VLC for iPhone and iPod Touch Review: A Mixed Bag

Hey guys, it's Tim here with my review of VLC for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I've been a big fan of VLC for quite a while over on the computer, so now that it's available on these devices, I'm excited to take a closer look.

Before we dive into the review, let's take a quick tour of the interface. As you can see, there's an about button that shows all your legal stuff – not a big deal, but nice to have. You also have an edit button where you can delete files you don't want anymore. One thing I do have against VLC is its very simple and imperfect interface. It does organize your files alphabetically, which could get confusing with 20-40 video files loaded up – it's a big deal if you're not used to that.

I've been testing out VLC for the past little while, loading up different videos and seeing what works and what doesn't. Overall, there's some good stuff and some bad. So, I'll go ahead and give you my full review.

VLC does support mp4, which was a bit surprising since it's designed to play media files. However, it really doesn't support mp4 very well at all – I couldn't even get 360p to work before barely getting anything to show up. It's odd, considering the iPod and iPhone can handle it just fine on their own. Aside from that, VLC does run mov avi files and DIF X as well.

One thing I did want to note is the performance of the application. I'm running this on my iPod Touch 4th generation, so if you have an earlier iPhone or iPod Touch, performance might not be quite as good. However, if you have an iPod Touch 4th gen or an iPhone 4, it should be pretty much identical.

Now that we've covered the basics, let's take a closer look at how VLC handles different file types and video playback in general. For instance, when I showed this mp4 file – a high-definition 720p file – a warning popped up saying my prop was probably too slow. Yeah, it totally doesn't work – I couldn't get any of those 720p files to play.

However, when I went down to 480p, VLC did actually do pretty well. This AVI file ran perfectly, and this YouTube video didn't run so badly either. It's watchable, but not perfect. On the other hand, flash files were a breeze – no issues whatsoever when you go down to 360p.

So that's about it for VLC on iPhone and iPod Touch. Considering it's free and does play some files back, I definitely recommend giving it a try. You might be surprised at how well it works with the right video files. Just keep in mind its interface isn't perfect, and some file types don't work as well as they should.

