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VLC For iPhone and iPad Returns With Wi-Fi Upload, Dropbox Sync and More

M

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
shandyman said:
I've had no problems using it over the last day and a half, it's much better than the other apps I tried previously. It can only get better
Click to expand...

Trust me - even if you don't instantly notice it, it consumes far more power (resulting in significantly lower battery life) than purely hardware MKV decoders (e.g. nPlayer, AVPlayer). Software decoding kills the battery really fast.

I've published a lot of test results showing this on the iPhone 5 (that is, the fastest iPhone) in my previous Hi10P playback article.
 
I

iLLUMI

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2012
567
281
"VLC for iOS is still rolling out to international App Stores, beginning in Australia and New Zealand and arriving in the U.S. this evening."

Hmmmm... it's not available in the Australian App store just yet. :(
I guess it's still rolling out....

I'm still using the original version. Works well on iOS 5. Not had any issues with it. :)
 
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I

iWantAMac

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2003
255
0
AUS
iLLUMI said:
"VLC for iOS is still rolling out to international App Stores, beginning in Australia and New Zealand and arriving in the U.S. this evening."

Hmmmm... it's not available in the Australian App store just yet. :(
I guess it's still rolling out....

I'm still using the original version. Works well on iOS 5. Not had any issues with it. :)
Click to expand...

Strange I'm in SA and download it earlier.

Might mention i tried reinstalling it once and ended up deleting it when it wouldn't playback mp3 correctly using the 'stream' feature, or store files at all using the 'download from web server' feature.

App is currently a POS from my experience but i'll keep an eye on it for sure.
 
G

Gigitt

macrumors newbie
Oct 25, 2006
10
0
Well done...finaly.... got it.


So who's telephone is it that is the default entry under Setting>Open Network Stream and also Download from Web Server.

I have entry tel:8904xxxxxx (x's for privacy)
 
M

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
shandyman said:
That's your opinion, the person you quoted was sharing his opinion..... :p
Click to expand...

Yup, I just want to help people avoid going for a player that may result 2-5 times faster battery emptying than better-engineered ones.

Even if people don't realize it at once, software decoding puts a lot of burden on the CPU and, consequently, on the battery. This is why I generally don't recommend VLC at its current (2.0.1) version, except for the very rare case of playing back DTS audio tracks without having any chance of remuxing/converting them to AAC or AC3 before playback.
 
S

shandyman

Suspended
Apr 24, 2010
6,458
397
Dublin, Ireland
Menneisyys2 said:
Yup, I just want to help people avoid going for a player that may result 2-5 times faster battery emptying than better-engineered ones.

Even if people don't realize it at once, software decoding puts a lot of burden on the CPU and, consequently, on the battery. This is why I generally don't recommend VLC at its current (2.0.1) version, except for the very rare case of playing back DTS audio tracks without having any chance of remuxing/converting them to AAC or AC3 before playback.
Click to expand...

Well my battery does not seen to be any worse for usage since I started using VLC. Maybe you're over dramaticising it.....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 
M

MasterMac

macrumors regular
Jun 17, 2003
132
115
Gigitt said:
Well done...finaly.... got it.


So who's telephone is it that is the default entry under Setting>Open Network Stream and also Download from Web Server.

I have entry tel:8904xxxxxx (x's for privacy)
Click to expand...

It automatically fills in whatever is in your clipboard. Meaning, at some point, you copied that phone number yourself. :p
 
M

mpsruo

macrumors member
Apr 15, 2008
89
0
Anyone else having an issue where the description + reviews tabs of the VLC app in the App Store are blank? I can't seem to be able to view any info about the app, only download it. All other app tabs open without issues. Kind of weird
 
M

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
shandyman said:
Well my battery does not seen to be any worse for usage since I started using VLC. Maybe you're over dramaticising it.....
Click to expand...

The excess power usage introduced by software decoding depends on many factors. As I've explained in the Hi10p article (the one I've published some real-world power usage figures), on an iPhone 5 with low backlight, the difference, when decoding a 1080p H.264 video, in can be five-fold.

On a device with inherently higher power usage (e.g., an iPad 3/4) or on the same iPhone but with much higher backlight, the difference is much higher but in no way negligible.

With easier-to-decode (e.g., Standard Definition) files the differences aren't as pronounced (but still existing). Also, with formats not at all hardware-decodable by iOS (AVI / WMV files etc.), there won't be almost any differences.

Nevertheless, I don't want anyone to switch. I, as a video encoding / format guru, merely offer recommendations on how battery life can easily be enhanced. In this case, by choosing something that does hardware decoding.

----------
mpsruo said:
Anyone else having an issue where the description + reviews tabs of the VLC app in the App Store are blank? I can't seem to be able to view any info about the app, only download it. All other app tabs open without issues. Kind of weird
Click to expand...

Doesn't work here either.
 
Switchback666

Switchback666

macrumors 68000
Nov 16, 2012
1,600
67
SXM
Weird, cant see the app on the US store after i got it but i did an icloud restore to test and it loaded the app.

The old tetris from EA its also on my icloud and i can download it.
 
H

Habakuk

macrumors 6502a
Jul 10, 2007
968
40
Vienna Austria Europe
Version 2.0.2

This is a quick release to fix the major issues of the first release: MPEG audio decoding (including MP2 and MP3); Dropbox integration, navigation and VoiceOver; UI bugs on iOS5; CSS issues on the Wifi Upload page; subtitles for Greek, Cyrillic and Vietnamese; various crashes and misbehaviors and add vlc:// protocol handler
Click to expand...

Good to know that they care about the app!
 
M

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
I've tested the just-released 2.0.2.

- it indeed fixes mp2 / mp3 playback. Now, all my MKV / SD DVB TS files work.

- it still has DTS / AC3 audio support (not for long, I'm afraid... That is, you absolutely need to backup the IPA file, should you want to use it for DTS / AC3 audio playback in the future.)

- unfortunately, it still is unable to play back anything using hardware acceleration, not even iOS-native files (let alone MKV's). Therefore, if you do plan to play iOS-native files (mp4 / m4v / mov) or MKV's, you still absolutely shouldn't use this app, assuming you want the best possible framerate and batter life. As has been explained in the article, the player is usable with other, no-way-hardware-decodeable formats (e.g., MP2 files) but, again, the top AppStore players contain better H.264 and MPEG-2 video decoders.

- the new version seems to have introduced an “instant-crash-while-trying-to-decode-in-filelist-view” bug with the test file “Sininen laulu https://copy.com/cxawnYt2m97fi2ED ” . As soon as the player tries to parse the file, it crashes.

All in all, I still don't recommend it, unless you absolutely need DTS audio and don't want to jailbreak for, say, XBMC. (AC3 is now licensed and supported by several AppStore players, on the other hand.)
 
X

xArtx

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2012
764
1
To avoid further copyright issues, VLC for iOS is fully open-source and the video playback and library kits are available for integration by other developers.
Click to expand...
Open source code wasn't ever the issue AFAIK.
Otherwise how was the App Store ever incompatible with GPL code?

The binary that is distributed in the App Store has DRM applied by Apple,
so the binary cannot be freely distributed, and hosted on any external site (for example).
GPL requires that not only the source code, but the compiled binary,
and all scripts required to produce it, be freely distributable.
Even though a free app is available to anyone from the App Store.

How is this resolved?
 
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