There is a lot of GREAT multimedia news. Let's start with one of the two best players, AVPlayerHD and It's Playing, which both have just received some major updates! After these two players, I quickly report on the new versions of some other players too.
AVPlayerHD 1.60
In several articles of mine (see e.g. my latest review and tips & tricks collection) I've mentioned AVPlayer(HD), an otherwise absolutely excellent multimedia player, had very limited FTP support. All it could do was simply downloading videos from FTP servers prior to playback, meaning absolutely no streaming capabilities.
Version 1.60, which has just been approved by Apple, to the rescue!
![]()
(AppStore update list. As with all the images in the article, click the link for the enlargened, original image.)
The new version, as its update notes states (see above), has greatly enhanced FTP support: now, it supports streaming over FTP and has a decent download manager.
(Currently, only the iPad version seems to have been approved (in Saturday evening, European time) – that is, the iPhone / iPod touch version is still at version 1.52.)
Unfortunately, there's still no UPnP or SMB (two much more widely used file access protocols) support in the app. However, adding full FTP streaming is definitely a step forward.
It's Playing 3.9
If you do need DSP's, the best player has too received excellent SMB support – and a brand new Settings screen where you can, among other things, make hardware playback default.
The file list (showing the remote list of an SMB server), with the new Settings icon in the bottom left:
![]()
The new Settings dialog:
![]()
The SMB buffering has been fixed. Among other things, it, in addition to showing the currently pre-buffered video (see the thin line just under the position slider), it also displays the speed it's downloading / buffering content. See the annotated meters in the top left corner for the latter:
Because of the sophisticated buffering support, I haven't encountered annoying pauses during playback over SMB (assuming I let the player sufficiently pre-buffer). And yes, it supports hardware playback of iDevice-native files. And, what is more, it can play back MKV's (assuming they're compatible, see remarks below) using hardware acceleration over SMB! No other AppStore player is able to do this – only the jailbroken XBMC.
Unfortunately, over SMB,
- while it lists the embedded subtitles in iDevice-native files, it doesn't render them;
- with some MKV's, it just stated it was unable to open them; for example, the standardized Monsters and Harry Potter test videos. Other MKV's (for example, the standardized Birds test video (link) or my AAC-only Kung Fu Hustle test video) were played back OK.
Note that the app also has a greatly enhanced desktop streamer client to, among other things, convert (non-supported) AC3 audio to AAC in runtime while streaming.
Unfortunately, the new version uses the CPU during hardware MKV playback as the old one (see my previous article for more info).
Fresh Player 1.1
The update notes of this - as of the initial (1.0) version, in no way recommended - player promise improved MKV playback:
![]()
(See the annotated sentence.)
Unfortunately, the new version isn't much better than the old one. Its MKV playback is still much-much inferior to the best players (AVPlayer(HD), nPlayer etc.). For that matter, it doesn't even support the Retina screen of the small-screen devices (iPhone 4+, iPod touch 4+), as you can clearly see in the following screenshot (see the badly pixelizated and aliased lines on the right and the girl's similarly pixelizated arm!):
![]()
All in all, it's still not recommended. There are much better players for the same price (or even less).
LuberPlayerHD 2.2.0
As you can check out in my previous review, the by far the biggest problem with this player was the lack of hardware decoding of iOS-native files.
The new version fixes this. Whenever you tap an iOS-native (mp4 / m4v / mov) video, a dialog box is displayed, letting you select from hardware and software decoding:
![]()
Unfortunately, the app hasn't really been fixed. For example, there is absolutely no iPad Retina support when using software decoding. That is, all the time, except for hardware mp4 / m4v / mov video playback. This alone makes the player useless for iPad 3 / 4 users. Not that I'd recommend the player to anyone else – for the same price ($3) or, in cases, for much-much cheaper, there are much-much better choices.
iMedia Player 2.0
I've always recommended iMedia Player, the free (as-supported), but still excellent player.
The major version bump, in addition to introducing file list manipulation and playlist capabilities, also added SMB support – something absolutely missing from earlier versions, as has also been pointed out in the chart (it's HERE) of my SMB bible.
![]()
I've very thoroughly tested the SMB support of the player and found out the following:
- it supports automatic discovery (unlike some other apps) in addition to manually adding a server
- it supports hardware-accelerated playback of iDevice-native formats (mov / mp4 / m4v), which is a definite plus
- it doesn't allow for manually fine-tuning pre-buffering. This means you may encounter buffering pauses during streaming as you can't instruct the player to pre-buffer as much as possible before starting the entire playback.
