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@joshuacant: It looks like the issue must have been corrected in the interim.

Every so often the data returned by the API is a little bit off (most commonly it's just a video being in the wrong category), but someone over at Giant Bomb usually catches it pretty quickly.

@invulnerable: You're most of the way there.

One issue is that the "name:battlefield3" filter won't ever return results. The there's a space between "battlefield" and "3" in the database, so you'd need to do "name:battlefield%203".

The other issue is that, per the API documentation, expected_release_year will be empty if original_release_date is set. I thought I was going to have to recommend using two queries--one for released games and another for unreleased ones--but it appears that the API will accept a request like:

http://www.giantbomb.com/api/games/?api_key=API_KEY&filter=expected_release_year:2013,original_release_date:2013-01-01%2000:00:00|2013-12-31%2023:59:59,name:battlefield%203&format=json&limit=5&sort=original_release_date:asc

In this case that still won't return any results, but that's only because Battlefield 3 came out in 2011. If you change the request like so:

http://www.giantbomb.com/api/games/?api_key=API_KEY&filter=expected_release_year:2011,original_release_date:2011-01-01%2000:00:00|2011-12-31%2023:59:59,name:battlefield%203&format=json&limit=5&sort=original_release_date:asc

...you'll get one hit.

Hope that helps!

@kingpk: Right you are. 4.4.2 hit my Nexus 7 tonight and playback is smooth once more!

@bobby: Hopefully this is just a case of me being bad at explaining things. In order to get the prompt for third-party players, you need to long-press the play button on the screen with the video details (the one next to the download button), not the play button in the player itself. If a long-press on that one still isn't working then something may be up.

With regard to MX Player not finding the files, you might have to disable the "Recognize .nomedia" setting.

@kingpk: Thanks for testing that out. The results aren't quite as encouraging as I was hoping, but it does still seem to indicate some sort of issue with hardware decoding under 4.4. I'll still try to find some time to add a hardware/software toggle to GBVB, but if it's an OS issue there may be limits to what I can do in software and we may have to wait for an OS update to fix it completely.

December 1 Update: Over the Thanksgiving weekend I had a chance to do some digging and, unfortunately, this isn't something I can fix in the app. Something changed in the way KitKat handles videos encoded at 60fps and it looks like it's going to require a patch from Google to fix. I've filed a bug report so, with a bit of luck, an upcoming OS revision will be able to bring back 4.3-like performance.

In the mean time, one thing that may work is handing off playback to an app that supports software decoding like MX Player. It will be more taxing on your CPU and battery, so some devices may actually experience worse performance, but on more powerful devices it could be a way to restore smooth playback.

@kingpk: Could you let me know what device you're using? I've had one report from a Nexus 5 owner that seems to indicate issues with hardware h.264 decoding, but I haven't had a chance to really take a good look yet.

One thing you might try is playing the videos in a third-party app that supports toggling hardware decoding on and off like MX Player (long-pressing the play button in GBVB will let you pick a third-party player). If you could let me know if using the software decoder fixes the issue that would be a very helpful data point. It would also give you an option for smooth video playback until until I have a chance to work on the app and push out a proper fix.

This update just contains UI changes to make the app fit in better with iOS7's more minimalist appearance. Android's style hasn't changed much recently, so there isn't an equivalent update to be made at this point.

Version 2.0.5 Available

Version 2.0.5 is out now and it brings with it an iOS7-ified look. Say "so long" to that old-fashioned iOS6 style!

I also wanted to mention that there is a known issue with the video scrubber under iOS7. Although the screen will say "Slide your finger down to adjust the scrubbing rate," it is impossible to get anything other than "Hi-Speed Scrubbing." I've filed a bug report with Apple and hopefully the issue will be fixed in a future version of iOS7.

@superkcross: Broadly, the player was set up to hide as much of the UI as possible in order to maximize screen real estate for the video. Since the Navigation Bar reappears when tapped, I suppose it would make sense for the Status Bar to reappear too, so you may well see that change in a future update.

Thanks for the question!

@blacklagoon: That's a fairly specific use case, so while I can certainly keep it it mind, I don't think it's likely to reach the top of my list in the near term. Happily, in a post a few down from yours, @zero_ described an app that sounds like it might do the trick. Although I haven't used either one, Screen Lock and No Touch both look promising.

@superkcross: With Apple's media framework you pretty much get background playback for free and, unfortunately, it's not quite as straightforward on Android. I'm not sure if you'll see it rolled in as an official feature, but one way to achieve the same goal would be to long-press on the play button to pass the video off to another player. I know that some media players like MX Player have an option to continue video playback in the background, so if you're willing to add another app into the mix, you could start getting that functionality right now.

@gs_dan: Chromecast has the potential to be very interesting, but it's still a bit early to really dive in. The SDK is still in flux, which stymies development a bit, but an even bigger issues is that Google is currently requiring that developers register each Chromecast device they want their app to work with which effectively blocks distribution. When the SDK comes out of developer preview I do want to take a look, but there isn't too much I can do until then. In the mean time, you might consider looking into XBMC. It runs on quite a few different types of hardware and, if you look earlier in this thread, @louiedog mentions that he uses an Android app called Yatse to send content--including videos from GBVB--to it. I'm not sure if it would be as seamless as Chromecast is looking to be, but I think it might fit the bill.