Best Video & Music Media Streaming Player

[mydave]

With years of collection, we amassed a large amount of recorded & ripped videos in multiple formats. They are stored in an HP MediaSmart Server, which is an UPNP Media Server & DLNA compliant, and in some NAS drives.
We play the videos on TV by streaming wirelessly using Media Players (WDTVLive, Roku, etc . . .) and randomly to Android tablets.
Never could we stream anything to our iPad. We tried several players, paid and free, none would access the server. Some would access a computer with certain limitations. We are about to give up trying.

Until we found this:

OPlayer HD By olimsoft $4.99
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oplayer-hd-best-video-music/id373236724?mt=8
Compatibility: Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Compatible with iPad.
OPlayer HD is used to boost your iPad's media abilities, you can also use it to streaming audio and video over the internet.
OPlayer plays almost any file formats in your iDevice, no need to spend several hours to convert your videos.

OPlayerHD Lite - the best free video and music media player for iPad By olimsoft
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oplayerhd-lite-best-free-video/id385896088?mt=8

We tried the HD version. It accesses and streams flawlessly avi, mkv, mp4, m4v etc... in h.264 720p. Of course it plays downloaded videos beautifully. There are other features which we haven't try.

Perhaps we could receive recommendation from other users for similar great apps and/or the uses.

 

[dhewson777]

I started with OPlayerHD, it is very good, but for ease of use I now use NPlayer.

 

[mydave]

Well. I think that I must revise my selection. Here, the best performer and free.
MoliPlayer https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moliplayer-free-movie-music/id488691300?mt=8
and
MoliPlayer HD https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moliplayer-hd-free-movie-music/id503831696?mt=8
FAQ FAQ | ????
Description:
Yes. You read it right: MoliPlayer is free and will always remain free. Better yet, it is 100% ads-free.
If you enjoy watching videos on your iPhone or iPad, but don’t care about tech jargon like “transcoding”, “formats” or “codecs” etc, MoliPlayer is the hassle free app for you. MoliPlayer basically plays “anything you throw at it”, MOV, RMVB, AVI, WMV, MP4, MKV…you name it.
MoliPlayer also supports streaming directly from you PC and NAS through DLNA/uPnp as well as playing directly to smart TVs. Better yet, you can choose to download the video from your DLNA enabled NAS or PC.
Key features:
1. Plays almost all VIDEO formats: avi, mkv, mp4, h.264, rmvb, wmv, flv, ts, m2ts, and vob. etc.
2. Plays almost all MUSIC formats: aac, mp3, ape, flac, and ogg etc.
3. Displays almost all SUBTITLES: embedded or seperate: srt, ssa, and *.ass etc.
4. Plays, with hardware decoding, HI-DEF (720p/1080) videos of certain file containers not native to iOS: mkv, m2ts and flv etc.
5. EASY wireless upload through http, ftp, and DLNA/uPnP, and SAMBA.
6. FAST USB download through iTunes
7. STREAMs videos directly from PC, NAS, and wireless Hard Disk.
8. Plays videos directly to smart TVs, apple TVs or even XBox 360 through DLNA or Air Play
9. Full PASSWORD protection at app start and for individual folders. *
10. Easy GESTURE control, swiping for volume, brightness, and FF/REV.
11. Plays at variable SPEED from 1/10x to 4x.*
12. IMPORT your favorite videos from your iOS album to stream to TV or protect with password.*
13. BACKGROUND playback while the screen of your phone is turned off.
14. MANAGES videos in folders and sub-folders
15. Plays video ATTACHMENTS from emails and other iOS apps like phone drive with "Open in".
16. Different THEMES available for you to choose from.
17. Switches between multiple SOUND TRACKs.*
18. Brand new UI for MUSIC playback
19. Share what you are watching with friends on twitter & facebook

My focus is on the streaming feature. This app finds, connects and streams all without any hassle. Ironically, the free apps work way better than many paid apps .