VLC, argubly the best video player out there, has finally come out for the iPhone. Check it out in iStore – you’ll be pleasantly surprised that it is actually free too!
So, let’s give it a quick roadtest. I have a iPhone 3GS and was keen to give it a go as most of the reviews I had seen were on a iPhone4.
What I planed to do was to try a couple of different format video files and see if there was any performance issues or noticeable differences in the playback of each.
Once the app was installed, I fired it up I was presented with a screen such as this:
Ahhh so that’s how it will work. You need iTunes to drop the files into the shared app area and then sync. Not a problem.
So I did. 1 X 150M AVI file that I got off my video camera, a 380M DIVX file and a 20M FLV file got thrown on the iPhone.
Results:
* The AVI file was laggy in the video but the sound wa sfine
* The DIVX played without a hitch
* The FLV played for a few seconds, and since then I haven been able to get them to play. It’s pixelated beyond belief and I thought my iPhone had actually locked up.
From what my neighbour was telling me, FLVs play fine on his iPhone so it just may be the 3GS that struggles.
Overall, not too bad for a first effort and I’m sure there will be some updates along the way for this app. I would definitely pay for the app as I have been a big fan of VLC for ages.