Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Tablets How are android tablets compared to ipad playing movies
- Thread starter Silver78
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I use VLC on my Nexus 10 and it's fine. Played everything I've ever thrown at it, even 1080 .mkv Blu-ray Rips.
I have yet to find a file that can't be played with MX Player. I believe even the weird Japanese file codes can even be played on MX Player.
There is also MoboPlayer and VLC that play just about every file type known to man.
I'd actually say it's better on android if only for the 16:10 aspect ratio found on most android tablets.
Would it give better movie playback if i jailbreak my device?
Also for now im looking for a player for ipad that works with most codecs. New players come out but soon after they always loose ability to playback ex. Ac3 codec. And rapidly is abandoned by developer with a link in the app to a new player that you again have to pay for. Why is that?
Also for now im looking for a player for ipad that works with most codecs. New players come out but soon after they always loose ability to playback ex. Ac3 codec. And rapidly is abandoned by developer with a link in the app to a new player that you again have to pay for. Why is that?
Which app u use. I use imedia player and it plays everything i throw at it and its free!
I own all the players i have been able to find... I use filebrowser, goodplayer and imedia player.
With all of the players its play and prey.. Exept for the mp4 files under 1gb that is supported native by ipad and I usually give up trying to playback other than that.
Just tried the imedia player again on 3 different ios devices and it just keeps buffering forever (I play via smb from server) and only way to get player to respond after that is to close it. (And nothing wrong with the network)
I started bringing my laptop to bed because i hate finding a good movie at night and going to bed only to get out of bed 5 minutes after and turn the laptop on to playback instead.
I have money set aside for the new ipad mini but i really want to escape the closed apple grib. Was thinking about the nexus 7 2013 instead.
Sure ipad got nice design but honestly android or ios is not a question of which is best but which suck the least. Lately i havent been feeling free using the ipad.
With all of the players its play and prey.. Exept for the mp4 files under 1gb that is supported native by ipad and I usually give up trying to playback other than that.
Just tried the imedia player again on 3 different ios devices and it just keeps buffering forever (I play via smb from server) and only way to get player to respond after that is to close it. (And nothing wrong with the network)
I started bringing my laptop to bed because i hate finding a good movie at night and going to bed only to get out of bed 5 minutes after and turn the laptop on to playback instead.
I have money set aside for the new ipad mini but i really want to escape the closed apple grib. Was thinking about the nexus 7 2013 instead.
Sure ipad got nice design but honestly android or ios is not a question of which is best but which suck the least. Lately i havent been feeling free using the ipad.
Try nplayer. Plays everything I throw at it and is hardware accelerated for most video formats and has a huge feature list including playing off just about any network protocol.
http://appshopper.com/entertainment/nplayer
I haven't tried it myself, but infuse looks interesting
http://appshopper.com/photography/infuse-the-beautiful-way-to-watch-videos
If you don't want to pay, VLC is available on ios.
Don't get an iPad Mini, sure it's a great device with a huge price tag and is even more poor value then last year, especially against the iPad Air which is a great product.
Get a Nexus 7, I have the 2012 version and it's fantastic. For movies you can most likely play anything you like on a Nexus, as others have said MX Player is awesome and they update the codecs for it. Plus with a Nexus you can plug a USB thumb drive into it direct and play movies of it should you wish. So in addition to the 32GB on the Nexus 7, you can plug in a 128GB flash drive which you can get for around $40 if you search.
Get Air Video HD. The server runs on your Mac (or on Windows). When you're at home it'll stream with lossless (re-encodes the audio on the fly). If you want to load the file on your device it'll convert the audio and download it. It will also do all that remotely, but will be dependent on your upload speed.
And it will stream to Apple TV... far better than iTunes and Airplay under Mavericks will. I use it for all my TV viewing and never have to worry about re-encoding MKVs... it's the next best thing to having a jailbroken Apple TV with XBMC on it.
Converting and downloading a 6.5 GB (video bit rate 8366 kbits/s) 1080p blu-ray rip took 17 minutes. It starts downloading while it's converting,
And it will stream to Apple TV... far better than iTunes and Airplay under Mavericks will. I use it for all my TV viewing and never have to worry about re-encoding MKVs... it's the next best thing to having a jailbroken Apple TV with XBMC on it.
Converting and downloading a 6.5 GB (video bit rate 8366 kbits/s) 1080p blu-ray rip took 17 minutes. It starts downloading while it's converting,
I will consider the Nplayer even I way to many times have spend money on players not living up to their promise and little time after ac3 codec is removed and then its just down hill with updates until at last ads for a new player shows up inside the player.
I own air video but need a player that does not allways require a lap or desktop to run conversion.
Im a creature of habbit and have used vlc for many years on computers but not really happy with the vlc for ios....yet
I try to avoid players that require conversion or computer on but also players that require file to be transfered to ipad.
I will go for the nexus 7 2013 instead of new mini.
I own air video but need a player that does not allways require a lap or desktop to run conversion.
Im a creature of habbit and have used vlc for many years on computers but not really happy with the vlc for ios....yet
I try to avoid players that require conversion or computer on but also players that require file to be transfered to ipad.
