VLC for iPhone, iPad, iPod. Well some of them anyway.

I know, I know, “oh great another iphone APP post“.   True, but this one begged to be mentioned for a few reasons:
1. its a way to get video on your iphone/ipod/ipad without having to reformat to apple’s limited standard format.
2. its just so damned simple to use.

3. its free.

The latest release of VLC Media Player (released Oct 25, 2010) for idevices using the iOS makes it easy to get media onto your iPhone without having to spend the time converting it to a format that the idevice recognizes which can save you a ton of time.  As a test for instance, converting an avi file on my MBP using MPEGStreamClip took almost 2 hours, as opposed to copying it using itunes in about 2 minutes.

the iTunes interface on your computer

The process is simple.  Download and install the app, (sync your device if you downloaded it on your Mac in iTunes) open iTunes on your computer and browse to your idevice.  Go into the Apps section and under the File Sharing area you will see which apps you have allowed.  Click on VLC and in the VLC Documents area you just add in the movies you want to copy to your idevice.

Thats it.  Sync and you will have the movies in your list in the VLC app.  The app also allows for editing of the list, so once you’ve watched a movie you can easily remove it right on the idevice without having to resync in iTunes.  Just click the edit button and you’ll see the little minus sign show up beside the movies, click the one (s) you want removed and they are deleted.  simple as that.

movie menu

easy editing of list

Unfortunately VLC Media Player doesn’t work on the iPhone 3G.  Tried to install it, got the message it is incompatible and wouldn’t install.  Not sure why.  I can’t imagine its a speed issue, because I would think the mp4 codec that does work with iPhones/ iPod/s iPads would take just as much processing power to transcode as the avi format.  This was a bit saddening since we have a couple of older iPods and an iPhone 3G in the house that could really use an app like this.

But for those of you with newer iPhones/iPads and iPods, this is a great way to let you enjoy your movie files without having to worry about what format they are in.

VLC works with most popular formats ( .avi, .mkv, .ts, .mov, .mp4, and .m4v) with promise of more formats to come, and all without studdering or stumbling.  Truly a handy little app to have in a world where you never know what is gonna get thrown at you that you might want to take on the road with you, so to speak.  All that and its free, what more could you ask for? Go grab it here.

tcg

**UPDATE**

I had the opportunity to try this app out on an iPad and it works as good if not better on there as it does on the iPhone4.  The screen size really makes movie watching enjoyable and I can see many mobile DVD players being replaced with an iPad with VLC installed.

tcg