VLC Media Player lands on the iPad and a horde of media format becomes available on the run – er, almost.

It plays virtually any video file you throw at it (including DivX and Xvid).

File management is handled via iTunes and the most magical thing is: VLC Media Player is entirely free.

It’s the best way to overcome the built-in video playback limitations of the iPad: H264, .mov and .mp4 files; so, grab your DiVX files, pop corn and welcome to the movies!

Adding video files to VLC’s playlist is pretty straightforward: hook your iPad up to iTunes, choose it from the sidebar, click the “Apps” tab, and scroll down to the “File Sharing” section.

From there you can choose VLC and add files through drag-and-drop or the “Add…” button; as soon as you do, iTunes will start copying the files over to VLC and you’ll be able to use them immediately after it finishes.

Right now there’s one catch (the only one): the iPad hardware seems to be unable to handle HD-quality DiVX, MKV

VLC Media Player [iTunes App Store]