I would be paying $3 + tax for an app that is letterboxed, seems like a waste.

Yup, as I stated, there are already some top players (It's Playing and GoodPlayer are the two most important) making use of the entire screen estate. Don't bother with non-16:9 players.

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Originally Posted by Vitruviux

OPlayer is awesome!

Plays avi, mkv, flv, almost anything.

Can stream from Dropbox, from your PC, etc...

Not recommended - see above. (And also see my reviews - I've posted tons of them to mainly the iPad forum there. The compatibility / decoder speed-specific articles are also applicable to the non-iPad Oplayer version. Will also post an iPhone 5-specific article very soon, where I review Oplayer running on the iPhone 5.)

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Originally Posted by Vundu

There are not decent movie players in the App Store IMO.

There are. Depending on your particular needs, I recommend It's Playing and GoodPlayer the most. If you want multiple subtitles, take a look at nPlayer.

Note that neither of these apps is the "best". All of them have their share of problem. For example, you won't want to use GoodPlayer for MKV playback - while it's the best when it comes to, say, TS subtitle support or streaming.

And make sure you follow my articles here at MacRumors, I always post tons of very thorough multimedia player reviews.

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Originally Posted by Irock619

Can you download the video to your phone so streaming is not necessary?

A lot of players can both download and stream. The latter may, however, mean the lack of hardware accelerated playback, unlike when playing local files.

I've compiled a matrix of downloading vs. streaming, also listing hardware acceleration support, for each, for this kind of streaming, popular networking protocol (SBM, UPnP, HTTP / WebDav, FTP) - want to have more info (I can explain how the matrix can be accessed as it's a work-in-progress one in LibreOffice format)?

[ANMA dojo]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

A lot of players can both download and stream. The latter may, however, mean the lack of hardware accelerated playback, unlike when playing local files.

I've compiled a matrix of downloading vs. streaming, also listing hardware acceleration support, for each, for this kind of streaming, popular networking protocol (SBM, UPnP, HTTP / WebDav, FTP) - want to have more info (I can explain how the matrix can be accessed as it's a work-in-progress one in LibreOffice format)?

I'm interested. can you share your latest version via dropbox/box.net/etc ?

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by ANMA dojo

I'm interested. can you share your latest version via dropbox/box.net/etc ?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/81986513/11...4-mm-chart.ods

The streaming-specific part starts with "<i>FTP</i> client? (setup: Setup / Sharing / File Sharing / Options / Share Files and Folders using FTP). NOTE: FTP seems to be less effective than e.g. UpnP (with free MMS 1.1.4) over exactly the same network / server hardware (SL 10.6.8, 2.8 Ghz MBP 2009)". All protocol-specific sections (FTP / UPnP / SMB / Web) has the following structure:

- Manual (both local and remote) / Automatic (local) discovery?: are you forced to enter the address of the local servers manually, or, is there automatic searching support (again, for servers only on the local network)

- Download (first) / streaming?: are you forced to download a video before wathcing, or, can you stream it (without downloading first)?

- If streaming: quick repositioning?: if streaming is supported (see prev. bullet), can you scrub around in the file?

- If streaming: HW decoding support?: if streaming is supported (see second bullet), is hardware playback possible with native iOS multimedia files (mp4 / mov / m4v).

NOTE: The chart needs to be updated for It's Playing, which have received a lot of networking updates in the just-released version.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

There are. Depending on your particular needs, I recommend It's Playing and GoodPlayer the most. If you want multiple subtitles, take a look at nPlayer.

Here's my latest quick review of nPlayer here at MR: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1490454

[Merkie]

It really sucks that AC3 codecs have been removed in pretty much every app, they all became quite useless to me now .

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Merkie

It really sucks that AC3 codecs have been removed in pretty much every app, they all became quite useless to me now .

1. What files do you want to play back? The remaining players MIGHT be able to properly play back your stuff.

2. do you have an iPhone 5? If not and it can be jailbroken, both RushPlayer+ and XBMC support AC-3.

3. finally, it might be easier than most think to (mass-)convert your files - even quickly.

[Merkie]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

1. What files do you want to play back? The remaining players MIGHT be able to properly play back your stuff.

2. do you have an iPhone 5? If not and it can be jailbroken, both RushPlayer+ and XBMC support AC-3.

3. finally, it might be easier than most think to (mass-)convert your files - even quickly.

Mostly MKV files with AC3 audio. And yes, I have an iPhone 5.

[iceterminal]

Originally Posted by IsaacM

Oh wow... Why in the world was AVPlayer removed from the App Store? It's the best player. Apple is so stupid sometimes.

I'm curious as to how you know it was Apple that removed it. Unless you're condemning them and making statements about their intelligence without any real knowledge of what happened.

Assumption, without any real facts or basis of foundation, is what is truly stupid.

[deannnnn]

If you just buy your video content legally then it won't be in the .avi format and you won't need to buy an app to play it at all.

[tymaster50]

Originally Posted by deannnnn

If you just buy your video content legally then it won't be in the .avi format and you won't need to buy an app to play it at all.

Here we go again.

[Merkie]

Originally Posted by deannnnn

If you just buy your video content legally then it won't be in the .avi format and you won't need to buy an app to play it at all.

Irrelevant, start you own thread.

[tymaster50]

Originally Posted by Merkie

Irrelevant, start you own thread.

Let him, it's not like iTunes is the only place to get movies or tv shows from or anything.