The irony. When Rush Limbaugh and co tried to get Apple to advertise on his popular radio talk show, Apple wouldn't even talk to him. Limbaugh acknowledges that, politically, Apple doesn't have anything in common with him. And he acknowledges that Apple's technology is highly restrictive. But despite all that, he loves Apple products. And on his show yesterday he talked at length why he loves Apple products in response to a caller's questions, making assertions such as: "It's just the stuff works.

UPDATE (08/08/2012): the just-released version (1.51) of AVPlayerHD no longer defaults to the hardware playback of MKV files, as is also mentioned in the update notes:


(click the image for a full-sized one! BTW, as you can see, a lot of other players have also received some serious updates in the last 2-3 days. So did the Photon Flash browser, which I'll also dedicate a separate article in the near future. PlayerXtreme, half-visible at the top of the screen, has only received some bugfixes.)

If you use your iDevice for watching videos using the built-in, stock Videos app, you may have noticed that the only way of fast forwarding or rewinding is the positioning slider at the top. You “grab” the slider with a finger and drag it to the left/right to rewind / fast forward, respectively.

Additionally, you can also drag your finger downwards to make the slider dragging speed slower. It won't help much when you run or do some other exercise and, in order to keep your pulse high, wouldn't want to stop it.

While in the gym, I tend to make / receive a lot of Skype calls to my wife or relatives. As I exclusively use stereo (A2DP) Bluetooth headphones in the gym to give me absolute, cable-less iPad 3-video-watching freedom while exercising, I've also run into problems related to the Bluetooth bugs of Skype: most of the time, I couldn't just use the headphones I already worn to conduct the call. Instead, I needed to use the speaker / microphone on the iPad itself, making my environment hear what both I and the other party say. Therefore, I decided to investigate the problem and come up with solutions to it.

UPDATE (08/09/2012): in the comments section below, I elaborated on deinterlacing. Note that I'll devote a complete article / tutorial to these subjects (using X.264 / HandBrake / Episode to deinterlace etc.) some time. Before that, it's mostly HandBrake's (default) decombing that will be your best friend.

UPDATE (08/04/2012): THIS thread has a lot of discussion of the subject. Remember to prefer my statements to ones that state the opposite! (The thread is full of factual errors.)

Original article:

UPDATE (02/21/2013): I've re-tested the current versions of XBMC and compared it to the current AVPlayer(HD) versions on both the iPad 3, 4 and the iPhone 5.  AVPlayer and AVPlayerHD have proved out to be considerably better, which means XBMC is still not recommended for WMV playback.

Of XBMC, I've tested the following versions:

- official 12 Eden (currently available from their official repo as the default version)

- the iPad Retina-friendly version (more info)

- the latest (21/Feb) nightly build (13 alpha)

More info & discussion HERE.

UPDATE (24/05/2012): the new (2.3) version has just been approved by Apple. It has, among other things, improved UPnP support:

 

 

In my tests, directory listing indeed worked with Majestic. However, streaming didn't (all I saw was a black screen) and downloading have turned out to be VERY slow - more than an order of magnitude(!!!) slower than with GoodPlayer, under exactly the same circumstances. That is, UPnP-wise, this app still has a lot to be improved...

 

In the last few days, I've participated in several discussion threads in the Phone Cameras / Tablets & Apps forum of DPReview. (See for example THIS, THIS and THIS). In order not to have to repeat the same facts again and again in future discussions, I've decided to dedicate a complete article to the question of using the iPad as a photo frame.

While, in the last week, several multimedia players have been updated (including my favourite, GoodPlayer, which, among other things, has clearly improved its DVD playback support in the current, 5.0 version), one of them I've already (quickly) reviewed (see THIS and also the comparison videos HERE), RushPlayer has received the most updates and new functionality. This is why I'm dedicating a separate (quick) article to it (but, currently, no other players).

Over at DPReview, answering a question (thread HERE), I've elaborated on playing back both 1080i60 and 60p videos created by the new, highly recommended and popular Panasonic FZ150 camera so that this info can also be included in my forthcoming iOS Multimedia bible. As the info can be of interest to people before the Multimedia bible is finally published (which takes at least one additional week or two), I dedicate a separate article to the question. (Note that this article applies to all other cameras producing MTS, M2TS or TS – and not MOV / MP4! - files.)

I've dedicated several articles (latest one HERE) to converting videos into MP4 (M4V / MOV) files so that they can be played back by the H.264 decoder of even older-generation iDevices. In the current one, I elaborate on how how you can play the output files with the built-in, stock Videos application. This article also belong to my Multimedia article series, in which I plan to publish a “Streaming multimedia over your local Wi-Fi” in the next few days and, then, finally, the real Multimedia bible.

I have a second-generation Apple TV set-top box, and really enjoy using AirPlay to stream movies from my iPad to my 42-inch HDTV. It's fun how simple it is. If you have an iOS device and Apple TV on the same WiFi network, you simply start playing a video and tap a button that gives you the option of playing the movie on your TV instead of your iPad. If you need to go out and want to continue watching the movie, you simply toggle back to the iPad and continue watching.

In order not to have to update it much, I've been waiting for the (new) iPad (3) and postponing the publication of both updates of my previous major PDF reader / Web browser roundups and also new, iPad-specific articles like multimedia playback. Now that the iPad 3 is here, I, at last, start publishing all these articles, starting with the long-promised video player roundup.

Before it gets published (which will take at least a day or two, as I still want to add stuff like network share support and video output to external monitors / AirPlay clients), however, I publish a quick article comparing the

So far, I've preferred using my high-end 17” Macbook Pro for watching full HD (1920*1080) videos as the screen is able to natively, without downsizing the picture, play back the content. With the new, high-resolution, Retina iPad, playing back even Full HD video has become much more desirable than even on a high-end  Macbook Pro: far better screen quality (vastly superior IPS technology vs. TN film, even if the latter is of pretty good quality), no fan noise, no need to connect it to the wall plug (playing back even the most demanding 1080p H.264 videos at max brightness only decreases battery charge by about 18% an hour and doesn't really heat up the iPad 3), mobility, no annoying overheating etc.

Let's continue my MWC report series (previous (first) part HERE) with the stuff that makes a camera & smartphone freak like me salivate: some serious (and I do mean serious!) camera tests. Note that, as there were no really-really groundbreaking iOS announcements at MWC (as opposed to the announcements and new models of almost all other major manufacturers), I'll only cover iOS later. My exclusive stuff, measurements and new tablets, smartphones  first, even if they aren't made by Apple.

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