Droid Sector

A few days ago I’ve read on Google+ about upcoming version of Plex for Google TV and decided to test it on my Asus Transformer. I was looking for a way to watch movies on a TV screen. Connecting tablet with HDMI cable and using MX Video Player did the trick, but with local files only. DLNA apps and VLC Direct were not very convenient nor reliable.

After installing Plex server on my HTPC and adding folders with movies, TV series and music, I was able to play media on another computer, phone and tablet. Plex automatically downloads the information about media files and presents it very nicely.

It also keeps track of watched videos and maintains playback position. Media files are transcoded if necessary, so no problem with unsupported codecs on Android devices.

The same Plex app can also work as remote for a Plex client running on Mac or PC (server part is also available for Linux and compatible NAS devices).

On the left you can see how Plex looks on a computer screen, very similar to XBMC and other media centers designed to be controlled with a simple remote control. You can also stream content from over 150 popular online video, music and photo sources like Apple Movie Trailers.

Recently I tested several video players on Asus Transformer tablet. From my past experience, the most demanding task is playback of MKV file, so I tried to play 720p video with 2 audio stream and 2 subtitles.

The winner is MX Video Player, which was able to use hardware acceleration for smooth video playback and allows to switch audio streams and subtitles on-the-fly. Interface is good with native Honeycomb support. Swiping on different areas of the screen will ajust volume, brightness and playback position. Zoom video as you like with multi-touch. MX Video Player also keeps watch time and position for all files, and you can manually mark any file as finished.

Market link: market.android.com/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad

Other tested players: RockPlayer, Mobo Player and VPlayer. If you know another good player, please post comments below.

The RockPlayer allows Android phones to playback media formats not supported currently by system. Tried a few media files (wmv, avi) and it works good. The funny thing is, it look very much like stock player in Samsung Galaxy S.

Update: RockPlayer now available on Android Market, go to AppBrain or Cyrket to download it.

Support Types
Version ARM V7： Google Nexus One, HTC Desire Incredible EVO, Moto Milestone XT800, Droid Series, Acer Liquid, Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Ericsson X10, Dell Thunder Streak, LG LU2300, etc.
Version ARM V6 VFP： Samsung SHW-M100S GT-i5700, HTC Legend, etc.
Version ARM V6： All models left running Android support ARMv6 instruction set.

Old beta version:

• http://www.mediafire.com/?2ly3dgjytnd
• http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3XX6PZKH

Web site: rockplayer.freecoder.org

A free media player that plays a lot of audio/video formats. Tested with a few files (WMV,FLV,MOV,MPG) and it works well. It kind of slows down on HD videos, as well as on AVI and VOB files – apparently no hardware acceleration is present.

Full list of supported formats:
4xm/8bps/aac/ac3/eac3/amv/ape/dca/imc/alas/rm/rmvb/nuv/
ptx/tta/wma/wmv/flic/flac/flv/g726/h261/h263/h264/mp1/2/3/4/smc/tmv/dvdsub/dvbsub

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?hagtzcn7qdz

XDA thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=642713

CorePlayer for Android is currently in development; today company posted this screenshot showing playback of H.264 video. You can follow their progress on twitter and this forum thread.

Development was delayed due to lack of functions in old versions of Android NDK, and CoreCodec explained why they need it:

In the end we want CorePlayer to be 100% NDK/SDK compliant for two reasons:

• Consumer downloads that work against any device (Android Store) and for any mobile provider
• OEM expandability. In matching our consumer goal this will easily allow third parties to use CorePlayer as a compliant drop in solution without the need to one off a separate SDK.

Why we need this player on Android? Just see formats it supports:

Audio Formats:
MP3, MP2, AAC, MKA, WMA, Midi*, WAV, OGG, Speex, WAVPACK, TTA, FLAC, MPC, AMR, ADPCM, ALaw, MuLaw, G.729, GSM

Video Formats:
H.264 (AVC), AVCHD, MKV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4 part 2 (ASP), DivX, XviD, WMV*, Theora*, Dirac*, MJPEG, MSVIDEO1

Container Formats:
Flash/FLV, Matroska, ASF, ASX, AVI, PS, M2TS, TS, 3GPP, MOV, MPEG-4, OGM, NSV*

Streaming Formats:
HTTP, UDP, UDP Multicast, UDP Unicast, RDP, RTP. RTSP, RTCP (keep alive), ASX, ASF, Multicast, HTTP Tunneling

Update: This player still not released after two years of development. You can use MX Video Player instead.