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iPad Play avi on the iPad Mini

Han Solo 1 said:
Maybe I'm not placing the deb file in the right directory? I'm simply going to the home directory in iFile, where media, library, etc. are, and just placing it there. Is that right?
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Install the official build first because it installs curl and the icon pack. It's because of the lack of these that your install fails. It's after this that you'll want to install the DEB file.

BTW, you should use iFile for DEB install - much easier than struggling with SSH / terminal.

(BTW, I've also emphasized this in my dedicated article here at MR back in December : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1500109/ )
 
Menneisyys2 said:
Install the official build first because it installs curl and the icon pack. It's because of the lack of these that your install fails. It's after this that you'll want to install the DEB file.

BTW, you should use iFile for DEB install - much easier than struggling with SSH / terminal.

(BTW, I've also emphasized this in my dedicated article here at MR back in December : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1500109/ )
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I am using iFile. But I'm placing the .deb file in the home root directory, and I need MobileTerminal in order to unpack it, no?

And so I shouldn't uninstall the stock XBMC prior to installing the .deb package?
 
thadoggfather said:
Yeah there is a difference between official and this build in my experience.

Unless the newest updated official version addresses it but I somehow doubt it
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Nope, as I'll also mention in my new XBMC article (will publish it in about an hour), the latest official build (12.1) still hasn't received hi-res output support.

Nevertheless, you do NOT need to install the Alpha7 version unless you want to play the video on an external screen.

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Han Solo 1 said:
I am using iFile. But I'm placing the .deb file in the home root directory, and I need MobileTerminal in order to unpack it, no?
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Nope - you just tap the DEB file from inside iFile and you're set. No unpacking needed if its extension is already DEB and isn't zipped.

Han Solo 1 said:
And so I shouldn't uninstall the stock XBMC prior to installing the .deb package?
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You don't need to - iFile's installer uninstalls it automatically when installing Alpha7. However, you can safely uninstall 12.1 to be on the safe side.

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Han Solo 1 said:
So you're saying that there is a difference in quality on the retina iPad going from stock XBMC to the nightly build?
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Sure there is. But it only applies to Retina iPads, not the low-res iPad mini.
 
Jack3d said:
Hello everybody. I don't know if I post in the right section, but I want to know if its possible to play some avi file with the iPad mini. I have downloaded a avi files and once I start it, I only got the sound. How can I play my video?
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I thought AVI files were obsolete? Everything now seems to be MKV
 
I just wanna thank you all for your advice. My tv show that i download are in avi so thats why i'm listening avi file. By the way everything work fine.
 
Menneisyys2 said:
Please don't recommend VLC Player, it's far inferior to most other, contemporary players with VASTLY enhanced decoders. Even if you don't notice this during playback of standard-res videos, your battery will ;)

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Did you install the official XBMC version from the http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/ios/* repository, as is explained HERE http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?titl..._iPad/iPhone/iPod_touch#Installing_from_Cydia , in section "1 Installing from Cydia"?

You do NOT need to manually install DEB files unless you need high-res TV or AirPlay output. (With the Mini, it's the only two cases you'll want to use non-official / stable builds.)

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BTW, you can do the same to almost all AppStore players if you use symlinks (more info: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1464236/ )

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After installing DEB files directly (ANY of them), you will always need to respring. (As opposed to some other advice in this #, you do NOT need a complete restart).

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RP+ is definitely better at hi-res (e.g., 1080p) MKV playback on such a constrained, slow(ish) iDevice like the iPad Mini. (On the much faster iPhone 5 / iPad 4, the difference isn't that big.)

Also see my dedicated articles and benchmarks (I've published tons of them here at MR.)

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In addition to XBMC / RP+, you may also want to give a try to AppStore players. Some players are WAY better than XBMC at, say, regular hi-res MKV playback.

Consider following my multimedia-related articles here at MR - you'll learn a lot from them.

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You only need this Alpha7 version on an iPad mini if and only if you output the video to an external monitor via either AirPlay or the Lightning-VGA / HDMI adapter. On the built-in screen, there's no difference from the official build - as opposed to Retina-screen iPads.
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So on that XBMC website, which monthly or nightly build will give me the best quality for retina iPad?

I don't see anything called alpha 7. :confused:
 
The main reason I recommended the manual MobileTerminal method is because every time I tried installing XBMC over iFile, I had error codes.
 
thadoggfather said:
Yeah there is a difference between official and this build in my experience.

