The iPad’s potential as a personal video device is handicapped pretty severely by the limited file formats it supports. CineXPlayer, the latest app to sneak past the App Store approval squad, helpfully plays Xvid videos with zero conversion required. More »
Android: By default, Android phones can only handle a small number of video types, and leaves your ripped and downloaded files in the dust. RockPlayerBase, on the other hand, nimbly plays DivX, AVI, XviD, MKV and other file types. More »
HDi’s Blu-ray player is one of the first great Blu-ray + digital file players we’ve seen, being BD Live compliant and playing back DivX/XVid/WMV9/H.264/MKV files. Best of all, it’s got a built-in BitTorrent client.
The Gadget: HP’s Mediasmart Connect, a networked receiver that plays back H.264, DivX, XviD, MPEG-2, WMV video, photos, and even connects to your Media Centre to act like an extender. It’s also expandable space-wise with HP’s Pocket Media Drives, and supports 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11a/b/g/n. It comes in a glossy piano black finish which attracts dust and fingerprints as easily as an actual piano.
We’ve reviewed both the Cowon A3 and the Q5W and found them to be fantastic media players with a pretty damn wide range of video and audio format support. Cowon’s just bumped up both players to 80GB, which is great since you’re probably going to be loading both with lots of video files. We’re still waiting for it to go up to 160GB like the iPod classics though. [Cowon]
IOGEAR’s portable media player, actually named Portable Media Player, may look as generic as its name on the outside, but actually has some good features on the inside (but no screen). There’s the most unique one, the ability to upscale video files to 720P for display on an HDTV, but there’s also XviD, DivX, MPEG1/2, and full DVD menu support as well as a bunch of audio support. With a 120GB drive on board, the US$349.95 price tag doesn’t seem all that steep, but there’s probably little to no chance that most people will have the use of playing back 720P video on the go, on other people’s screens. Maybe if you traveled a lot and wanted to watch your own movies in hotel rooms? [IOGEAR]
Not only can you use this to play back streamed HD content from the Slingbox Pro HD on your HDTV, the Slingcatcher acts as a file dump for tons of file formats as well (DivX, XviD). The third and most innovative feature of the Slingcatcher is its ability to take video from your PC (either a portion of a screen or a specific window) and stream that to the Slingcatcher. It lets you watch YouTube video, ABC HD video, or anything you can play back on your computer—but on your living room HDTV.
