No mention of VLC?

Posted:
in iPad edited January 2014
The anti-iPad boys have had another one of their arguments against the iPad thoroughly smashed with the introduction of the free VLC for iPad. Suddenly nearly all video files are pretty well supported without conversion. Big win for Apple with this.



Now hoping the iPhone version comes by the time I get my Touch 4.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    One post shy of the big ten. I remember that feeling.



    And what "anti-iPad" people? There really isn't a fervent audience that isn't part of the anti-iPod touch/iPhone group, as those devices haven't been able to do that, either.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,445moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonton View Post


    Suddenly nearly all video files are pretty well supported without conversion. Big win for Apple with this.



    If by nearly you mean no mkv, mov, mp3, flac, mpg and wmv, then I guess so. It pretty much just handles DivX and XVid, probably mp4 too. Plus you have to do the whole connecting the iPad and dragging movies over via iTunes so you won't be able to group movies into categories. All of your TV series will go into a flat list. And if you delete the VLC app in favour of say a future MPlayer app, all your copied movies go with it.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    If by nearly you mean no mkv, mov, mp3, flac, mpg and wmv, then I guess so. It pretty much just handles DivX and XVid, probably mp4 too. Plus you have to do the whole connecting the iPad and dragging movies over via iTunes so you won't be able to group movies into categories. All of your TV series will go into a flat list. And if you delete the VLC app in favour of say a future MPlayer app, all your copied movies go with it.



    VLC for iPad does support MKV. However, if the bitrate is too high, the processor can't quite keep up - yet. Meanwhile, can you play 1080p MKV files on your average netbook? Uh... no. You can't. So netbook vs. iPad proponents don't have a leg to stand on in this argument.



    iPad also, of course, supports MP3. VLC supports MP3 audio tracks for movies. It doesn't support MP3 audio files. So what. It's a video app, not an audio app. You want MP3? Use iTunes. Duh.



    Yes, I said nearly all, and I mean nearly all. The exceptions you point out (other than the ones you're wrong about) are few and far between.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,445moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonton View Post


    VLC for iPad does support MKV. However, if the bitrate is too high, the processor can't quite keep up - yet. Meanwhile, can you play 1080p MKV files on your average netbook? Uh... no. You can't.



    Yes, with GPU decoding - Ion netbooks are as affordable as any other netbook:



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtwXnWeI_aY



    The iPad test couldn't handle 720p mkv files:



    http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-...-review-718362



    It doesn't do hardware accelerated .mp4 either whereas the native player does so you're better off encoding with .mp4 and using the native player. I don't get why people bother using .mkv at all. I know there's the whole open source thing but there's nothing wrong with .mp4 and it's far more widely supported.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonton View Post


    Yes, I said nearly all, and I mean nearly all. The exceptions you point out (other than the ones you're wrong about) are few and far between.



    No .mov support is a pretty big omission because you can edit DivX, XVid in Quicktime and save as a .mov. No wmv, rmvb or even mpg are pretty big omissions too. MP3 support is not an issue but FLAC will be for some. People are struggling to play any HD movies on iPad VLC because none of it seems to be hardware accelerated so while there is support for some formats, people who have ripped HD movies will have to re-encode anyway and there's no reason to go with DivX or XVid if you have to do that as you'll get longer battery life using .mp4 with the native player.



    As I said, iPad VLC is for standard def DivX or XVid files but there have been other players out that have done this before VLC.
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