Best Media Player for iPad 3 ?

[Hyper-X]

Looking for suggestions.

What I'm looking for is: (in order of importance)

- a stable app with full 1080p stutter-free playback with a nice UI
- multi format support (MKV, AVI, WMV, etc.)
- better subtitle support (I know some players have strange results)
- better (more precise) seeking controls

Anything else is extra "nice to have" stuff but the above 4 are critical to what I'm looking for.

 

[MacAttacka]

Looking for suggestions.

What I'm looking for is: (in order of importance)

- a stable app with full 1080p stutter-free playback with a nice UI
- multi format support (MKV, AVI, WMV, etc.)
- better subtitle support (I know some players have strange results)
- better (more precise) seeking controls

Anything else is extra "nice to have" stuff but the above 4 are critical to what I'm looking for.

AvPlayerHD does all that

 

[littleman18]

AvPlayerHD does all that

Best you will get and cheapest

 

[G77]

Buzz Player

 

[jmcgeejr]

AvPlayerHD does all that

AVPlayerHD hands down the best.

Plays all video files on it, plus the built in wifi transfer is great to have if you are traveling and don't have access to your iTunes PC.

 

[kemo]

Aceplayer -do all mentioned above and is free.

 

[Nightprowler]

Are there any that actually utilize hardware acceleration (using the GPU) well?

I've heard that while there are a number of apps that are great compatibility wise, that they rely heavily on the CPU and that battery life suffers as a result.

 

[IT Troll]

My understanding is that GPU acceleration is only available through the standard iOS APIs and these only support Apple format media files. So AVPlayerHD can use hardware acceleration, but only for built-in file types; mov, mp4, m4v.

 

[Bobby.e]

I also use Avplayer HD

 

[pure3d2]

None of these apps do 1080p smoothly. Even the new Rush Player which uses hardware transcoding will shutter every 15-30 seconds.

If you want smooth 1080p playback, you have to repack your movies into an mp4 file within apple's specs.

 

[thekb]

Are these all just video players, or can any substitute for the Music app?

My problem is I HATE the dinky little minuscule controls Apple gives up on the Music app. I want a music player app that turns the whole screen into a play/pause toggle button for when I am in the car. If I want to pause the music or audiobook, I don't want to have to lean over and squint to see where the pause button is I just want to touch anywhere on the screen and have it pause. Any free or inexpensive apps that do something like that?

 

[LanEvo]

Is there a good one that is free?

 

[Beherith]

VM Player

I use VM Player - supports a lot of video and audio formats and direct playing from network shares.
Moreover they promise smb file uploading and playing music directly from iTunes library in the upcoming 1.7 update.

 

[zeetee96]

flex.player is free and pretty good, i use it alot.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Aceplayer -do all mentioned above and is free.

A vote against AcePlayer from me. It isn't worth its price ( $2.99).

 

[kemo]

A vote against AcePlayer from me. It isn't worth its price ( $2.99).

Well. I get it once it was free. And it works well for me.

 

[kemo]

Well, with your particular video files, it might work OK. This, however, doesn't mean this player should be preferred to, say, AVPlayerHD, GoodPlayer or It's Playing. These players are sometimes far better in almost everything (codec quality &efficiency, features, compatibility with streaming servers; HW playback support etc.). This is why I don't recommend AcePlayer - there is simply no point in going for it with far stronger titles around.

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The two latest versions of AVPlayerHD delivers almost flawless MKV playback - see http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/g...eives-hardware-mkv-avi-video-playback-support

Of course, pre-remuxing is still preferred; however, AVPlayerHD's performance is just great and way better than that of anything else.

That's interesting! MKV on iPad - will check it out, thanks.

 

[Redjericho]

Goodplayer has been able to handle every single format I have thrown at it without stutter. 1080p MKV files sometimes lag a bit, but not too much to be annoying. All other file types have run like butter (Even a 2056x1540 video I tossed in to test the retina display ran without lag). There is a massive list of options for configuring it to your personal needs (even down to color, size, and outline of subtitles, adjusting audio delay of poorly converted files, even the home page of the built-in browser), as well as the ability to use hardware decoding and multi-core encoding, which works wonders in heavily encoded formats (MKV), and the ability to direct stream video via its URL. Supports wifi file transfer, USB transfer via iTunes, built-in downloader. A whole list of clients (FTP, SFTP, WebDav, SMP, DLNA, CPnP, CIFS). The seeking can be adjusted in 5 second intervals (backwards and forwards). The UI couldn't be any simpler and comes with 3 adjustable themes. Not to mention it supports over 40 languages.

It's worth trying out, especially considering it gets an update almost every single week.



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Looking for suggestions.

What I'm looking for is: (in order of importance)

- a stable app with full 1080p stutter-free playback with a nice UI
- multi format support (MKV, AVI, WMV, etc.)
- better subtitle support (I know some players have strange results)
- better (more precise) seeking controls

Anything else is extra "nice to have" stuff but the above 4 are critical to what I'm looking for.

.

