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VLC for iPad Rolling Out to App Stores Around the World, iPhone Version Under Development

Anything in SD seems to play fine, once you get to 720p+, everything is super choppy.
 
NebulaClash said:
Um, here's a genuine question (as in, I really don't know the answer, not that I'm trying to lead you to a conclusion in a sneaky fashion):

Why would I want VLC?

Please spell it out for me. I really have no idea why this is such exciting news for the rest of you.
Click to expand...

1. Convenience.

I have a rather large DVD collection and prefer having the content on my hard drive rather than a physical shelf. The process of locating a particular disc and then wading through the warnings and menus is tedious. Now that everything is on my computer there are multiple ways I can access and play those files. Unfortunately, many of my files were converted before my investment in Apple devices and will not play on them natively. Now I don't need to reconvert them.

It's the same reason my music CD's are ripped into iTunes. Who still uses discs even if that's the medium you prefer to buy?

2. File support

I don't need to convert the videos from my camera to play them natively on an apple device.
 
MOHAMAD said:
the worst player i've ever seen

why apple approves such useless apps?

it even doesn't recognize the files i uploaded to it's folder via itunes

after a week of waiting for it, absolute disappointment :mad:

hell
Click to expand...

Yeah it's always disappointing when someone who owes you nothing creates a product for free that you can use alternatively to one you already own and it doesn't conform to your specific needs. :sadface:
 
ladeer said:
why are you guys so excited over this?! any file that i paid for i can already play on my iPad EASILY (thur conversion or iTune). it's those files that I downloaded that I need this player for, such as divx, wmv, and MKV. If this player doesn't play them, WHAT IS THE POINT?
Click to expand...

Many of us work with video files that we don't want to recompress or convert. Some of us don't want to use iTunes to manage content. Others just want a choice.

More to the first, I have on my Mac Pro the software tools to read and encode just about anything, but I would much rather work with the original file. I use VLC and Perian extensively on that machine, and it's nice to have it on my iPad as well.

I downloaded it, it works, and I'm happy. ;)
 
Ive tried 4 different files and not one worked:confused::confused:
audio yes but no video playing

thinking about it I have 4.2 installed so that maybe why its not working properly!
 
Plays MKV's about as well as Boxee did running on the Apple TV...badly! Given the CPU spec is about same, why am I not surprised.

Maybe performance will be improved in the future.
 
Choppy Video

Tried to play an h.264 encodes video, 1.6Mbps 850 x 480 and it's as choppy as hell. Me thinks that it's not tapping into the secret sauce that the native ipad player can? I can play a 720p 2.1mpbs video fine using the movie app on the ipad.

Not impressed but perhaps I'm missing something here. Going to stick with Air Video Server and Stream to me for now.

J
 
firedragon76 said:
I suggest to reboot your iPad first. When we first tried it after installation, it was lagging and crashed. After reboot the videos we tried ran smooth. Don't expect full codec compatibility (yet) and obviously the iPad does not have the horse power to properly play 720p and 1080p files (yet) but this is a great first step.
A lot of our videos don't have iTunes compatibility. VLC now offers a great way to play them on our iPad without having to do painful and lengthy conversions.
Click to expand...

I did restart and no improvements

no 720p playback of any nonapple formats, samsung wave plays them smoothly without any lag or any problem

no playback of flv,Dat,vob files

read what is said in the description of app in the app store:

"VLC have all codecs built-in. it comes with support for nearly all codecs there is"

i appreciate VLC effort and their try, but iPad owners really deserve a much better app.

i think apple is relaxing much more than enough. there should be a least of observation on apps :mad:
 
Everything else aside, by this deal it is quite obvious that the AppleTV rev is a trojan horse. Meaning - like the iOS devices it will be rapidly updated to support new features as content deal come into fruition.
 
Although I'm not getting picture (due to iOS 4.2) I can confirm it uploads, shows the thumbnail and plays the sound from movie files straight from a digital camera (Canon Ixus, AVI and MOV)... something Cinexplayer doesn't do as yet, so a big bonus there IMO.
 
err404 said:
How so? It's the same version as the Windows and Linux ports. Sure there is no hardware acceleration, but that's ffmpeg for you. The UI is also not very Mac-Like, but don't expect that to change. ;)
Click to expand...

It looks like it's currently a version behind, but that's probably nothing.

Last I heard the 64bit version of VLC was permanently discontinued and they stopped development on the 32bit version due to lack of people to work on the Mac port. My VLC hasn't updated itself, so I figured that was where it currently stood. It looks like they've been busy, though, as you're correct... and there's a 64-bit version as well!

I don't know how that slipped by.
 
I threw 3 divx/xvid files on there and A/B'd with cinexplayer I've been using. VLC lost all three times (2 animation and a live action).

I love VLC on the mac but it plays this is substandard. I'll continue using Cinex...
 
What's great about VLC player is it plays a million file types. But this one for the iPad only plays two. Big deal.
 
4.2 Beta does seem to cause issues with the video. I just wish Apple would add an "Open In" dialogue to the photos app. It would make my camera connection kit way more useful as the iPad doesn't support playback of video from my Canon Rebel T2i (Of course it probably can't play the 1080P video but even just a preview would be nice...)
 
Probably has been mentioined already but when you try to play any "HD" content it says "Your iPad is probably too slow to play this movie correctly" when you click "try anyway" its just choppy and slow. Haven't tried any SD content yet though.
 
Jimmy James said:
1. Convenience.

I have a rather large DVD collection and prefer having the content on my hard drive rather than a physical shelf. The process of locating a particular disc and then wading through the warnings and menus is tedious. Now that everything is on my computer there are multiple ways I can access and play those files. Unfortunately, many of my files were converted before my investment in Apple devices and will not play on them natively. Now I don't need to reconvert them.

It's the same reason my music CD's are ripped into iTunes. Who still uses discs even if that's the medium you prefer to buy?

2. File support

I don't need to convert the videos from my camera to play them natively on an apple device.
Click to expand...


Thank you for taking the time to explain this.
 
So far my findings are:
mkv - 1920x1080. crash app. 720 x 568 file plays ok Video & sound
avi - yes
 
ladeer said:
i am all about watching non-apple format (MKV and divx) but some people said it's not playable. Now some said they are....so can it play or not? To me it's only useful if I can play my collection of torrents and MKV anime....at least in 720p
Click to expand...

Unfortunately video encoding is far more complex then most people are aware.
There is a lot of confusion over what will and wont play because a file name has little to do with how a video file is encoded.
For example the MKV container is supported by VLC; however this does not mean that VLC can play any MKV file. An MKV file generally contains at least one video and one audio stream. These streams can be in many different formats, some of which VLC can decode and some it can not. The iPad build of VLC currently has a small subset of the desktop versions support for codecs.
Even within a video format like H.264 there are many variation that can affect performance, compression and compatibility. A high profile H.264 file is very CPU/GPU intensive to decode, but lead to a smaller file sizes without compromising quality. Frequent key frames can break some players, and increases file size, but can improve performance when scrubbing through a file. Low profile can playback on much slower devices, but look worse at a given bit-rate.
 
err404 said:
Looks like a great app, but it doesn't really serve the same purpose.
This requires a Mac at home that is always on to transcode the files.
Your iPad need to be connected to the internet
Video quality is reduced, especially over 3G
Click to expand...

Klexi has an option to save the files to the iPad/iPhone for off network viewing. And it is gorgeous to boot.

Plus, Plex is going multi-platform. You can soon use the media server on Windows or Linux.
 
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