Can someone recommend a good video player app for the IPAD 3?
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Do you want to play movies off internal storage or stream movies to your iPad over your network or the internet? Plex is awesome for the latter.
Why is there a difference with regard to what player I use? (forgive me if that is a stupid question, I am quite new to all of this).
I am guessing I would either dload it straight to my IPAD (for example) prior to a long flight or, I would just stream it from a dropbox account. Either way, they would likely be AVI or MKV files.
Wouldnt i use the same player for both?
Why is there a difference with regard to what player I use? (forgive me if that is a stupid question, I am quite new to all of this).
I am guessing I would either dload it straight to my IPAD (for example) prior to a long flight or, I would just stream it from a dropbox account. Either way, they would likely be AVI or MKV files.
Wouldnt i use the same player for both?
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The question of "internal or stream" is valid. For instance, if you're mostly looking to watch content while at home then apps like Air Video or Video Stream are great. Both simply find the shared folder you assigned on your PC/Mac/other and stream them over your wi-fi to the iPad. Biggest advantage is that you dont have to convert the content to iOS compatable extensions - the app will convert it on the fly and do it very well. I have a large collection of 1080p movies in MKV format (used mostly for my HTPC) and I assign a Videos folder to Video Stream. The iPad finds the PC's shared folder and plays 12-15Gb size movies very well.
The downside is that remote viewing while streaming is much more difficult (port forwarding, content size, buffering) or even impossible (airplane time). In these situations you're just better off having a local copy of the same movie on you iPad. Of course this requires some conversion to iOS compatable format or you just buy the content off the Apple store. IMO, the native iPad player is quite nice for locally stored content.
I have a video collection that has the best quality format for home viewing as well as another folder that holds the compressed versions specifically for iTunes synch to iPad. Most of the converted movies intended for local iPad storage are around 1Gb so I can keep plenty of content. No point in a 5Gb movie on your iPad when you may have limited capacity.
All IMO.
The downside is that remote viewing while streaming is much more difficult (port forwarding, content size, buffering) or even impossible (airplane time). In these situations you're just better off having a local copy of the same movie on you iPad. Of course this requires some conversion to iOS compatable format or you just buy the content off the Apple store. IMO, the native iPad player is quite nice for locally stored content.
I have a video collection that has the best quality format for home viewing as well as another folder that holds the compressed versions specifically for iTunes synch to iPad. Most of the converted movies intended for local iPad storage are around 1Gb so I can keep plenty of content. No point in a 5Gb movie on your iPad when you may have limited capacity.
All IMO.
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FYI, Plex makes setting up remote viewing incredibly easy. You're mainly limited by your home's upload speed, but you can dial down the quality to deal with that. It doesn't solve having no internet at all though when you're on an airplane.
FYI, Plex makes setting up remote viewing incredibly easy. You're mainly limited by your home's upload speed, but you can dial down the quality to deal with that. It doesn't solve having no internet at all though when you're on an airplane.
Im basically looking for something that will allow me to play vids that are in my dropbox, that are AVIs and MKVs and that can either be streamed or downloaded to my IPAD.
The key here though is that I need this program to convert these files on the fly.
Is that possible? I think a program like AV Player does that? (albeit im not sure how well)
Im basically looking for something that will allow me to play vids that are in my dropbox, that are AVIs and MKVs and that can either be streamed or downloaded to my IPAD.
The key here though is that I need this program to convert these files on the fly.
Is that possible? I think a program like AV Player does that? (albeit im not sure how well)
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For streaming, it's Plex by like a thousand miles.
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think i tried plex one time, but currently I use air video. great for streaming and great codec support.
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Used Air Video for a long time but a recent new W7 build had troubles installing the required Java components. Switched to Video Stream and it's great. Interface is a little 'slicker' than Air Video and the one feature that I really like is the ability to turn on/off subtitles directly from the app. With Air Video, any hard coded subtitles were very difficult to turn off. Had to monkey with the language support to find one that wasn't included just to get them to go away. With Video Stream you just select on/off and language on the fly. Very nice difference.
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I know I'm in the minority here -- but I'm not a big fan of Plex. I dunno - just something about it didn't fit with me.
I use Airplayit. Like pretty much all the good streamers, it consists of a free server side agent and an iOS app. Works great for me. I'm typically streaming 4gb+ mkv's. Usually just on the same network as the MC over wifi, but even over a decent internet connection it works well.
I use Airplayit. Like pretty much all the good streamers, it consists of a free server side agent and an iOS app. Works great for me. I'm typically streaming 4gb+ mkv's. Usually just on the same network as the MC over wifi, but even over a decent internet connection it works well.
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Also Splashtop works great as a screen sharing / quazi remote for those times you need to interface the computer part of WMC. Believe it or not, you can actually play audio / video too and it works pretty well.
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Splashtop HD on android allows you to play videos over the connection. It actually plays on the pc you are connected to.. Works pretty good over wifi in my apartment. But I've only done it playing around
as I don't have a reason to watch a video on a tablet at home.
I would assume it works on IOS as well but I don't use apple.
as I don't have a reason to watch a video on a tablet at home.
I would assume it works on IOS as well but I don't use apple.
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Streaming is a "progressive" download where you watch/listen without actually dowloading the content to your device. Think of it like radio: your player simply receives a signal (or stream) but you never actually save the data to the device.
Of course, via the plane wi-fi, you can connect to your home PC or cloud storage provider (done it personally with Dropbox and LogMeIn for document retrieval). Now, theoretically you could probably connect to your PC at home or a cloud storage provider via a plane wi-fi to start a video stream to your mobile device. Realistically however, due to bandwidth restrictions, you could never really get the data to stream properly. Downloading to your mobile device for offline viewing is really the only option today.
At home on wi-fi, streaming from a PC or NAS to your mobile device (using aforementioned video streaming apps like Air Video, Plex, Video Stream, etc) is very easy. Frankly, DLNA from your PC to TV or DVD is the same concept.
Of course, via the plane wi-fi, you can connect to your home PC or cloud storage provider (done it personally with Dropbox and LogMeIn for document retrieval). Now, theoretically you could probably connect to your PC at home or a cloud storage provider via a plane wi-fi to start a video stream to your mobile device. Realistically however, due to bandwidth restrictions, you could never really get the data to stream properly. Downloading to your mobile device for offline viewing is really the only option today.
At home on wi-fi, streaming from a PC or NAS to your mobile device (using aforementioned video streaming apps like Air Video, Plex, Video Stream, etc) is very easy. Frankly, DLNA from your PC to TV or DVD is the same concept.
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I tried several video players, OPlayer and MediaPlayer - good apps with basic functionality. Since I have DLNA NAS -WD Book Live and Serviio on PC, I need player which can stream using DLNA/UPnP. I stopped on 8Player and ArkMC. Both are good, support mkv and good picture quality. 8Player allows to send to third-party installed player, and ArkMC supports AC3, playback from local iTunes, and can stream to my Samsung Smart TV through DLNA.
My wife wanted me to transfer videos to her iPad 2 for her to view offline and at the time PLEX didn't offer their sync feature. So I ended up looking around and saw that BUZZ player would allow me to not only stream but also transfer videos over the network on wifi. It works pretty well actually, it has tons of features, can see my file shares as well as my PLEX server using DLNA and some other stuff. Haven't had any issues transferring videos and watching offline or while streaming.
http://bugunsoft.com/buzzplayer/
http://bugunsoft.com/buzzplayer/
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i use "air media center" for streaming, allows for pictures too, and "avplayer hd" for on-device viewing.
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