A brand new, free, iPhone 5-friendly player, Directplayer (AppStore link), has recently been approved in AppStore that has both AC3 and 16:9 (iPhone 5 / iPod touch 5) screen support – something painfully missing from currently accessible AppStore apps. For that matter, I think there is simply no player in the AppStore any more doing the same at the same time. The only app that officially has AC-3 support (meaning it'll never drop it), CineXPlayer, still hasn't got a 16:9-friendly update. (The current version, 2.8.2, was released in early August. No wonder it doesn't make use of the 16:9 screen.) On top of that, it's free.
You definitely should download it (again, it's free – what can you lose?) as soon as possible as I'm dead sure it won't stay there for long. After all, it has AC-3 support. (See my dedicated, just-posted article HERE.)
A screenshot of the player, on the iPhone 5, presenting its on-screen user guide. (It's presented at every start unless you enable the “Block popup next time” checkbox, immediately above the “Close” icon):
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A quick list of Pros and Cons:
Pros
- AC3(!!!), DTS
- 16:9 (iPhone 5 / iPt 5) screen support
- while it doesn't support fancy on-the-fly remuxing for containers like MKV, the software H.264 decoder is fast
- gesture-based rewind / fast forward; the duration can even be set
- OGG support is better than usual
- 0.5x... 2.0x speed change, works in both SW and HW decoding mode
- AirPlay support for iOS-native formats
Cons (also a buglist)
- not very good DVB and ATSC TS support: for example, impossible to scrub
- not the right aspect ratio with many movies (considers a lot of 16:9 titles to be 2:35:1 one and, therefore, letterboxes them on a 16:9 screen); fortunately, you can easily change the aspect ratio (icon in the top right corner) – e.g., on a 16:9 device with similarly 16:9 movies, select “Fill”
- no AVI + M-JPEG support (e.g., Canon cameras)
- no MKV HW decoding
- no native iPad support (but it does work in 2x mode, of course)
- not any kind of embedded subtitle support (seems to support external subs, though)
- no AAC audio support during SW decoding, only during HW (MOV / MP4 / M4V playback) decoding. This is why for example THIS (my AAC-only .MKV) or THIS (an .MKV with an AAC track in English; the Hindi one is an MP3 one and is properly played back) files (both standardized test ones) are played back without audio.
- no streaming (UPnP, SMB, FTP, HTTP etc.) support
- no TV output (via the HDMI / VGA cable) support
You definitely should download it (again, it's free – what can you lose?) as soon as possible as I'm dead sure it won't stay there for long. After all, it has AC-3 support. (See my dedicated, just-posted article HERE.)
A screenshot of the player, on the iPhone 5, presenting its on-screen user guide. (It's presented at every start unless you enable the “Block popup next time” checkbox, immediately above the “Close” icon):
A quick list of Pros and Cons:
Pros
- AC3(!!!), DTS
- 16:9 (iPhone 5 / iPt 5) screen support
- while it doesn't support fancy on-the-fly remuxing for containers like MKV, the software H.264 decoder is fast
- gesture-based rewind / fast forward; the duration can even be set
- OGG support is better than usual
- 0.5x... 2.0x speed change, works in both SW and HW decoding mode
- AirPlay support for iOS-native formats
Cons (also a buglist)
- not very good DVB and ATSC TS support: for example, impossible to scrub
- not the right aspect ratio with many movies (considers a lot of 16:9 titles to be 2:35:1 one and, therefore, letterboxes them on a 16:9 screen); fortunately, you can easily change the aspect ratio (icon in the top right corner) – e.g., on a 16:9 device with similarly 16:9 movies, select “Fill”
- no AVI + M-JPEG support (e.g., Canon cameras)
- no MKV HW decoding
- no native iPad support (but it does work in 2x mode, of course)
- not any kind of embedded subtitle support (seems to support external subs, though)
- no AAC audio support during SW decoding, only during HW (MOV / MP4 / M4V playback) decoding. This is why for example THIS (my AAC-only .MKV) or THIS (an .MKV with an AAC track in English; the Hindi one is an MP3 one and is properly played back) files (both standardized test ones) are played back without audio.
- no streaming (UPnP, SMB, FTP, HTTP etc.) support
- no TV output (via the HDMI / VGA cable) support
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