Anyway, that's my review of VLC for iPhone and iPod Touch – thanks for watching!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys it's Tim here with my review of VLC for the iPhone and iPod Touch so I've been a big fan of VLC for quite a while over on the computer and so now that it's over on the iPod and the iPhone I'm really excited to go ahead and take a look at it so I've spent the last little while loading up a lot of different videos and testing it out and overall um there's some good there's some bad so I'll go ahead and give you guys my full review so before I begin anything let's go ahead and roll through the interface pretty quickly here there is an about button so you know you can see all your legal kind of stuff not a big deal I mean you also do have an edit button where you can go ahead and just you know delete whatever files and you don't want anymore one of the knocks I do have against it is the interface it's very simple and to be honest it's not perfect I mean as you can see here it does you know take all your files and put them into alphabetical order however I can see this would definitely get confusing pretty quick once you start to get you know 20 30 40 video files once you really start to load up VLC getting that big deal if you don't have a ton of files on here but something that I did want to note so now when you get into the performance of the application so I do want to know before we begin that this is all run on my iPod Touch 4th generation so if you have an earlier iPhone or an earlier iPod Touch performance probably will not be quite as good but if you have an iPod Touch 4th generation or an iPhone 4 should be pretty much identical so square just go ahead and just jump right into it it doesn't really play high definition video so just go ahead and show this is an mp4 file a high definition 720p rather and this warning pops up saying your prop is probably too slow and yeah it's totally odd correct it really won't play 720p anything I could I couldn't find a single video file that would work at 720p however it for a if you go ahead and go down to 480p it actually does run pretty well so here's an AVI file runs perfectly here's actually a fly foul straight from YouTube this one doesn't run perfectly but if well run it is watchable so I'm going to show you guys a quick clip of it there you go so that's actually a 480p flash file it does run as I'm sure you guys can see there there was some lag and it wasn't perfect however it was watchable and especially if you go down to 360p flash files no issues whatsoever so that's about it guys why just go you go through the format's that it does support really quickly here it does support mp4 although actually that was kinda something I thought was a little bit surprising it really doesn't support mp4 very well at all in fact I could barely 360p in before barely worked which is kind of odd considering that that's what the iPod in the iPhone that's pretty much all they run by themselves but aside from that it does run mp4 mov avi it also does run DIF X as well so here's a did X trailer I downloaded in MKV I ran pretty well this one of course was almost 720p so it didn't run very well but it was like you know it was almost watchable and VLC does support that so I believed oh it does a for support flash as well so overall I think VLC is kind of a little bit of a mixed bag it's not perfect you know I'm not big fan of the interface and a lot of the files don't run that well however overall considering that it is free and it does play at least some files back ok you know I don't really have any issues with it I definitely recommend to go ahead and pick it up you know it's obviously it's free so go ahead and download it on your device open up iTunes and then go ahead and see you know throw a few video files over there and see how it works you know you might be surprised so anyway guys thanks for watchinghey guys it's Tim here with my review of VLC for the iPhone and iPod Touch so I've been a big fan of VLC for quite a while over on the computer and so now that it's over on the iPod and the iPhone I'm really excited to go ahead and take a look at it so I've spent the last little while loading up a lot of different videos and testing it out and overall um there's some good there's some bad so I'll go ahead and give you guys my full review so before I begin anything let's go ahead and roll through the interface pretty quickly here there is an about button so you know you can see all your legal kind of stuff not a big deal I mean you also do have an edit button where you can go ahead and just you know delete whatever files and you don't want anymore one of the knocks I do have against it is the interface it's very simple and to be honest it's not perfect I mean as you can see here it does you know take all your files and put them into alphabetical order however I can see this would definitely get confusing pretty quick once you start to get you know 20 30 40 video files once you really start to load up VLC getting that big deal if you don't have a ton of files on here but something that I did want to note so now when you get into the performance of the application so I do want to know before we begin that this is all run on my iPod Touch 4th generation so if you have an earlier iPhone or an earlier iPod Touch performance probably will not be quite as good but if you have an iPod Touch 4th generation or an iPhone 4 should be pretty much identical so square just go ahead and just jump right into it it doesn't really play high definition video so just go ahead and show this is an mp4 file a high definition 720p rather and this warning pops up saying your prop is probably too slow and yeah it's totally odd correct it really won't play 720p anything I could I couldn't find a single video file that would work at 720p however it for a if you go ahead and go down to 480p it actually does run pretty well so here's an AVI file runs perfectly here's actually a fly foul straight from YouTube this one doesn't run perfectly but if well run it is watchable so I'm going to show you guys a quick clip of it there you go so that's actually a 480p flash file it does run as I'm sure you guys can see there there was some lag and it wasn't perfect however it was watchable and especially if you go down to 360p flash files no issues whatsoever so that's about it guys why just go you go through the format's that it does support really quickly here it does support mp4 although actually that was kinda something I thought was a little bit surprising it really doesn't support mp4 very well at all in fact I could barely 360p in before barely worked which is kind of odd considering that that's what the iPod in the iPhone that's pretty much all they run by themselves but aside from that it does run mp4 mov avi it also does run DIF X as well so here's a did X trailer I downloaded in MKV I ran pretty well this one of course was almost 720p so it didn't run very well but it was like you know it was almost watchable and VLC does support that so I believed oh it does a for support flash as well so overall I think VLC is kind of a little bit of a mixed bag it's not perfect you know I'm not big fan of the interface and a lot of the files don't run that well however overall considering that it is free and it does play at least some files back ok you know I don't really have any issues with it I definitely recommend to go ahead and pick it up you know it's obviously it's free so go ahead and download it on your device open up iTunes and then go ahead and see you know throw a few video files over there and see how it works you know you might be surprised so anyway guys thanks for watching