Saturday, November 27, 2010

How To Watch Almost Any Type of Video On Your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch

How To Watch Almost Any Type of Video On Your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch: "

watch iphone moviesWe recently covered the launch of the iOS version of VLC Media Player making life much easier for Apple users who don’t want to have to convert videos to watch them on their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

While VLC seems to have cornered the market with its multi-platform video player for Macs, Windows and Linux users, another lesser known app has come to the iOS platform, in the form of OPlayer Lite, with far more features that may leave VLC in the dust. There are two versions of OPlayer available in the iTunes store, OPlayer Lite for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and OPlayerHD Lite for the iPad [iTunes link], while the VLC Media Player [iTunes link] app is compatible with all iOS devices.

How To Transfer Videos From Your Computer

The easiest and fastest way to transfer videos from your computer to your iOS device is by using your USB. Hook up your device to your computer, launch iTunes and navigate to the tab which shows all installed apps.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to ‘File sharing.’ Any apps that allow direct file transfers from the computer to the iOS device will be listed here. Select OPlayer Lite or VLC Player and you can add files to your video library.

watch iphone movies

Another method in which you can transfer files using OPlayer HD Lite is over the air. Connect to the same wireless network and launch OPlayer HD Lite. At the bottom of the screen, select the ‘More‘ tab, and select Wifi Transfer.

watch ipod video

Make a note of the IP address and enter it in your browser. You will be then be able to upload files one by one directly from your computer. Of course this is a much slower method, and has been said to affect your device’s battery life. Using the USB takes about 1 minute at most to transfer files as large as 1.5GB. Be sure to keep the WiFi transfer window open as you copy files otherwise the connection will be lost.

watch ipod video

With both VLC and OPlayer, you can close the program and resume your video at the exact point where you stopped.

How To Watch Videos From Your Inbox

If you want to watch a video sent to you via email, download the video in the native mail client. When you come to open it, if you’ve already installed VLC, you will be prompted to open it using VLC, or another program.

watch ipod video

If you would prefer to use OPlayer, click on ‘Open in…‘ and a list of available programs will be displayed. Select OPlayer and your video will launch immediately.

watch ipad video

The main difference between VLC and OPlayer when it comes to watching videos from your inbox is that OPlayer saves them on your device whereas to play them again using VLC Player, you would have to download it to your computer first and then transfer it to your iOS device.

Why Choose OPlayer?

watch ipad video

If your priority is functionality, OPlayer is probably better suited for you. Where OPlayer is ahead of VLC in the game is that it allows you to create playlists, and organise your videos into folders, directly on your iPad.

VLC’s playback of HD video also leaves something to be desired, and is accompanied by a warning that the iPad will not be able to playback the video properly. While OPlayer handles it much better, the quality still isn’t as good as you’d expect it to be.

Subtitles have been temporarily disabled in VLC Media player, so if you watch a lot of foreign films, you’d be better off using OPlayer Lite, at least for the time being.

Another major difference between the two is the extent of control you have over the video settings. With VLC, you cannot adjust your settings at all, whereas with OPlayer you have control over the aspect ratio, audio stream index, subtitle stream index and more.

OPlayer has additional features including streaming videos, an inbuilt browser and direct downloads to your iOS device.

Why Choose VLC?

watch ipad video

If you want a little bit of eye candy, VLC will appeal to you more. While there is no organisation available in VLC, the general UI is much more appealing than OPlayer’s plain appearance.

Unlike OPlayer Lite, VLC is ad-free. A small ad is featured at the top of the screen in OPlayer Lite during video playback which can be a little bit distracting.

watch iphone movies

Both players allow you to delete videos directly from your device and resume playback if you close the app, in the same place where you stopped.

How do you watch videos on your iOS device? Let us know in the comments.


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Domize offers fast, powerful, find-as-you-type domain name search

Domize offers fast, powerful, find-as-you-type domain name search: "
domize

Coming up with a good domain name these days is akin to finding a parking spot in New-York. Accordingly, tools for finding free domain names abound, and most of them offer some sort of a 'brainstorming interface'. The idea is to help you come up with a domain name nobody (including yourself) considered before.