Two screenshots of the new SMB interface:
![]()
(server list + credentials dialog)
![]()
(remote file list)
AVPlayerHD 1.60
In several articles of mine (see e.g. my latest review and tips & tricks collection) I've mentioned AVPlayer(HD), an otherwise absolutely excellent multimedia player, had very limited FTP support. All it could do was simply downloading videos from FTP servers prior to playback, meaning absolutely no streaming capabilities.
Version 1.60, which has just been approved by Apple, to the rescue!
(AppStore update list. As with all the images in the article, click the link for the enlargened, original image.)
The new version, as its update notes states (see above), has greatly enhanced FTP support: now, it supports streaming over FTP and has a decent download manager.
(Currently, only the iPad version seems to have been approved (in Saturday evening, European time) – that is, the iPhone / iPod touch version is still at version 1.52.)
Unfortunately, there's still no UPnP or SMB (two much more widely used file access protocols) support in the app. However, adding full FTP streaming is definitely a step forward.
It's Playing 3.9
If you do need DSP's, the best player has too received excellent SMB support – and a brand new Settings screen where you can, among other things, make hardware playback default.
The file list (showing the remote list of an SMB server), with the new Settings icon in the bottom left:
The new Settings dialog:
The SMB buffering has been fixed. Among other things, it, in addition to showing the currently pre-buffered video (see the thin line just under the position slider), it also displays the speed it's downloading / buffering content. See the annotated meters in the top left corner for the latter:
Because of the sophisticated buffering support, I haven't encountered annoying pauses during playback over SMB (assuming I let the player sufficiently pre-buffer). And yes, it supports hardware playback of iDevice-native files. And, what is more, it can play back MKV's (assuming they're compatible, see remarks below) using hardware acceleration over SMB! No other AppStore player is able to do this – only the jailbroken XBMC.
Unfortunately, over SMB,
- while it lists the embedded subtitles in iDevice-native files, it doesn't render them;
- with some MKV's, it just stated it was unable to open them; for example, the standardized Monsters and Harry Potter test videos. Other MKV's (for example, the standardized Birds test video (link) or my AAC-only Kung Fu Hustle test video) were played back OK.
Note that the app also has a greatly enhanced desktop streamer client to, among other things, convert (non-supported) AC3 audio to AAC in runtime while streaming.
Unfortunately, the new version uses the CPU during hardware MKV playback as the old one (see my previous article for more info).
Fresh Player 1.1
The update notes of this - as of the initial (1.0) version, in no way recommended - player promise improved MKV playback:
(See the annotated sentence.)
Unfortunately, the new version isn't much better than the old one. Its MKV playback is still much-much inferior to the best players (AVPlayer(HD), nPlayer etc.). For that matter, it doesn't even support the Retina screen of the small-screen devices (iPhone 4+, iPod touch 4+), as you can clearly see in the following screenshot (see the badly pixelizated and aliased lines on the right and the girl's similarly pixelizated arm!):
All in all, it's still not recommended. There are much better players for the same price (or even less).
LuberPlayerHD 2.2.0
As you can check out in my previous review, the by far the biggest problem with this player was the lack of hardware decoding of iOS-native files.
The new version fixes this. Whenever you tap an iOS-native (mp4 / m4v / mov) video, a dialog box is displayed, letting you select from hardware and software decoding:
Unfortunately, the app hasn't really been fixed. For example, there is absolutely no iPad Retina support when using software decoding. That is, all the time, except for hardware mp4 / m4v / mov video playback. This alone makes the player useless for iPad 3 / 4 users. Not that I'd recommend the player to anyone else – for the same price ($3) or, in cases, for much-much cheaper, there are much-much better choices.
iMedia Player 2.0
I've always recommended iMedia Player, the free (as-supported), but still excellent player.
The major version bump, in addition to introducing file list manipulation and playlist capabilities, also added SMB support – something absolutely missing from earlier versions, as has also been pointed out in the chart (it's HERE) of my SMB bible.
I've very thoroughly tested the SMB support of the player and found out the following:
- it supports automatic discovery (unlike some other apps) in addition to manually adding a server
- it supports hardware-accelerated playback of iDevice-native formats (mov / mp4 / m4v), which is a definite plus
- it doesn't allow for manually fine-tuning pre-buffering. This means you may encounter buffering pauses during streaming as you can't instruct the player to pre-buffer as much as possible before starting the entire playback.
Two screenshots of the new SMB interface:
(server list + credentials dialog)
(remote file list)
