Android App Spotlight #21: RockPlayer

Price: Free
Website

Early this year I ripped my thousands of TV shows and movies to 9.5 TB of external hard drives so I could access them on my home theater PC and so I didn't have to sort discs and sit through minutes of ads just to get to a menu. The format of choice for non-HD shows and movies is Xvid (you know, those .avi files) - even if you don't know what Xvid is exactly, you will probably know that the format can sometimes be played natively in hardware, but not typically. Sure, for the occasional file you might be able to transcode the video into some other playable format, but I'm lucky if I have a 50% success rate, and that's not counting if the audio and video remain in sync.

Given Android's admittedly poor management of media, we should at least be able to lord our support of a wider range of video types - especially the arguably biggest on the internet - right? Originally, the only Android app I could find to accomplish this sort of thing was yxflash, but the resulting product was unwatchable.

Spurred by I discussion I had about the disappointing Archos 7 Android personal media player, I set out to try and find another app that might be up to the task of decoding my vast library of TV and movies. It seems like I found one in RockPlayer, a  simple video player that plays all of those .avi files just as nice as you please.

The app is dead simple: choose a file, and it starts playing. Aside from a quick audio stutter when starting, the playback is flawless, as far as I could tell. There were no problems seeking, and the app even saves your place when you exit. Even though the app is in early beta, I would happily pay a Lincoln just for what I already get here.

It even plays x264 720p videos that you also may or may not be downloading from the internet! It doesn't play them very well, though. To see it in action, check out the quick video I made: