Expert Blogs
I've always liked and, for most playback purposes, recommended ProPlayer (AppStore link). While it isn't exactly feature-packed (you won't find, for example, audio, saturation or brightness boosting in the app), it has (generally) a well-behaving and -performing set of video and audio decoders. Most of these decoders are exactly the same as in AVPlayerHD, one of the best iOS multimedia players.
The latest player update description boasts “Hardware acceleration” and states the new version is "a major feature update":
While I don't consider OPlayer (HD) (AppStore links: iPhone; iPad) the best-performing or most versatile iOS video players out there, it still has some very strong and well-supported features like a very good MSMPEG4 and OGG Vorbis video decoder. The just-released, new version boasts, among other things, support for volume boosting - something I really need when in a noisy environment or when needing as large a video playback volume as possible (see the annotated part of the screenshot; click it for a larger version):
RetinaPad (Cydia store link) has always been one of my most favourite iPad jailbreak apps – it has done that Apple should have done: show iPhone apps in the maximal resolution possible on iPads, and also let for rotating them.
At last, I had some time to go on with my article series (first one HERE) on the video camera of the iPhone 4S. As usual, I've made a lot of experiments and measurements.
Let's start with the 60p (60 frames per second) mode – something I didn't have the time to properly elaborate on in the first part (I was busy getting ready for the MWC trip and, then, for a very-very long skying holiday in middle-North Finland. Hence the big pause.).
Recording video at more than 30 frames per second (fps)
UPDATE (06/19/2012): there are several new articles on competing, alternative hardware HDMI recorders. One of them is Elgato Game Capture HD, which is comparatively cheap ($200), sports both HDMI and component(!) input, is small, only requires a USB 2 connector and is compatible with both PC's and OS X Mac's. (Blackmagic Design Intensity Extreme is strictly Mac with Thunderbolt-compliant and doesn't have component input). However, it can't record 1080p signal, only 720p/1080i and can't deliver uncompressed footage to the host computer either, something that videographers wanting to built a very cheap Red One alternative really want (if you don't need uncompressed, direct footage, then, this won't affect you).
So far, I haven't dedicated a separate article to the free MoliPlayer (AppStore links: iPhone; iPad), it was THAT bad. With the latest upgrade promising a lot of enhancements, I've re-tested it and was pleasantly surprised. Yes, this player now delivers!
(the latest version's “What's new”. (The new iPad-specific version has an identical changelog.))
What's been fixed?
- Canon camera AVI M-JPEG files are now played back
The free FlexPlayer (AppStore link) has received a major update yesterday:
(click the thumbnail image for the original one)
As I generally re-review previous reviewed / mentioned apps when new, major upgrades are released, I started testing the new version right away, only to find out it was quickly pulled by the developers and the old version restored:
So far, I haven't dedicated a separate article to AnyPlayer (AppStore link) because I didn't consider it a viable alternative to the most powerful players in the AppStore (It's Playing, GoodPlayer, AVPlayerHD / ProPlayer, BUZZ Player) or, for jailbroken iDevices, Cydia (XBMC, RushPlayer+).
Today's update boasts better performance (as usual, click the image for a bigger version!):
UPDATE (07/07/2012): answering a question HERE, I've run some VERY serious CPU usage tests (see THIS for the methology; I used "top" on my iPad 3) and found out the following:
The InfiniDock and Springtomize 2 combo (can be used together to give the highest configurability; see below for related remarks) does not add any CPU usage when
- the device shows SpringBoard
- 10 icons are put in the dock, even with card roll and scrolling (via InfiniDock) enabled
- the maximum number of icons are displayed in each row
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