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Five best video players for iPhone and iPad

Standard player in iOS is not good for watching movies and TV shows purchased on iTunes and downloaded to the device manually. Despite the simple interface and convenient cataloging of media content, the Video app has three significant drawbacks. It can only play files with extensions .mp4, .m4v and .mov, encoded according to the standard h.264, supports only “hardcoded” subtitles and allows you to switch between multiple audio tracks. Come to the rescue of third-party players, which are able to convert movies to play video in any popular format.

In fact, the quality and thus the greedy players in the App Store not so much. This is due to the fact that 2012, the company Dolby Labs (the owner of the rights to the popular codecs AC3 and E-AC3) went on the offensive, forcing developers to cut their support of their applications. As a result, users have lost the ability to listen on the i-devices the sound in “HD”.

So all the players can be divided into two parts: conditional or completely free, but without the support of AC3 codec, and paid, the developer has agreed to license the technology from Dolby. Best video players in the App Store offered Hitech.vesti.

AVPlayer

AVPlayer is one of the oldest (published since 2010) and stable players for iOS. The program is universal: it can playback high definition video (720p, 1080p) in all popular formats, including .avi, .mp4, .mov .m4v, .mkv, .xvid, .avi, .wmv, .rmvb, .asf, .h264, .3gp and .flv. AVPlayer is updated regularly. Appeared a few days ago version 2.6 has received the support of 64-bit processors and has been optimized for iPhone/6 Plus.

To watch a video using AVPlayer in several ways. The first is to manually upload the file to the application folder in iTunes by connecting your iPhone or iPad to your computer via USB wire. The second is to download a file from an HTTP, an FTP, WebDAV or home UPnP/DLNA servers. Also the film can be broadcast directly from the cloud, not transferring it to the device, or the Internet by specifying the URL.

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The application recognizes a lot of gestures. For example, swipe up/down to adjust the playback speed, right/left to rewind 10 seconds, double tap to change the screen size. AVPlayer remembers the last position of selected commercials: the next time you visit the program play starts from the same time where you stopped.

The disadvantages of the program can be considered as limited support for subtitles only .srt, .smi, .txt. Stylized text SubStationAlpha (.ssa .ass) she does not recognize. From cloud storages are supported only Dropbox and Google Drive”.

The developers AVPlayer license from Dolby codecs Digital (AC3) and Digital Plus (EAC-3), and hence, the app can play videos with high quality sound. In App Store it is sold at very reasonable price — $ 169. Download from the App Store.

VLC

Cross-platform the VLC app (also available on Android, OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux) is equipped with all the most important functions of a modern video player. The program supports all the “traditional” formats.avi, .divx, .mkv, .wmv, .vob, .3gp, etc.), gestures, plays the video from last place, allows you to enable password protection, set the brightness and saturation of the image.

Unlike AVPlayer, the program interface is translated, and the files can be loaded from Dropbox and Google Drive, but iCloud Drive, Box and Microsoft OneDrive, or directly via Wi-Fi. It also supports connecting to servers (HTTP, FTP, RTSP, UDT/RTP, etc.) and the Plex media server.

All the playable files can be output in a single list or display only music or a TV series. Furthermore, VLC is still the only popular player with version for smart watches Apple Watch.

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Deficiencies in the application virtually no. However, VLC is player open-source, which will always be free for users. For this reason, the VideoLAN non-profit organization that oversees the development of the application, you cannot license the codecs from Dolby, so VLC can’t play movies with AC3 sound. Download from the App Store.

Infuse

As mentioned above, AVPlayer is the cheapest player, if you are willing to put up with some limitations, VLC is a free and versatile, but without the support of codecs Dolby. If you are not constrained in finances and just want the maximum, the final choice may be Infuse.

Manufactured by FireCore player Packed with all kinds of features: very wide support of video formats from the “standard” .avi, .mkv, .mp4, .mov and .3gp to more exotic .wtv, .ogv, .ogm), including AC3 and E-AC3 for audio, and the ability to play movies almost anywhere, including on the fly: c Mac, Windows computer or hard drive connected to Wi-Fi, FTP and UPnP/DLNA servers, including Plex and Kodi.

Infuse supports the head and the folder to DVD, allows one click to load the subtitle c site OpenSubtitles.org and recognizes all popular formats of tracks: SRT, SSA, SUB, SMI, DVDSub, PGS, XSUB, Timed Text, VobSub, DVB. The only one disadvantage: unlike AVPlayer, not Infuse allows you to stream video from cloud-based services. The file will need to import to your device, saving it in the Dropbox app, “Google Drive” or Skybox, and then open in your player.

One could say that the Infuse is the perfect iOS player, if not a very high price. Version with cut-down functionality is available for free, Pro for 599 rubles. In surcharge Infuse 3 enabled codecs Dolby (AC3/E-AC3, including DTS-HD surround sound on mobile devices), the ability to stream video via AirPlay or Google Cast, and play it in the background or when the i-gadget is locked. Download from the App Store.

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nPlayer

nPlayer from Newin is somewhere between AVPlayer and Infuse. The player may attract users who often watch movies with subtitles because it gives full control over the text track. Using gestures, you can, for example, choose the color, font, size, and location of text on the screen. Besides, nPlayer is able to show two tracks simultaneously (in different languages).

The list of supported subtitle formats (including with styles and tags, which is rare) is very wide: SMI, SRT, SSA, SUB, LRC, SubStation Alpha, SAMI (SMI), etc. From video player “understands” .mp4, .mov .mkv, .avi, .wmv, .asf, .flv, .ogv and .rmvb and others. New files can be added to the program via Wi-Fi to stream videos via FTP, WebDAV, UPnP/DLNA, SMB.

nPlayer, including support for codecs AC3/E-AC3, worth 279 rubles — 100 rubles more than AVPlayer, and twice cheaper than Infuse 3. Unlike regularly updated counterparts, a new version of the players were from October of last year, so his future is uncertain. Download from the App Store.

Flex:player

Flex:player — free iOS player with the ability to unlock codecs Dolby via in-app purchase (479 rubles). His strengths: simple, elegant interface, playback from where it stopped, the lack of any advertising in the free version. The program is able to play files in the formats .avi, .mpeg, .vob, .mkv, .mp4, .mov., .flv and even .webm.

One of the obvious disadvantages of Flex:player include incomplete format support .wmv, popular among Windows users (video may freeze). The player also sometimes incorrectly identifies the total duration of the film, which affects the accuracy of rewinding. Unfortunately, Flex:player has not been updated since February of last year, so it’s unclear whether the developers support it in the future. Download from the App Store.

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