HD Video Player All Formats

Review by eFreeware

HD Video Player All Formats is a free Android app from ASD Dev Video Player for All Format, published under the Video Players & Editors category. Its pitch is breadth: one player that opens the video and audio files already sitting on your phone, without you having to think about codecs or containers first. That is the reason to consider it, and it is also the standard it has to meet.

The app has been on Google Play since August 2016 and has passed 100 million installs, with a 4.3 average from more than 365,000 ratings. Those figures tell you it is widely used rather than niche, though they say nothing about how it will behave on your particular device or with your particular files.

What interests me most is the combination of playback and library management in one place. The developer lists MKV, MP4, M4V, MOV, 3GP, FLV, WMV, TS, MP3 and MPG among the formats it handles, along with HD, Full HD, 4K and Ultra HD playback. If your media is scattered across a phone and an SD card in several formats, a single app that scans, plays and organizes all of it is a sensible thing to want.

One player for a mixed shelf of files

Format support is the headline, and the list is long enough to cover most of what people actually accumulate: MKV rips, MP4 downloads, MOV clips from a camera, older 3GP files, plus MP3 and other audio.

Speed comes from a newer decoder plus an extension mode. In plain terms, that is the part of a player that decides whether a high-bitrate file runs smoothly or stutters, and having a decoder option to fall back on is useful when one file refuses to behave. I would treat the smoothness claims as something to verify against your own library rather than a guarantee.

Casting to a TV is included, which matters if you would rather watch on a larger screen than a phone. The app also plays video in a pop-up window, in split-screen, and in the background as audio, so a clip can keep running while you do something else on the device. Those three modes cover different habits: the floating window for glancing at something while working, split-screen for side-by-side use, and background audio for treating a video like a podcast.

Subtitles, downloads and the rest of the toolkit

Subtitles get their own attention. The app includes a subtitle downloader, so you can pull in captions for a file rather than hunting for them separately. There is also a video downloader and MP3 downloader built in, with a playlist you can build from what you have downloaded. The picture here is an app that wants to be the place media arrives as well as the place it plays.

Audio playback is treated as a first-class feature rather than an afterthought. The app works as an MP3 and MP4 player, supports playback speed changes and dual audio, and includes an equalizer with bass boost and a virtualizer. A sleep timer is available for both video and music, which is the kind of small addition that makes the app usable at bedtime without you having to stop playback manually.

The library side is handled by a built-in gallery for photo albums and a file manager that identifies video and music files on the device and SD card automatically. You can browse and search media, build playlists, and search by artist, album or genre. The app also filters duplicate videos, photos and media files, which is a quiet but welcome feature for anyone whose storage has filled up with copies of the same clip.

Controls you can learn once and forget

A good deal of the day-to-day experience comes down to gestures and playback options. The app uses gestures to control volume, playback progress and brightness, so the common adjustments happen on the video surface itself. It also supports pinch to zoom, auto-rotation, aspect ratio changes and a screen lock, which between them cover the usual annoyances of watching on a phone: a video that will not fill the screen, a display that rotates when you do not want it to, and accidental taps mid-scene.

There are smaller conveniences too: a quick mute option on the player screen, a night mode to reduce blue light, and multiple themes including gradient and custom options. Recently played videos and songs are tracked with options to resume or start over, which is the sort of thing you only notice when it is missing.

The most recent update adds HDR playback on supported devices, a Clip Cut tool for trimming video moments, customizable playback controls and a refreshed Material Design interface, alongside performance and bug fixes. Clip Cut is the addition I would watch most closely, since trimming a clip is a genuinely useful thing to do without exporting the file to a separate editor.

What the app asks of you

The app is free to download and supported by ads, and it also offers in-app purchases. The developer describes it as totally free, which is true in the sense that you do not pay to install it, but the presence of ads and purchases means the experience is not entirely without commercial elements. Whether any of that gets in the way of playback is something you will judge for yourself once it is on your device.

The app asks for write access to external storage. That is what allows the app to manage local files. It is a broad permission, and it is the reason the app can act as a file manager rather than just a player. If you keep your media on an SD card, this is the access that makes the automatic scanning work.

The practical requirement is simply that your media lives on the device or the card you have inserted. The app is built around files you already have rather than a streaming catalog. The app has no ties to third-party content platforms, which is worth keeping in mind if you are used to players that bundle in online sources.

Getting the most out of it

The sensible first move is to let the app scan and then organize what it finds. The library it presents should be cleaner than a raw folder view. Searching by artist, album or genre is quicker than scrolling once the scan is done, and building playlists from downloaded files keeps the things you actually watch within reach.

For playback, the gesture controls are worth learning early, since volume, brightness and progress all live on the video surface. If a file stutters or refuses to play properly, the decoder and extension mode options are the first thing to try. Aspect ratio and pinch to zoom handle files that were framed for a different screen, and the screen lock prevents stray taps when you are holding the phone at an angle.

For audio, the equalizer with bass boost and virtualizer is there if you want to shape the sound, and the sleep timer is useful for listening as you settle in for the night. Background audio playback means a video can keep running while you use other apps, which is a reasonable way to listen to something long without keeping the screen on.

If you keep a lot of files on a card, the file manager gives you a way to manage selected items without leaving the app. Night mode is a small but sensible touch for evening viewing, and the quick mute is handy when you need silence immediately.

A broad player for people with their own files

HD Video Player All Formats covers a lot of ground: a wide format list, HD through 4K playback, casting, subtitles, a floating window, background audio, an equalizer, a file manager and a downloader.

This suits people who keep their own library and want one player to handle video and audio together, especially those who watch on a TV via casting or want a floating window while doing something else. If your viewing is mostly rented or streamed, the app's strengths in local file handling will matter less. For a local collection, it is a reasonable default to try.

What's new in version v12.1.467

✨ Your player, your way—customize playback controls 🌈 Enjoy HDR playback on supported devices ✂️ Trim your favorite video moments with Clip Cut 🎨 Explore a refreshed Material Design interface 🚀 Smoother performance and bug fixes for a better viewing experience