Rocket Video Player

Rocket Video Player
Rocket Video Player
General
Author	RocketRobz
Type	Media Players
Version	2.1.0
License	MIT License
Last Updated	2025/12/25
Links
	Download
	Website
	Source
	Support Author

Rocket Video Player is a video player for the NDS. It plays video files with an extension called .rvid, bringing you the ultimate in picture quality, thanks to it's lossless frame data.

To play videos, you'll need to convert them to the Rocket Video (.rvid) format using Vid2RVID.

Read this guide for how to convert a video to the .rvid format.

Features

Support for videos up to 60FPS (compatible with even the DS & DS Lite systems)!
Both 8 BPP (256 colors) and 16 BPP (RGB555/RGB565) videos are supported.
- Screen color filters are not supported for 16 BPP videos.
Support for dual-screen videos!
Support for audio up to 32khz Mono.
The video UI from the "Nintendo DSi + Internet" app, with the title bar now containing the console's set color.
Console-based file browser to search for your .rvid file.

Controls

A or Play/Pause button - Play/Pause video

L or The left tip of the play bar - Stop video

D-Pad Left/Right - Jump 5 seconds (30 seconds with R shoulder held)

D-Pad Down/Up - Jump 10 seconds (1 minute with R shoulder held)

D-Pad Left+Down/Up+Right - Jump 15 seconds (2 minutes with R shoulder held)

Select - Turn off/on bottom screen backlight (only applies to single-screen videos)

B or Return button - Exit video

Screenshots

Changelog

v2.1.0 2025/12/25

What's new?
- Switched over from devkitARM/libnds to BlocksDS!
  - Load speeds have doubled.
  - Progressive scan 8BPP 60FPS videos, interlaced 16BPP 60FPS videos, and dual-screen (but interlaced) 60FPS videos are now playable (without issues)!
  - Filesize has been reduced slightly (combined with switching to THUMB code).
- Untested: Re-added support for old Rocket Video files.
  - Support for old compressed Rocket Video files is still disabled.
Bug fixes
- Fixed interlaced 16BPP RGB565 videos not playing properly.
- Fixed filling of top/bottom borders of non-4:3 interlaced videos being a pixel off.
- As a result of switching to BlocksDS:
  - Videos should no longer freeze randomly when playing back from the DSi/3DS SD card slot.
  - 16BPP RGB565 videos no longer have vertical shaking pixels on the right-side of the screen when playing back from the DSi/3DS SD card slot.

v2.0.0

What's new?
- Videos up to 60 FPS can now be played on DS & DS Lite systems (all without memory expansion)!
- This has been achieved by allowing the .rvid format to support 256 (8 bits-per-pixel) on-screen colors (combined with dithering for reduced color banding).
- Dual-screen videos are now supported (at half the supported FPS)!
- Added support for playing 16 BPP videos with the RGB565 color mode!
- Added support for 8-bit audio playback.
- The bottom screen backlight can now be turned off by pressing the SELECT button.
- .rvid is no longer shown as part of the video's title.
- The video's title is now centered if it fits within the screen.
- The bar where the video title is shown now contains your set color in the system settings!
- The full play bar is now visible (complete with the slider)!
- Videos can now be jumped towards some seconds or minutes! (Scroll down to Video UI Controls for how to jump.)
- NitroFS has been removed, allowing a .cia build of this application to be made available for 3DS users!
- The logo for Rocket Video Player has a brand new look!
- Due to the many changes within the .rvid format, old versions are no longer supported.
Bug fixes:
- Fixed an overlooked bug in libfat where files larger than 2GB would not be read properly.
- Fixed video/audio desync issues by removing the MaxMod library and reading the correct amount of samples per-second.
Known issues
- 16 BPP RGB565 videos will have the horizontal lines on the right-side of the screen shimmer when playing back from the DSi or 3DS SD card slot. This does not occur when playing back from flashcards.
- Since prior versions, when playing back from the DSi or 3DS SD card slot, there's a rare chance of freezing (with corrupted colors for 8 BPP videos). Closing the console's lid and opening it back up (or pressing HOME twice on 3DS systems) will un-freeze the video.

Credits

AntonioND: BlocksDS.
Gericom: LZ77 decompressor code from EFE/EveryFileExplorer, and frame rate + play bar adjustment code from FastVideoDSPlayer (though not used for 24FPS/48FPS videos).
devkitPro: nds-hb-menu's file browsing code.

External links