I’ve been searching for a decent DLNA client for iOS for years only to find constant **bleep**. Even the ones you would normally believe to be solid (VLC) are subpar. I went through so many and finally lately I have found the one, I think: Infuse 2.
It plays everything the others lack in one or the other… MP4, MKV, WMV, FLV, AVI and other obscure **bleep**. For audio tracks, it does AAC, MP3, FLAC, OGG, AC3 etc.
It loads indexes and thumbs quickly and the video is smooth and the best and most consistent I’ve seen yet. I’m finally satisfied.
See their site for a rundown of it all:
http://firecore.com/infuse
There’s two caveats only that I should tell you. It is free, but it is crippled until you buy the full version via in-app, and it’s a bit steep, about $7. What you won’t be able to do in the free one is stream. you can only download first then play. But at least you can get a feel of the interface and feel of it. I was very apprehensive about paying the $7 or whatever without even being able to know if the steaming sucked like the rest or not.
I took a blind chance and I’m pleased that I did. It was worth it to me to finally have a DLNA client that actually worked.
The other caveat is it only plays video. It doesn’t stream audio. But I presume that is “for now”, since it’s still kind of new and they are still adding features. I trust they will add that soon enough. So it’s a video only streamer. But I am fine with that.
Failing that, there’s another one that is not nearly as good as infuse, but it still works better than the other **bleep**.
It’s VidOn, here’s the site:
http://www.vidon.me/vidon_player.htm
It’s free actually, and detects/navigates the NAS smoothly and quickly as well. Pro: it also does audio. Con: it may require one of those **bleep** servers you’ve gotta install to transcode for full format support.
On the other hand, Infuse takes care of any needed codecs or format handling natively, so there is no middleman. You can play any video basically, directly from the NAS, no go between **bleep**.
So try both of those. If you’re cheap and are willing to sacrifice some quality for a free app with more limitations, VidOn might be fine.
Either way definitely download Infuse, even in crippled form it’s worth inspecting and checking out. And in my opinion, I bit the bullet and just decided finally having an end-all to the eternal DLNA client struggle/search was worth the few dollars they wanted. And I don’t regret it.
But overall I definitely recommend Infuse despite the cost and VidOn worked ok until I found Infuse. The rest just fail. Too much buffering, choppiness, not supporting the formats I needed, constant crashes, slow navigation, need for “helper” software installed on your computer etc. I almost gave up on it. To me, that was one of the most difficult, frustrating “trial and error to just get it to do what I freakin want” app hunts of all my time.
Buy Infuse and be done with the BS, I say.
Btw— don’t confuse your terminology. The steaming app SENDS the video. (In our case the NAS is the streaming server) What you’re technically searching for is a DLNA CLIENT, which receives the video and plays it. You could confuse others if you don’t use the right terms for what you want.
Or, at times they’re called DLNA streaming CLIENTS. The distinguishing factor / keyword being CLIENT or SERVER. That’s all.
Hey, respond and let me know what your impressions were of those two I suggested and what you decided on. I’m curious to see if you feel the same after trying those, for my own curiosity. Thanks! Good luck!