VLC for Android

[Foxcow]

Anyone know any info? I think its safe to say that many of us are anticipating VLC but info seems to be scarce.

The best I could do was an article from March saying that it may be available as soon as April... Obviously, that didn't work out

VLC For Android: Mobile Video Player Coming in April?: Online Video News


Anyone else excited?

 

[Usta]

If they are still on target to release it, then fine.
Otherwise, there is enough choice of other multi-format video players.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

For months, I've been regularly checking for information about the release of VLC player for Android. Contrary to Usta's opinion, I have not found an adequate Android media player that properly plays, displays & organizes my media collection-- especially my WMA files. This forum contains many, many posts from people who also find the existing media players inadequate. The open-source VLC Player for the PC, Mac, & Linux can play just about any media format and is so amazingly good (and free), that I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of the VLC Player for Android. Android devices range widely in hardware capability (and the capability of some Android devices surely won't be adequate to play all types of media) so I'm not expecting the initial release (or any VLC release) to solve everyone's needs. But I expect the initial release to be good, and I think that, once it's released, it will become popular and a lot of talented software engineers will rally around it to make it the best media player available for Android. I can't wait.

 

[Usta]

Hmm... What can VLC do that others can't?
WMA files are nicely handled for me by PowerAMP.
All video files of all popular formats are played by Moboplayer or by VitalPlayer.

 

[Foxcow]

I agree. VLC for Android will be a leap forward. If VLC can't play it, its not worth watching.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Usta: I was using PowerAmp (because it handles WMA files) but it the output volume of PowerAmp is so low that I stopped using it. I tried increasing PowerAmp's "pre-amp" volume but it caused terible distortion. PowerAmp doesn't handle any video files so you have to install at least 2 media player apps. Currently I'm using BoomBoxoid for WMA music (which has a buggy GUI) and MoboPlayer for video (which has a crappy GUI, can't play ASX video or any audio files). It would be great to have a single media player (like the VLC Player) that could play all media files with a nice GUI and with nice features like playlists, Internet radio streaming, PC synchronization, etc. Like many Android users, I'm extremely disappointed that Google didn't provide a decent (iTunes-killer) media player in Android when such functionality is so important and helped Apple sell so many devices.

 

[Usta]

I see what you mean.
I guess it is our preferences and tastes that makes different features desirable or not.

The low music volume in PowerAmp I've solved by getting in-ear high quality headphones. I cannot put the max volume when I listen WMA files without getting my ears explode.

The "one for all media" application is perhaps a nice idea, but I'm not bothered to use two different programs: one for music and one for video. Why not? I have enough space in my phone to install apps.

I actually think the GUI in Moboplayer is quite nice.
The ASX are no video files. These are reference files pointing the player to media files, so you can actually get rid of them.

We can probably expect Google to come up soon with an iTunes-like software, now that they started their own Music service.
However, I never liked the idea to install such extra software on my PC. I simply go to my PC and wireless copy the music that I want to my phone. It is simple and can be done from any connected PC (BTW, this reminds me of my two confused colleagues who wanted to copy some music from their work PC to iphone, but couldn't install iTunes on the PC because they had no admin rights)...

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Usta:

PowerAmp is the only media player app that I have tried which has a low-volume problem. I rarely listen to music through headphones. The problem occurs when I play music from my phone on my car stereo. I could sove the problem by buying a pre-amp or a better car stereo. But I'd rather just use a good, free media player app.

I'm running out of memory on my phone, so I'd prefer to have just one media player app.

I'd like to view video streams from California's CalTrans traffic cameras, but MoboPlayer can't display those ASX streams.

Google may develop some walled-garden, confining media player like iTunes (which I also hate) but the VLC team will not-- which is one of the reasons I'm really looking forward to the VLC Media player rather than the Android media player.

 

[Usta]

I like very much the music player called MortPlayer. It has many features, including the playback of asx playlists. Perhaps, you can try it.

Which phone do you have? There are ways to fix the internal memory shortage. Initially I also had the constant shortage of space to install apps. Now I have installed more than 130 apps on my phone (on the top of the default apps) and I can easily double that without any problem.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

I've tried Mortplayer and I like it a lot. It plays most of my WMA files, but unfortunately, it doesn't play all of them.

I just talked to someone who works on Android at Google. He said that Google just released a new music player, but Google is unlikely to support WMA as long as Microsoft charges license fees for WMA.

I have an LG Optimus S with stock Android 2.2. I haven't rooted it and changed the ROM yet. I may do so at some point. That would free up some memory. I could probably move a few more apps to the SD card, but I'm running out of space there too.

 

[Usta]

Since WMA is not natively supported in Android, you could also batch convert them all to mp3 or aac.

 

[tiredhiker]

I use and like very much the REALPLAYER. It does Vids and music but mostly what I like is that is resizes the vids to fit the whole screen. Thats saves me from having to remake/edit the vids on my PC.

 

[ikkyu]

Hmm... What can VLC do that others can't?
WMA files are nicely handled for me by PowerAMP.
All video files of all popular formats are played by Moboplayer or by VitalPlayer.

I expect a proper playlist with editing/shuffle/repeat. And I need flv/mp4 playback.

VitalPlayer can play flv/mp4, but no playlist.
Moboplayer do have playlist, but it does not work correctly and no shuffle.

I need something almost good as CorePlayer on WM6.

 

[Usta]

Probably, the current players don't combine playlist+shuffle features, because not everyone wants them.
I don't care about playlists or shuffle on videos. Much more important for me are the player UI and decoding capabilities. I don't want to shuffle my videos, and I can set them to play automatically one after each other.

It is a good idea to go to Market and write your feed back on the apps review pages. That way you can let the developer know that you want extra features.