Play Any Video Type on iPad with VLC

VLC is finally out for the iPad (iPhone and iPod touch too), this is great news for iOS devices because using the app you’ll be able to watch most video file types directly on the iPad without converting it first. In the past you’ve had to convert video to iPad and iPhone compatible formats which can take a while depending on the size of the file, but VLC makes that no longer necessary.

So, ready to watch just about any video type from iOS? If you have an iPad, head on over to the app store and grab a copy, it’s a free download and fairly small.

Once you have the app you’re ready to go, you can follow the onscreen instructions to copy movies over to VLC, or use it to stream, whatever works for your needs. You’ll have all the standard VLC controls too, as well as subtitle support.

VLC is a great application that’s been around on Mac, Linux, and Windows for a while now. It will play virtually any video file type or stream and even has a built in ability to rip DVD video for local storage. If you don’t have it for the desktop yet either, it’s highly recommended.

Update: based on our own experience and user reviews, it is still necessary to convert many videos to play them well on iPad and iPhone. You can learn more about converting video to iPad and iPhone friendly formats. This also offers the benefit of compressing the video and reducing file size, which may be necessary to fit more video content onto the iOS device, depending on storage capacity size of course.