Unless the newest updated official version addresses it but I somehow doubt it
Click to expand...

Success!!!

I figured out what the problem was. I thought maybe I had a bad download from your Dropbox link, and sure enough, that's what it was. I redownloaded it and saw that the second file was a good 10MB bigger than the first one. Followed your instructions, and its running great! I confirmed in the settings menu that its indeed running alpha 7.

Tested a few minutes of an HD TV show, and it looks great!

Thanks a lot, I think this is better than rush player+.
 
thadoggfather said:
That's what I was thinking, bad .deb download. It happens but it's rare.
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Yep. So that ps3 media server thing you were talking about, that's just strictly for streaming from my Mac, right? I usually watch videos on flights I take for work on a weekly basis, so I probably won't need that, but just wanted to confirm.
 
Yeah ps3 media server is if you want to play the file over LAN (it doesn't stream though in that the quality doesn't vary, it just sends data to XBMC and XBMC from there decodes it, so it's virtually the same quality as if it were locally stored, provided there are no buffering issues).

If you want to watch something on the plane, store it locally or feed it SD cards and direct it appropriately to the right folder.
 
Han Solo 1 said:
So on that XBMC website, which monthly or nightly build will give me the best quality for retina iPad?

I don't see anything called alpha 7. :confused:
Click to expand...

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30371861/org.xbmc.xbmc-ios_12.0-0~alpha7_iphoneos-arm-gpu2gpu.deb

It's not linked from there but

1, from several of my XBMC articles and tutorials (see for example the just-published one at https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17023301 )

2, from this thread too - see thadoggfather's post at #11

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thadoggfather said:
The main reason I recommended the manual MobileTerminal method is because every time I tried installing XBMC over iFile, I had error codes.
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Strange - I haven't ever had any problems with this DEB file when installing from iFile.

(Of course, assuming I've previously installed the official build so that cURL and the iconpack get installed automatically. Without them, this DEB file won't be installed.)
 
you guys are overdoing things if it's just avis you want to play.

Use VLC, simple and it works.

I love XBMC, I have it on my iPhone, android tablet and mac. I do use it mostly to just watch tv shows though.
 
thadoggfather said:
On iPhone 5, official build is more than fine imo.
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Yup, as has been pointed out in my tutorial too, it's only when outputting to an external display that you will want to use Alpha7 on an iPhone 5. Otherwise, the official 12.1 works just fine.

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Carlanga said:
you guys are overdoing things if it's just avis you want to play.

Use VLC, simple and it works.
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See my post above - VLC is NOT recommended. I've very thoroughly tested it and found it inferior to current top players.
 
Menneisyys2 said:
See my post above - VLC is NOT recommended. I've very thoroughly tested it and found it inferior to current top players.
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So what if its "inferior". The TS has an iPad mini and did not ask for his/her Avis to work in an external monitor neither. :rolleyes:
 
Carlanga said:
So what if its "inferior". The TS has an iPad mini and did not ask for his/her Avis to work in an external monitor neither. :rolleyes:
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Well, vastly reduced battery life because of the substandard, weak video decoder in VLC? He WILL notice this, even if he doesn't need Retina / TV out support.

This is the main reason I don't recommend VLC for even standard-definition playback either, let alone hi-res playback. In the latter, it royally fails, showing how bad its codecs really are.
 
Menneisyys2 said:
Well, vastly reduced battery life because of the substandard, weak video decoder in VLC? He WILL notice this, even if he doesn't need Retina / TV out support.

This is the main reason I don't recommend VLC for even standard-definition playback either, let alone hi-res playback. In the latter, it royally fails, showing how bad its codecs really are.
Click to expand...

Do you find any difference in HD quality in VLC vs XBMC on a desktop Mac?
 
Han Solo 1 said:
Do you find any difference in HD quality in VLC vs XBMC on a desktop Mac?
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On the Mac, I use VLC for playback too. However, it shouldn't be compared to the very (three years) old and very bad iOS port. The latter is waaaay worse than even the lower-quality AppStore players, let alone the best ones (AVPlayerHD etc.).

I've shot a demo video showing just how bad the iOS port of VLC is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf-cGxTdCZQ

There, I compare it to XBMC 11.0.
 
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