I will go for the nexus 7 2013 instead of new mini.
1, nPlayer is indeed the best - see my just-posted recommendation in another thread here in the Alternatives section: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18242621/
2, Infuse is promising but can not really dethrone nPlayer yet.
3, VLC is not recommended, not even for free. You'll end up paying the $5 (nPlayer's price) a lot of time in, say, your electricity bills because of the, say, software-only playback of everything. VLC still doesn't make use of hardware H.264 decoding for compatible containers (mov / m4v / mp4). This is still by far the biggest problem with the player making it still a no-no, unless you don't want to play back H.264 video at all.
As in the previous thread, I recommend following my multimedia article series in the iPad and iPhone App Forums (I post in either of them, depending on whether the reviewed app is Universal or iPad-only) here at MR. You won't find a better source of info on iOS multimedia playback anywhere else.
1. nPlayer now officially licenses AC3 and, therefore, won't drop its support. It's "only" DTS that it's lacking.
2. as has been explained in my past posts (see the recommended article series), upon Dolby's cease and desist order, many developers have chosen to keep AC3 support for their existing customers (old versions of discontinued apps can be downloaded from the AppStore on devices already used for direct downloading) and start a brand new one - now, without AC3.
Basically, it's Dolby Laboratories that need to be "thanked" for the wave of fully "abandoned" players...
----------
Another vote for the N7. The 2013 model is (also) fantastic when it comes to video playback; particularly if you do it using the built-in speaker. STEREO, and it's much better than the iPad's mono speaker. I too use the N7 for video playback.
----------
Unfortunately, these players aren't as powerful as nPlayer. With the latter, you could have much better experience, particularly when playing back MKV files.
----------
Yes, SSA subs are fully supported by MXPlayer; for example, those of the standard test video Suzumiya at http://www.auby.no/files/video_test..._vorbis_styled_and_unstyled_subs_suzumiya.mkv
Was going to suggest nplayer....you don't need to buy a whole new tablet and throwaway the wonderful app library available to you from Apple just to play movies.
But really if you just watch movies at home, just set your laptop (or any old computer really...I'm using one from 2009 as my server) with Plex Media server. It plays anything I throw at it, and I also have Roku's set up to all my flat panels and can stream the same movies, with surround sound, to all my TV's, iPads and Android devices from that server.
Putting movies onto your device is so...so.....2010.
But really if you just watch movies at home, just set your laptop (or any old computer really...I'm using one from 2009 as my server) with Plex Media server. It plays anything I throw at it, and I also have Roku's set up to all my flat panels and can stream the same movies, with surround sound, to all my TV's, iPads and Android devices from that server.
Putting movies onto your device is so...so.....2010.
Another vote for MX video, I really wish I could install this on my Iphone, I love the touch controls and it plays everything I throw at it!
Nicer screens for cheaper prices.
Bought an original Nexus 7 from a member here a while back for $130.
Got a Nook HD+ for $149. Works fine, but even better if you put stock Android 4.2 on it (can do it on the cheap by buying a pre-configured system for it online).
No problems with any vids, you obviously can't play iTunes protected ones.
Bought an original Nexus 7 from a member here a while back for $130.
Got a Nook HD+ for $149. Works fine, but even better if you put stock Android 4.2 on it (can do it on the cheap by buying a pre-configured system for it online).
No problems with any vids, you obviously can't play iTunes protected ones.
On android there is a great way to play from SMB or download from file shares and you don't need a jack of all trades app like you do on Apple.
You get something like the awesome ES file explorer, which can browse your network as well as local files etc. Find the one you want. Tap it and then select the player you want to play it with. Easy as that. Just like a real computer. I still have an iPad myself and I only use it for netflix since every other method of getting files on it takes work.
Alternatively, you can do the following.
1. Set up handbrake to default to an apple friendly format.
2. Set the default output folder in handbrake to be automatically add to itunes (assuming windows here, on mac I think handbrake just has a check box for this) http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3832
3. Leave itunes running.
4. Make handbrake convert a file and when it sends it to that folder it will get auto added to itunes.
5. With itunes still running (hopefully you have home sharing enabled) open the apple video app on your device. Browse to the home share and you should be able to stream your video from there. Works with apple tv too. Using itunes as the media server. The videos may show up in home movies or something like that.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3819
You get something like the awesome ES file explorer, which can browse your network as well as local files etc. Find the one you want. Tap it and then select the player you want to play it with. Easy as that. Just like a real computer. I still have an iPad myself and I only use it for netflix since every other method of getting files on it takes work.
Alternatively, you can do the following.
1. Set up handbrake to default to an apple friendly format.
2. Set the default output folder in handbrake to be automatically add to itunes (assuming windows here, on mac I think handbrake just has a check box for this) http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3832
3. Leave itunes running.
4. Make handbrake convert a file and when it sends it to that folder it will get auto added to itunes.
5. With itunes still running (hopefully you have home sharing enabled) open the apple video app on your device. Browse to the home share and you should be able to stream your video from there. Works with apple tv too. Using itunes as the media server. The videos may show up in home movies or something like that.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3819