VLC is known as a Swiss Army Knife of media players for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It can handle almost any video codec you care to throw its way. So the news that Applidium was porting the open source media player to work with the iPad last month was met with a bit of excitement. Unfortunately, it turns out that Apple’s mobile hardware simply isn’t up to handling all of the media formats that the desktop version of VLC can play. MKV files can cause problems, and HD video playback is pretty much out of the question unless you like photo slideshows.
Still, VLC is effectively one of the best options available for anyone looking for a way to watch DiVX, Xvid, or WMV files on the iPad, as well as some other formats. And now the app supports the iPhone and iPod touch as well.
tested VLC on my 4th generation iPod touch and had absolutely no problem playing three different files encoded as WMV, DiVX, and Xvid. Unlike some other media players I’ve tried, VLC can handle each of those formats while playing both audio and video. Read the rest of this entry »