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Mkv playback on iPad

K

kendo88

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 22, 2010
254
123
Coventry
So I'm aware that 720p videos cannot be played directly on the iPad, and I'm also a user of air video, which works great for streaming, but I'm looking for playback solely using the iPad.

I think I'm going to be looking at remuxing the mkv to m4v (unless anybody has a better idea)... My question is, what software should I use for this, I'm using windows.

Thanks
 
kendo88 said:
So I'm aware that 720p videos cannot be played directly on the iPad, and I'm also a user of air video, which works great for streaming, but I'm looking for playback solely using the iPad.

I think I'm going to be looking at remuxing the mkv to m4v (unless anybody has a better idea)... My question is, what software should I use for this, I'm using windows.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Handbrake should do that for you.

Also, VLC for iPad will play mkv files but Apple removed the app from their store a while back (because the iOS version of VLC was “violating GNU public license under which VLC is released by applying DRM to it”.)

If you are jailbroken you can still download VLC from Cydia.
 
Does handbrake remux or reencode? I don't want to spend hours reencoding, just want a quick fix.

Also I do have both VLC and cineXplayer on my iPad, but I'm under the impression due to lack of hardware acceleration, these will not play 720p video
 
I just encode my video's with handbrake for my apple tv and just about all of them have worked on my iPad. I have two videos that won't transfer on my iPad and haven't figured out what I did on those. It does take time but the work does pay off as I can watch on my iPad and Apple TV.
 
D1G1T4L said:
I just encode my video's with handbrake for my apple tv and just about all of them have worked on my iPad. I have two videos that won't transfer on my iPad and haven't figured out what I did on those. It does take time but the work does pay off as I can watch on my iPad and Apple TV.
Click to expand...

ugh... i find remuxing such a pain... altho handbrake is brilliant
i can select all my vids and queue them up - walk away and the files are done

strange, if you remux file into mp4 - apple tv compatibility, one would expect this to work for ipad?

interesting!
 
kendo88 said:
So I'm aware that 720p videos cannot be played directly on the iPad, and I'm also a user of air video, which works great for streaming, but I'm looking for playback solely using the iPad.

I think I'm going to be looking at remuxing the mkv to m4v (unless anybody has a better idea)... My question is, what software should I use for this, I'm using windows.

Thanks
Click to expand...

airvideo can convert the videos

Satori said:
Handbrake should do that for you.

Also, VLC for iPad will play mkv files but Apple removed the app from their store a while back (because the iOS version of VLC was “violating GNU public license under which VLC is released by applying DRM to it”.)

If you are jailbroken you can still download VLC from Cydia.
Click to expand...

Apple only removed it on the request of the the lead contributor to the VLC project, Rémi Denis-Courmont, it wasn't Apple doing anything nefarious http://i.tuaw.com/2011/01/08/vlc-app-removed-from-app-store/
 
Well, I've been looking for a good media player for the last couple of days. I've found two that can deal with mkv (Azul media player and AVPlayerHD) but, as I feared, the ipad 2's cpu can't handle the files and produce a smooth playback. Everything stutters.

Anyway, I also tried some BDrips (also 720p, but less bitrate and xvid/avi) and boy, AVPlayerHD plays them smoothly and with subtitles. Azul also plays them smoothly, but there's no subtitle support and, strangely, there's no dialogue, even if I can hear the movie's music. Weird.

Bottom line, AVPlayerHD is the best video player I've tried so far and, as far as I can tell, bdrips are the best format to watch HD movies on ipad. Stunning quality, pretty much the same as a high bitrate mkv, and smooth playback.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I really don't fancy encoding my videos though, I want to keep the video the same, just change the file type from mkv to m4v, I've read this only takes a couple of minutes per video, but any recent info I have found talks about software for mac, I'm looking for the best option for windows
 
kendo88 said:
I think I'm going to be looking at remuxing the mkv to m4v (unless anybody has a better idea)... My question is, what software should I use for this, I'm using windows.
Click to expand...
MKV is just a container format. It can contain a variety of different video formats. Only MKVs containing iPad-compatible H.264 (Baseline or Main profile) can be remuxed into iPad-friendly MP4 files. If that is what you have, you can use e.g. GotSent, or demux the MKV file into its elementary streams with MKVToolnix and remux with MP4Box. You may have to re-encode the audio unless it is already AAC.

