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The Closed Captioning bible

By Werner Ruotsalainen

There is a lot of confusion (see for example THIS) around Closed Captions (CC for short); they are routinely mistaken for traditional, textual subtitles (subs for short), even in the non-TV-streaming / DVD, that is, strictly Apple world. In this article, I've elaborate on the difference, the CC-to-subs conversion and the rendering of the original (Apple) CC's in desktop and iOS players.

1. The difference between CC and textual subs

1.1 Apple's CC

As you may already know (see for example THIS), the previous iPhone model, the iPhone 4S, couldn't truly record video with more than 30 frames per second (fps) without, by 50%, decreased vertical resolution and (with the 1080p-native 4S) switching to 720p resolution. Now, let's take a look at how the iPhone 5 behaves in this respect! Can it record 30+ fps video at all?

 

iPhone 5’s have literally been flying off the shelves since their release a couple of months ago! Anyone who has a new iPhone 5 and is active, accident prone or outdoorsy; you should listen up.

 

And, with the Holiday season upon us, even if none of those traits apply to you, this is still good information to bookmark. After all, an iPhone 5 heavy-duty case can make a great Holiday gift for someone in your life who does happen to fall into the above-mentioned categories!

 

To that end, I have rounded up some of the best, rugged protection, heavy-duty iPhone 5 cases out there.  Featuring the Lifeproof frē, the Griffin Suvivor, the Otterbox Defender, Ballistic's Hard Core, Trident's Kraken, and Seidio's Convert. Read on after the break for full review details!

The player I recommend (review; another, MKV-specific one), along with the (currently, not AppStore-based) AVPlayer(HD), the most for non-DTS (that is, mostly, AC-3) MKV's on non-jailbroken devices has been BUZZ Player - it has had one of the best MKV behind-the-curtains demuxing and hardware playback.

UPDATE (10/10/2012): at DPReview, I've written a quick tutorial on how you can directly review and delete photos off your storage cards using this hack via BUZZ Player 4. See THIS.

Original article:

Have you ever envied Android / Symbian / BlackBerry / Windows Mobile (and even the forthcoming Windows Phone 8) users because of the freedom they have because of the storage cards? Now, you'll get an answer!

I've continuously been asked (see for example THIS and THIS) about how you can play back videos residing solely on an external, Camera Connection Kit (CCK)-compliant (that is, an SD card or a micro/mini one with an adapter)  storage card - or a compatible USB memory key. Up until now, I've always referred my readers to articles / videos like THIS and THIS (see the bullet starting with "Ripped movies: if you have any ripped movies or personal videos, you can use the CCK to add extra storage to the iPad"). Unfortunately, tutorials targeted at jailbroken users (for example, THIS one) haven't used symbolic links (the “magic” we'll make use of) either, meaning they relied on the built-in video / image viewer of iFile. The multimedia support of the latter isn't anything to write home about – it can only play back native iOS formats and has absolutely no advanced features.

The $39.99 Goal Zero Rock Out Portable Speaker does rock out, but they needs a few adjustments before I can recommend them for a hall of fame.

The Good

The heavy-duty case and wooden frame make for a substantial device. In other words, it doesn’t feel delicate, which is good in a portable product. For a small portable device, the sound is adequate. Not good separation, but you can’t expect that in a single-box device.  The hanging cord is a good idea and came in handy when visiting Yosemite recently where my Apple iPhone played away while the speaker hung on a door handle.

UPDATE (11/Oct/2012): the latest BUZZ Player and Good/PowerPlayer updates removed AC-3(A52), E-AC-3 and TrueHD(MLP). The developers of GoodPlayer stated (link) the patent holder asked for quite a lot money for the license. I've asked the developers whether the decoder(s) could be provided as optional In-App Purchases. HustMobile answered it might be possible.

Windows Media (WM for short) and Silverlight (SL for short) Internet TV streaming is a very popular TV broadcasting method, particularly outside the U.S. For example, on, in my opinion, the best national TV station directory, wwiTV (“World Wide Internet TeleVision”), there are at least ten directly accessible WM / SL streams for Germany (list HERE; look for the green (WM) and light blue (SL) links). And that's only the number of streams directly accessible through wwiTV – I bet many of the external links (the red / black-background “LINK” ones) also lead to WM / SL streams. (Brown links are Flash streams not covered in this article.

UPDATE (21/Dec/2012): it's BACK! See THIS.

Original article:

I've recommended AVPlayer (HD) in several of my articles as a player with an excellent video decoder and feature set and one of the most recommended, best titles for iPhones and iPads alike.

Unfortunately, it (both the small-screen and the iPad versions) has been recently removed from the AppStore. I've talked to the developer. Currently, it's unknown when AVPlayer(HD) is put back to AppStore - it won't happen in the near future (1-2 weeks), that's for sure.

You may already have noticed the word “Optimize” in the most popular video remuxing tools: Subler, iFlicks etc. In this article, I elaborate on when you will want to use it.

Some apps like the above-mentioned iFlicks doesn't let you disable it. Neither does the current beta of another highly recommended remuxer, MP4Tools. The, currently, probably most recommended remuxer, Subler, however, forces you to manually optimize if you want.

HERE, the developers stated RockPlayer2 is “the best media player on iOS” and “plays everything, playback is fluently, image quality is excelent and it brings so many innovative experiences” (direct quote).

The app is HERE and is free. If the in-filelist and during-pausing ads annoy you, you can remove them via a $5 in-app purchase. (No ads displayed during playback.)

New images of the iPad mini have surfaced on the French website nowhereelse.fr. Feast your eyes on these pictures of what appears to be a fully assembled, fully functional iPad mini.
 
                    
 
Read on and you will see in the following images, early pre-production cases for the iPhone 5, the iPod mini and the current generation iPad, alongside the current generation iPhone 4S. The infographic gives a good sense of the relative sizes of the various devices by using two devices most of us are quite familiar with, to represent the sizes of the two devices we’ve never seen.

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