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Alternatives to AVPlayerHD
- Thread starter SiameseJesus
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Latest AVplayer isn't playing nice on either my iPhone 5 or either of my iPads (mini and a 3). Mp4's that previously played flawlessly are now suffering hitches, pauses and a couple of times I've had to exit and resume. The fact that same flaw occurs on three different devices on a variety of files tells me it isn't a coincidence.
Thankfully I've got the previous version locally stored so I'll be rolling back tonight. Annoying though, as it means I'll have to copy across about 100gb+ of video across all three devices
Thankfully I've got the previous version locally stored so I'll be rolling back tonight. Annoying though, as it means I'll have to copy across about 100gb+ of video across all three devices
Latest AVplayer isn't playing nice on either my iPhone 5 or either of my iPads (mini and a 3). Mp4's that previously played flawlessly are now suffering hitches, pauses and a couple of times I've had to exit and resume. The fact that same flaw occurs on three different devices on a variety of files tells me it isn't a coincidence.
Thankfully I've got the previous version locally stored so I'll be rolling back tonight. Annoying though, as it means I'll have to copy across about 100gb+ of video across all three devices
Jailbreak and use iFile for on-device backup.
For anyone with both an iPad and an iPhone, Good Player is the ideal solution. The app is universal, plays nearly all file formats available, including HD mkvs and rmvbs, and uses dual-processor decoding. It supports multiple streaming protocols, connections to a variety of servers/ file transfer protocols, and it even has a built-in web browser and downloader. GoodPlayers only flaw is a lack of polish-- the interface is very minimalistic and the app occasionally
And, unless it's been put back in, lack of AC3 support. This is a deal breaker for me and a lot of others. No way do I want to have separate collections of mp4s/mkv's, one for idevices and one for my home surround setup. We're talking about multi terabyte collections of video here, no way do I want to double that up or faff around demuxing specifically for one device.
AVplayer, v1.60 aside, has been flawless for me for the last couple of years.
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Also, as has been pointed out in my latest benchmarking article (too) reporting on the current version of GoodPlayer, it still has a somewhat less efficient H.264 decoder than AVPlayer / HD Player Pro etc. Therefore, I do NOT recommend it for hi-res MKV playback at all.
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Do NOT use it for HD MKV's. First, it doesn't remux, second, its H.264 decoder isn't the best. (You may also want to follow my articles here at MR - I've elaborated on both these questions quite a lot in them.)
You're always very informative, thanks.
Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do you know if AVPlayerHD v1.61 resolves issues that were present with 1.60? I assume so judging by the release notes, but I just wanted to make sure rather than update, then be forced to be rollback again. Thanks.
I've very thoroughly tested the new version - both the iPad and the iPhone one. AC3 is supported. Restoring the previous position works when software or purely hardware decoding (the latter with iOS-native formats). It still doesn't work when hybrid decoding is explicitly enabled (it's disabled by default) and you play back MKV's.
Aother bug (also present in previous versions): Hi10P files still aren't properly recognized with hybrid decoding enabled; that is, you must manually disable hybrid decoding when playing back Hi10P MKV files.
Great, thanks. None of the newer features really interest me, but so long as the choppy/paused playback that was present in 1.60 is gone in 1.61, I'll update. I only use it with mp4s these days, as I use the same vid files with my ATV3.
Last night, they released 1.63 (of both the iPhone and HD version), which promises a lot more bugfixes:
I'll very thoroughly test the new version (too) and report back.
1, did you use hardware acceleration ("Enable H/W decoder" enabled in Settings; it's enabled by default or when you tap "Reset")? With iOS-native formats, then, the hardware decoder would play the movie with little work on the player's part, also meaning far-far less chance of player-introduced playback bugs.
2, I've thoroughly tested the playback of a 2:10 long H.264 MKV reencode -> native m4v Subler remux of the fansubbed "Colorful" anime today with the latest version, mostly in hardware decoded playback mode (I only switched to SW decoding to test the new brightness / saturation / contrast / backlight control, which isn't available while using H/W playback, unlike with, BTW, It's Playing). No glitches, resume problems etc. at all.
However, the hybrid decoder bugs are still present with the latest versions with all these anime fansub H.264 MKV conversions (most probably because of the SSA subtitle track; I'll next play with these subs to find out whether they're the culprit.).
Cheers. I've updated to 1.63 and everything appears to be fine, bravo. Constantly having to avoid updating it was starting to grate.
Seems like the 1.63 version brought back the problems of skipping of parts of subtitles in MKV videos (fansubbed anime, H.264 video with AAC audio & SSA subtitles, 848x480 resolution).
I am not quite sure but the 1.5x versions did not have this problem. 1.63 definitely has the problems. I am not sure about 1.62 anymore.