In all other cases you'll have to re-encode the video.
 
Jikul said:
Well, I've been looking for a good media player for the last couple of days. I've found two that can deal with mkv (Azul media player and AVPlayerHD) but, as I feared, the ipad 2's cpu can't handle the files and produce a smooth playback. Everything stutters.

Anyway, I also tried some BDrips (also 720p, but less bitrate and xvid/avi) and boy, AVPlayerHD plays them smoothly and with subtitles. Azul also plays them smoothly, but there's no subtitle support and, strangely, there's no dialogue, even if I can hear the movie's music. Weird.

Bottom line, AVPlayerHD is the best video player I've tried so far and, as far as I can tell, bdrips are the best format to watch HD movies on ipad. Stunning quality, pretty much the same as a high bitrate mkv, and smooth playback.
Click to expand...

+1 for avplayer hd. Randomly stumbled upon it. Definitely the best 3 bucks I've spent. Plays everything, can organize files, wireless transfer etc..
 
2 apps spring to mind for this: AirVideo and StreamToMe. I use the latter and it has been flawless for a long time. It's an on-the-fly transcoder that pushes the stream to your iThing. Check 'em out.
 
Jikul said:
Well, I've been looking for a good media player for the last couple of days. I've found two that can deal with mkv (Azul media player and AVPlayerHD) but, as I feared, the ipad 2's cpu can't handle the files and produce a smooth playback. Everything stutters.

Anyway, I also tried some BDrips (also 720p, but less bitrate and xvid/avi) and boy, AVPlayerHD plays them smoothly and with subtitles. Azul also plays them smoothly, but there's no subtitle support and, strangely, there's no dialogue, even if I can hear the movie's music. Weird.

Bottom line, AVPlayerHD is the best video player I've tried so far and, as far as I can tell, bdrips are the best format to watch HD movies on ipad. Stunning quality, pretty much the same as a high bitrate mkv, and smooth playback.
Click to expand...
I agree with you that BDRips are the best way to watch movies on an iPad but the best player is OPlayer, and it's worth the extra 2 bucks, I'd say.
 
I paid 5 bucks for sub player because it can do subbed mkv and it can play my 1080p subbed anime without a hitch. You have to run the file through their app but takes 30 secs to do it. Of course I have an ipad2 so on the first gen it might be different.
 
I just checked out sub player. The way it works is you download a program on the computer, it remuxes the mkv and gives a mp4 file but with an extension mvb. Their iOS app plays this file. But you can play it without the iOS app, you just change the extension of the file to mp4. The only problem is that the profile of the file is 4.1 whereas I believe iDevices can only play files of profile 3.1. I cannot transfer the mp4 file via iTunes onto my iPhone 3GS but maybe it'll work on the iPad. I'm going to try to change the profile and see how that works.
 
Heavyhitter504 said:
+1 for avplayer hd. Randomly stumbled upon it. Definitely the best 3 bucks I've spent. Plays everything, can organize files, wireless transfer etc..
Click to expand...

DOes it use hardware accelleration to playback x264 content? If so, that's good news. I suspect it doens't though, as it's available in app store, and thus it'll drain battery wayy too quick.

Better jailbreaking and installing xbmc which has hw accel for x264 playback.
 
ReflexReact said:
DOes it use hardware accelleration to playback x264 content? If so, that's good news. I suspect it doens't though, as it's available in app store, and thus it'll drain battery wayy too quick.

Better jailbreaking and installing xbmc which has hw accel for x264 playback.
Click to expand...
Nothing that plays MKV on the App Store uses HW acceleration.
 
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