VPlayer Unlocker

Summary

Unless you're a fan of converting video formats and codecs you will join me in raising your fist and shaking it in frustration at the countless different formats that exist, especially when all you want to do is watch a few videos on your Android device. Fortunately, you can always download a player such as VPlayer that promises to support any number of formats. In order to benefit from the app for longer than seven days you will also have to download VPlayer Unlocker.

Test device: Samsung Galaxy Note
Android version: 2.3.6

The application takes up 4,10 MB and if you want to keep using it after the seven day trial period is up you will have to download VPlayer Unlocker.

Upon starting the app you will see a brief update concerning changes that have been made to the app since the last versions came out. From there you can go straight to the main menu, which is kept nice and minimal, just the way I like it. Let me rephrase that and explain that there's no actualy main menu window, and there's no welcome screen or tutorial page, either. The naked interface turns out to be a media browser that lists all videos saved to the the device's library, and I love that the app located and lists said files without having to be prompted. Swipe left in order to access the file manager, and swipe right to access the streams.

What is VPlayer?
According to the developers you can expect the following from VPlayer:
VPlayer is a HW accelerated Media player for Android. Dual Core/High end devices can play 720p even 1080p MKV/AVI/MOV/FLV/TS/M4V/3GP.
It also promises to drain less battery due to the hardware accelaration.

Which formats and codecs does VPlayer support?
Formats

• AVI,MOV,MKV,FLV,AVI,3GP,3G2,ASF,WMV,MP4,M4V,TP,TS,MTP,M2T

Video Codecs

• HW : MPEG-4,H.264,H.263
• SW : MPEG-4,H.264,RMVB,XVID,MS MPEG-4,VP6,H.263,MPEG-1,MPEG-2

Audio Codecs

• DTS,AC3,AAC,Vorbis,FLAC,MP3,MP2,WMA

The menu
There's a small button located at the top right that harbours the following options:

• Buy (should you wish to keep enjoying the VPlayer beyond the seven day trial period you will have to purchase the Unlocker)
• Open URL
• Update
• Settings
• End

The settings are no doubt the most interesting feature. This is where you can adapt and adjust the VPlayer to your heart's content: video quality, buffer size, meta coding, display settings, duration of search, etc. You can also adjust settings for the file manager and the subtitles (font size, font style, colour, position, etc.).

Hit Information if you want to consult the user manual.

Video formats:
Settings aside, the main function is to allow users to watch a large number of different video formats without too much hassle. Thorough reviewer that I am, in order to try out a bunch of different formats I have converted a video to all formats on my computer and come up with the following:

I was able to playback and watch all save one video formats on the Samsung Galaxy Note. The odd one out is the 1080p- WMV file, which was played back really slowly, although the audio was good.

The subtitles were also displayed. As mentioned, there are tons of settings options for the subtitles, so play around with them till you get them just right.

Bottom line:
We had tested the previous version of Vplayer (0.94) and since then the app has improved by leaps and bounds. It’s a great media player, even for custom ROM users (for CM7, MIUI, etc.). VPlayer Unlocker supports MKV, FLV, MOV and AVI files.
 

If you like minimalism you're in for a treat: VPlayer Unlocker is highly functional, but the design is nice and lean and the menus don't feel cluttered. The interface is equally clean looking and controls are easy. Brightness can be adapted by swiping up/down the left side of the display; the volume can be adjusted by doing the same thing but on the right hand side of the display. Just hit the screen and the control elements, the menu button, the time and battery life pop up. Settings can be accessed via the menu button where you'll find four tabs (Video, Audio, Text and “Divers”). The time display is very well done: when you navigate the timeline the time display pops up in the middle of the display.

The player remembers where you left off whenever you interrupt a playback, meaning that when you start up the same video it will begin playback wherever you left off. I'm a big fan of these thoughtful types of details—you can tell that the developers really invested time and energy when creating this app.

VPlayer Unlocker performed quite well throughout my test run – i.e. both before and after installing the Unlocker – save for one crash that a followed a video that had snagged and was dead to the world for a full two minutes. After the two minutes playback picked up where it had left off, as though nothing had happened.

If there is a bitter pill to swallow when it comes to VPlayer Unlocker is that the Unlocker – which is absolutely necessary should you want to keep using the app beyond the seven day trial period – costs EUR4,68. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's still worth it for users who watch a lot of videos on their devices. We're happy to say that VPLayer Unlocker can be downloaded from the AndroidPIT App Center for only EUR1,69 this week only.