Not all parts of the subs are skipped. It's like it's skipping the sub for a few seconds, than it goes well for like 20 seconds and suddenly it doesn't display subs for a few seconds etc. So i miss parts of the dialog as i dont understand Japanese and thus i am dependent on the subs.
tried with h/w acceleration on and off and hybrid decoder on and off
I am not quite sure but the 1.5x versions did not have this problem. 1.63 definitely has the problems. I am not sure about 1.62 anymore.
Not all parts of the subs are skipped. It's like it's skipping the sub for a few seconds, than it goes well for like 20 seconds and suddenly it doesn't display subs for a few seconds etc. So i miss parts of the dialog as i dont understand Japanese and thus i am dependent on the subs.
tried with h/w acceleration on and off and hybrid decoder on and off
Seems like the 1.63 version brought back the problems of skipping of parts of subtitles in MKV videos (fansubbed anime, H.264 video with AAC audio & SSA subtitles, 848x480 resolution).
I am not quite sure but the 1.5x versions did not have this problem. 1.63 definitely has the problems. I am not sure about 1.62 anymore.
Not all parts of the subs are skipped. It's like it's skipping the sub for a few seconds, than it goes well for like 20 seconds and suddenly it doesn't display subs for a few seconds etc. So i miss parts of the dialog as i dont understand Japanese and thus i am dependent on the subs.
tried with h/w acceleration on and off and hybrid decoder on and off
Don't bother with AVPlayerHD if you have SSA subs. AVPlayerHD's SSA support has always been bad. Go for HD Player Pro instead.
....aaaand once again, I've rolled back to pre 1.60. For some reason, about half my mp4's (demuxed from mkv's via Subler) won't play the audio when H/W Decoder is enabled. If I switch this off, the audio plays but the performance is pitiful and unplayable. Mkv's play absolutely fine with Hybrid Decoder enabled, but I keep all my files as mp4's for use with my AppleTV, so I don't really want to keep a complete alternate set of mkv's.
Going to stick with 1.52 (or whatever it is, the last one prior to 1.60) until it just stops working in ios7 (or whenever) now. The old version runs perfectly for everything I use it for, everything plays, performance and power usage is great, so I'm just going to completely ignore any further updates Ive decided. Sick of faffing, and it's silly to do so when I've a got a version that works perfectly for me.
Going to stick with 1.52 (or whatever it is, the last one prior to 1.60) until it just stops working in ios7 (or whenever) now. The old version runs perfectly for everything I use it for, everything plays, performance and power usage is great, so I'm just going to completely ignore any further updates Ive decided. Sick of faffing, and it's silly to do so when I've a got a version that works perfectly for me.
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Could you upload a small slice of those so that I can see what the problem is? (It's very easy to just copy a small part of any OS X-native video file even using the built-in QuickTime X.)
Sure, I'll try it tomorrow, I'm at work right now.
I've got an iPad 3 and an iPad Mini, the latter I use for video more than anything else. I don't really use AVplayerHD much on my 3, so I deleted the app, put the old version on there and replicated everything, file and settings, that were on my Mini (with 1.63) and sure enough, works fine on my 3 (old version), no sound on the Mini.
I did wonder if I'd inadvertently changed something in Subler, but no, the prob persists in stuff I've Subler'd ages ago, (an old ep of Damages), and stuff I've Subler'd this week (last couple eps of Southland). Weirdly, it's not consistent - Southland s05e04 had no audio while s05e05 worked fine (both from the same source *cough*). All of them work on old AVplayerHD.
Edit: Not necessarily relevant, but all my devices are jailbroken, 6.1.2. I've got old AVPlayer on both iPads and iPhone now, all exhibited same problem with latest version so I don't think it's peculiar to a rogue device.
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I have AVPlayerHD on an ipad 2 with iOS 5.1
I never had problems with AVPlayerHD until about a month ago. It could be my imagination but it seems that my troubles started ever since I upgraded from iOS 4.1
Now the video and audio wont be in sync sometimes, and the movie will freeze for about 5 seconds every 30 seconds. FYI I never stream as I store all my movies on my ipad (I have about 15 gbytes on it).
Any suggestions as to what the problem is? I play mp4s.
Thanks in advance.
I never had problems with AVPlayerHD until about a month ago. It could be my imagination but it seems that my troubles started ever since I upgraded from iOS 4.1
Now the video and audio wont be in sync sometimes, and the movie will freeze for about 5 seconds every 30 seconds. FYI I never stream as I store all my movies on my ipad (I have about 15 gbytes on it).
Any suggestions as to what the problem is? I play mp4s.
Thanks in advance.
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I'm currently on AVPlayerHD v 1.64 on my iPad mini. I've been having problems with skipping and out of sync video/audio when trying to play 720p .mkv files. Any other recommendations for alternative apps to use?
The last video I tried was an episode of 'Bates Motel', I'm looking at the codec info and its H264 - MPEG4 AVC, A52 Audio
The last video I tried was an episode of 'Bates Motel', I'm looking at the codec info and its H264 - MPEG4 AVC, A52 Audio