 

[Beherith]

1, are you working for Velestar Private Enterprise? You have four posts; every single of them recommends a product of them (VM Player and vSSH). You should at least post a quick remark like "I know I may be biased but..."

2, I do NOT recommend VM Player. Theoretically, it's a nice app but, in practice, both the video decoders and the streaming module have a LOT to be desired. For example, its SMB compatibility is far worse than that of GoodPlayer / XBMC - it didn't work with my password-protected OS X share. (GoodPlayer worked just fine.) Its UPnP support is also pretty bad - it showsjJust a dark screen when streaming (downloading works). After switching to SW decoding, it works. GoodPlayer works just fine in streamed, HW-accelerated mode under exactly the same circumstances.

1) Are you working at hustmobile? Why are you pursuing me? I know I may be biased but I use vm player every day and I like it at least (imho) for better user friendly UI than goodplayer + a lot of advanced features like playback speed control, volume boost, a/v sync tuning.

2) I know I may be biased but it plays my movies from my home media server (debian+samba) via smb and upnp. As for OS X protected shares - you are right. As far as I know starting from OSX 10.7 Apple changed their smb server and vm player's smb client is still not fully compatible with it. Before OS X Lion vmplayer worked fine. Hope this bug will be fixed soon.

In any case there is free vm player version and any can try it before buying.

 

[Menneisyys2]

1) Are you working at hustmobile? Why are you pursuing me? I know I may be biased but I use vm player every day and I like it at least (imho) for better user friendly UI than goodplayer + a lot of advanced features like playback speed control, volume boost, a/v sync tuning.

2) I know I may be biased but it plays my movies from my home media server (debian+samba) via smb and upnp. As for OS X protected shares - you are right. As far as I know starting from OSX 10.7 Apple changed their smb server and vm player's smb client is still not fully compatible with it. Before OS X Lion vmplayer worked fine. Hope this bug will be fixed soon.

In any case there is free vm player version and any can try it before buying.

1, I'm not working for Hust Mobile. Actually, I don't recommend their PowerPlayer in my posts - wouldn't do this as an employee.

2, GoodPlayer also has volume boosting and a/v sync tuning - and it has a lot more.

3, "Why are you pursuing me? " Because it's unethical to advertise one's product while pretending to be an independent user. I wouldn't have posted anything if you had posted a message like "Hi, we have a decent product with a free trial, give it a try!".

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1080p MKV files sometimes lag a bit, but not too much to be annoying.

The H.264 decoder is probably the single biggest issue of GP. I definitely NOT recommend it for 1080p MKV playback. There are, in this regard, far better products for that; for example, AVPlayerHD or, if you need runtime DSP's / volume / brightness / saturation boosting, It's Playing. They are far superior to GP when it comes to MKV playback.

 

[warghh]

AVPlayer HD here.

Played nearly everything I've thrown at it. Things that it hasn't are like 1080P files which nothing else has played before.

 

[HishamAkhtar]

None of these apps do 1080p smoothly. Even the new Rush Player which uses hardware transcoding will shutter every 15-30 seconds.

If you want smooth 1080p playback, you have to repack your movies into an mp4 file within apple's specs.

Agreed. Or shut down all apps and WiFi to concert as much CPU/GPU power into movie playback

 

[Menneisyys2]

Agreed. Or shut down all apps and WiFi to concert as much CPU/GPU power into movie playback

Won't work.

1. unless you're jailbroken and use Backgrounder or Quasar for executing something CPU-taxing in the background, no background tasks will task the CPU significantly.

2. The CPU is just too slow for 1080p playback with even the best, most effective decoders (e.g., that of AVPlayerHD / ProPlayer etc.) This can't be helped other than by pre-remuxing or using a player that remuxes MKV's in the background or prior to playback.

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Having to buy a new cell phone battery can be a major annoyance, *** snip***

Stop posting offtopic stuff.

 

[Beherith]

Because it's unethical to advertise one's product while pretending to be an independent user.

Dear Menneisyys2, it's unethical to terrorize sombody everywhere ;-) it's also unethical to mislead somebody about the product. All I say is purely my opinion. Yesterday I just found few forum threads about ios players, because it's interesting for me which alternative players exist and which features/problem they have. I also shared my (may be biased) own experience of media players usage. I'm not deceiving anyone about player capabilities. If somebody finds my opinion useful, I'm sure it will first download the free version before buying it, and make his own opinion. I think that to say "Hi, we have a decent product with a free trial, give it a try!" would be an advertisement. I tried to share my own opinion and (in some forum threads) help for specific users with suggestion. But you pursuing me for that. I expressed my opinion about the product. You expressed your opinion and I respect it and sure it will also help somebody. But let's finish off-topic dicussion and please stop terrorizing me all over the internet.

 

[Menneisyys2]

I think that to say "Hi, we have a decent product with a free trial, give it a try!" would be an advertisement.

Nope, that is perfectly acceptable here at MR. The Apps forums are full of developers' ads. What is frowned upon is guerilla / viral marketing: posting a very good review of an app in the name of a completely independent, unbiased user.