MoboPlayer is a new video player for Google Android, and it may just be the most impressive multimedia app I’ve seen for the platform. The app supports most video formats including MP4, MOV, and MKV, and also supports subtitles and multiple audio streams. You can create playlists for continues playback, and the app can also stream internet media using http and rtsp protocols.

I tested playback with a standard definition DiVX file, and the video looked great. The player is also very responsive when pausing or skipping forward or back in a video.

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While the open source VLC media player has been pulled from Apple’s iTunes App Store, a new mobile version is in the works for Google Android. Thanks to Google’s open source roots, the Android version should be safe from the sort of legal/licensing issues that brought down the iPhone version.

If you’ve been impatiently waiting for the popular video player to show up in the Android Market, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that the project is still in the works and one of the developers has posted a detailed progress report. The bad news is that “the project still requires a lot of work before any release.”

The developers are working with Google Nexus One, Nexus S, and HTC Desire phones, but the beta will be open to Android users with all sorts of devices for testing purposes. Right now the best performance is available on devices running Android 2.3, but the goal is to support all versions of Android. The developers also plan to spruce up the UI. The early builds of VLC can play video, but the user interface is rough around the edges, to say the least.

A number of VLC libraries are also still being ported to Android. So it sounds like it will be a while before the app is ready to launch, even in beta. But it’s good to know that it’s still a work in progress.

via Android Central

The VLC media player is a popular open source app for Mac, Windows, Linux, and even iOS. The best thing about VLC is that it’s capable of handling almost any video format you can throw at it without breaking a sweat — although the iOS version is limited by the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad hardware, making HD video playback difficult. Still, I can’t help but be a little excited that the developers are working on a version of VLC for Google Android.

The new Android app could be available for download within the next few weeks. Early development was apparently difficult because Android’s multimedia output libraries were written in Java, but Google recently released tools that let the VLC team write native code for Android.

There already a couple of other excellent video players for Android, including Rockplayer, VPlayer, and ArcMedia, but I’m looking forward to seeing what VLC brings to the table.

VLC on iPad: Video selection menu

I got word that VLC officially hit the iPad and I was psyched. I had previously tested out the Xvid-playing app CineXPlayer to lousy results and recommended that you stick to Apple-approved formats for your iPad. Then an app calling itself “VLC” appeared.

If you watch video on your computer, you probably know about VLC — it is the Swiss-army knife of video players. Dang near every file format plays well on VLC, plus it is free.

The free iPad app, on the other hand, is not quite as powerful as its desktop sibling. Being the nerd that I am, I read the included instructions, and loaded the app up with videos through iTunes. I threw a ton of file formats at it: AVI (both Xvid and DivX varieties), M4V, MKV, even VOB. Read the rest of this entry »

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Update: Make sure to read our list of 13 great video players for Android phones and tablets.

When it rains it pours. For the first two years of Google Android’s life there weren’t really any all purpose video players for the platform. The built in video player is bundled with Android’s picture viewer and only supports a handful of video formats. But recently RockPlayer launched an excellent video player with support for a wide range of formats including MKV, Xvid, WMV, and DiVX.

RockPlayer comes in free and paid versions, with the free version including some advertisements.

Scan to download

Today I ran across another Swiss army knife video player called arcMedia. It’s completely free — at least while in beta. It  uses open source FFmpeg libraries and can handle a similar range of video formats including DiVX, Xvid, MOV, Mp4, WMV, and RMVB. The arcMedia video player supports all versions of Google Android.

The new video player has an attractive file browser and a nice big pause/play button on the video playback screen. There’s also a button you can press to adjust the video size to fit your display, and a timeline allowing you to skip ahead and back in a video. There’s no fast forward, rewind, or skip button. The overall UI is pretty basic. But video playback is smooth and I haven’t noticed any audio video synchronization problems on my Google Nexus One.

The arcMedia video player is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Update: Check out our list of 12 of the best video players for Android

RockPlayer is kind of the holy grail of video players for Google Android. It’s an app that can handle virtually any video format you can throw at it — provided the video isn’t wrapped up in DRM copy protection. I took RockPlayer for a test drive while it was still in beta testing, but now the developer has released a full version of the app.

Best of all, it’s available as a free download for Android 1.6 and up. The free version is ad-supported, but you can get rid of the ads by clicking the “activate” button and ponying up $9.99 for a registration key.

The app comes in three versions, with support for ARM V6, V7, or an ARM V6 CPU with VFP instruction set. You’ll probably have best results with a newer device fast processor.

Controls are pretty simple. When you launch the app you’re presented with a file browser to select the media you want to play. Once it’s playing, just tap the screen to bring up a menu that lets you pause, fast forward, rewind, or resize the video.You can also click an information buton to get details about the audio and video formats.

Some users have reported that audio and video goes out of sync when playing some videos on some handsets, so I recommend taking the free version for a spin before registering for a full license. But for now, RockPlayer is without a doubt the best video player available for Google Android devices — with the possible exception of the Archos 5 Internet Tablet and Archos 7 Home Tablet, which both come with Archos media playback software.

Update: RockPlayer is now available from the Android Market. You can read about the full version here.

RockPlayer is hands down, the best video player I’ve tried for Google Android. The only catch was that the version I wrote about last week was a private beta that wasn’t available to the general public (unless you searched for a hacked version that had been released in the shadier corners of the internet). Today, the developer has launched a public beta version of RockPlayer, which you can download and install for free.

The beta expires on July 15th, and you’ll have to uninstall any previous version of the software to install the new version. But here’s the good news: RockPlayer Beta supports Android 1.6 through 2.2 and can handle a wide array of video formats including AVI, MKV, RMVB, FLV, MP4, 3GP, WMV, MOV, ASF, DiVX, Xvid, H.264, and RV40.

You’ll need an ARM v6 or ARM v7 phone to use RockPlayer and you’ll need support for VFP. The HTC G1, G2, and G3 are not supported.

If you haven’t tried RockPlayer yet, go download it. Now.