I work with a lot of video (film, tv, commercials, remixes, etc.), and one of the biggest frustrations for me when I started using the iPad was that my large collection of video clips were not compatible with the included iPad video app. The native bundled video app simply doesn’t play well with many standard codecs such as xvid or divx. Even formats that work fine on my iPod Touch do not play–even some of my .mov files!
I use video in teaching, research, and presenting on a variety of topics, such as fan studies, queer studies, video editing, “deep reading” video, video games, and many more topics. I was so disappointed because one of the big reasons for an iPad for me was to be able to play these files on the fly. I didn’t want to have to spend a lot of time transcoding my files into a format that would play natively. I also wanted to be able to organize my video files for quick reference.
I downloaded and tried out a few video apps, and I have two major ones that I now use: AVPlayer HD and AcePlayer.
(CineXPlayer was the first video app I downloaded, due to the number of divx/xvid files I had. Unfortunately, the app was selective in which divx files it would play. I was very disappointed with it. It also had some annoying extras such as background music that played as soon as you opened the app. I do not recommend this app.)
AVPlayerHD ($3) by EPlayWorks does a good job of filling in the blanks (and then some) for the iPad. [UPDATE: Currently, the app is not available in the app store. It was removed to fix some bugs, and there is so far no note on when it will return.] So far I’ve thrown avi files encoded with divx, xvid, and various other codecs, and it plays them all just fine. I was amazed to find the program plays .rm (real media) files, since just about nothing does. It also plays .wmv files, .mov, and even some mpg files I had with me.
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| AVPlayerHD options on the iPad |
It also allows file transfer via wireless, which is great for those times when you don’t have iTunes and/or a cable available. You simply go to wireless transfer in settings to get the URL. Type the URL into your computer browser, and you can then upload files from your computer into the app. I have been able to do this using the wireless on campus. It slower than iTunes transfer, but if you wanted someone to send you a file to display for the rest of the class, this would be one way of doing it. You can also use this to download a video from your iPad to a computer (or share a clip with a student).
This app is not without problems. I’ve found with .wmv and .rm video files that there is some audio skipping at the very start when you begin playing the clip. It’s difficult to describe, but nearest I can tell, it initially starts playing the audio from later in the file, before it returns to regular playback. It is a small annoyance, but for the most part it hasn’t ruined the audio sync on the files. There was one exception to this, a real media clip of a Lightsaber fight which quickly went out of sync and was impossible to get proper audio playback. I tried other action clips in wmv, and so far the only one causing problems is the rm clip.
You can also organize video clips into folders. This is hugely useful when you have a large collection and need quick access to certain clips (especially when filenames might not be the best). If you’re giving a presentation with the iPad, you can switch between the presentation app and AVPlayerHD to play through a folder of videos in order.
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| Clips organized into folders with AVPlayerHD |
By far, AVPlayer gives you the most options while viewing a video. You can speed up or slow down playback, view through different color filters (great for correcting red-shift in a file), double-tap or use icons to rotate through different aspect ratios, and use either a swipe or icons to skip forward 10 seconds. I really like the easy icons and help text with AVPlayer–it’s much easier to do more with the video when you don’t have to memorize every gesture. It seems far easier to use and understand than AcePlayer.
AcePlayer gives you a lot more options for where and how you want to access media. You can use AcePlayer to stream media from a media server, FTP server, or Samba server. You can also stream from an online URL or load files directly through iTunes or wireless. This is very useful if you have a great deal of media you typically access over a server. It also supports the same file types as AVPlayerHD.
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| Server options for AcePlayer |
AcePlayer ($5) supports Playlists and continuous play of files. You can set up a certain playlist (such as music videos that put your baby to sleep) and set it to play through them automatically. It will also continue to play through all the videos you have downloaded on the app without returning to the menu unless you change the settings.
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| Settings in AcePlayer |
One advantage I’ve found in AcePlayer is that even high-speed/high-action files like the rm of the Lightsaber fight that didn’t work with AVPlayer works fine on AcePlayer once you get past the initial hiccup. Much like AVPlayer, AcePlayer has that strange glitch at the beginning of certain files, where it appears to start playing the video/audio a little later in the video. This happens with more file types in AcePlayer than AVPlayer, however. You have to pause, reset the playhead, and start playing again. I also had problems with some files where the playhead would be completely unresponsive. I’ve never had that problem with AVPlayer.
While playing a file, you have the option to skip to the next video, double-tap to go full-screen, single-tap to bring up the playhead and menu bar, change aspect ratio, and select subtitle files. This is another feature that stands above AVPlayer, as AVPlayer is notorious for having problems with subtitle files. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any videos handy to test out this feature, so I will have to trust the reviews. You do have to swipe the video screen in order to ff’wd or rewind several seconds, as there are no icons for this.
AcePlayer allows for you to manage your media within the app, creating folders, moving files around, renaming files, etc.
Overall, I think both apps work fine for playing the general gamut of video codecs. Personally, I prefer AVPlayer for stability and quality of playback, but I like AcePlayer for the variety of clips that play on it. AcePlayer is also a universal app, so the single purchase will allow you to use it on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.