CineXplayer, the go-to iOS app for playing pretty much any kind of video you can throw at it, has been updated to include virtual surround sound. This gives you surround sound in stereo speakers or headphones instead of mixing Dolby Digital 5.1 surround down to a plain stereo signal.
CineXplayer was already the first iOS app to work with Dolby to put AC3/eAC3 sound into the app, and it already has 3-D capabilities (if you like that kind of thing). Now it will take the full surround sound track from a movie and convert into faux surround. Sure, it works great with headphones, but pair this with a JawBone JamBox and something amazing happens.
The latest Live Audio update to the JamBox‘s firmware added in the ability to process and project 3-D sound. And it turns out that CineXplayer’s output plays nice with Live Audio. If you have both, download some samples from Dolby Labs to test it out. Better still, head to the site using CineXplayer’s brand new in-app browser and check the demos out direct. It’s pretty amazing.
There are other new features, too. You can play movies from any network attached storage (NAS) devices you own, as well as send video via AirPlay mirroring, double subtitle support for two languages simultaneously and 3-D video output.
And this comes in addition to CineXplayer’s support for almost all video codecs, and its rock-solid, smooth playback. Many other apps promise more features, and add them in faster. But NXP, the company behind CineXplayer, is a lot like Apple. It waits until it can do something properly before releasing it.
[Thanks Aaron!]