Domize is one of the nicer attempts at this sort of thing. At its simplest form, it's a very fast find-as-you-type service for free domain names. As you type each new letter in the name of your domain, Domize quickly checks whether or not that domain name is free for .com, .net, .org, .co, .us and .biz.


But as I said, that's just scratching the surface of what Domize can do. Click Options and you can change the TLDs (top-level-domains, such as .at, .me and others), toggle the find-as-you-type functionality, and change the domain registrar used.


Once you're done tweaking the options, click Advanced to find out what neat syntax directives Domize supports. It actually has its own expression language: You can type something such as [like:cool] to search for synonyms of the word 'cool' (coolheaded.net is up for grabs, by the way).


When you finally find a domain you like, hovering over the TLD shows a pop-up with price quotes from several different registrars, usually with significant differences in price. This is a beautiful tool.

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Domize offers fast, powerful, find-as-you-type domain name search originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SiteLauncher for Chrome lets you jump to sites using a single keystroke

SiteLauncher for Chrome lets you jump to sites using a single keystroke: "
sitelauncher

Back in 2008, Lee covered SiteLauncher for Firefox. It's a simple add-on that provides you with a customizable 'shortcut panel' for your favorite websites. SiteLauncher for Chrome provides basically the same service, but for Google's browser. I've been using it for a few days now, and while it's not perfect, it's still very handy.


Pros: When it works, it really does provide single-keystroke access to the sites I need. Ctrl+Space and then d can take me to Download Squad. I like it. It's very customizable. You can create and delete groups, move sites from group to group, etc. The hotkey assignment GUI is well thought-out. You can see at a glance what hotkeys are already used.

Cons: It doesn't always work. Sometimes I hit Ctrl+Space and nothing happens. That's mainly when the address bar ('Omnibar') is in focus, and I suspect it's due to Chrome's limitations. Still, it's annoying. It's one of those add-ons that takes some getting used to, but once you're addicted, you want to use it all the time. Having it work intermittently just keeps the habit from forming.


Okay, that was just one con -- but it's a big one!


Bottom line: Awesome add-on, if only it worked all the time.

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SiteLauncher for Chrome lets you jump to sites using a single keystroke originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cool Websites and Tools [November 26th]

Cool Websites and Tools [November 26th]: "

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. You can make use of them without spending a dime. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe here.

Add Your Website Here!

Touch Test – If you suspect your Android phone’s touchscreen does not accurately register your touches, there are not many tools you can confirm your suspicions with. What you need is a touch-tracking application that will display the path of your touch as you use the screen. This is precisely what this Touch Test app offers. Read more: Touch Test: Touch Screen Test App For Your Android Smartphone

Email Oracle – Would you not want to track your emails? It would be a great way to determine when somebody had opened your email and were still not replying. There are numerous web services that let you do this in different ways. But one of the most effective ones is Email Oracle. Read more: Email Oracle: Track Emails & Know If They Have Been Opened

Synnk – Are you planning an event and want to invite your friends? Many online services let you do this for free. Usually they ask you to sign up for an account first. If you want to have the event created the quickest way, without going through any registration, then you need to check out Synnk. Read more: Synnk: Easy & Quick Event Organization Through An Email

Untabbed – When you get results from Google search, you open each one in a new tab and jump from one tab to the next, finding whatever you are looking for. The results page leaves a lot of unutilized white space to the right. This space is utilized by “Untabbed” to help you get your results on the same page, without opening extra tabs. Read more: Untabbed: Opens Google Search Results On The Same Page

Slidedeck – Web developers are always on the lookout for visually appealing and effective ways to present data. One technique that site visitors usually appreciate is data presented as slideshows. Often to organize your information as a slideshow, you need to go through extensive coding and spend a great deal of time. But this entire process is made simpler by SlideDeck. Read more: SlideDeck: Present Your Website Data Effectively As A Slideshow

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.


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