I recently started using a piece of software that I haven't seen mentioned on this forum and wanted to recommend: MPlayer. It's a free and open-source command line media player that will play more formats than ANY other media player out there. If you'd rather use a full GUI (like me), use MPUI. Just download the .exe's for both programs, put them in the same folder, and run MPUI.exe (less than 4MB total for the install!). MPUI has a package with both files already in a .ZIP file.
MPlayer is very nice, but i personally prefer Media Player Classic and ffdshow. MPlayer's lack of a good GUI is a big downside(MPUI is decent but not that great)
For a such a player to be non-GUI'd in this day and age is rather surprising to me and I could only understand it if it were perhaps geared for older Microsoft Os's. However, I don't mind if something like an audio or video encoder doesn't have a GUI so long as there's a decent frontend for them.
...uh, the GUI front-end for MPlayer "is" MPUI...
According to the site, "hard-core" Unix users don't mind the fact that its command line (the OS it was originally designed for), but us Windows users sure do appreciate a user-friendly GUI. When you use it in conjunction with MPUI, you really have no idea you're using a command line program, so its really not a problem.
I too find it interesting that command line programs like this exist in this day and age, but there are some other great pieces of software out there just like it. Contig from Sysinternals is another example (that has a GUI available as well).
...uh, the GUI front-end for MPlayer "is" MPUI...
he said a "decent" front-end. MPUI is horrible
Why do you find MPUI so terrible (compared to VLC for example)?
my main reason for not liking it is its resizing of a movie. for instance, if you play a movie and add subttiles to it, it plays fine. but, if you use MPUI to make it fullscreen, the subtitles don't show up in the black line while if you run mplayer in console mode, the subtitles in fullscreen go to the black area and let me see the movie like i should be seeing it.
the black icons that it has suck as well. and also, the seekbar doesn't work like it should. it only goes up to 10 seconds or more, but i guess that's allright.
I was reading somewhere, don't know where after this thread started that the GUI available for it doesn't even support/use all of the backend applications functions.
In any event I've never used it and probably never will so it's pointless for me to comment any further about it as I have no experience with it at all, and since TeeJay3800 likes it I'll leave it at that.
You're right, it doesn't support all of MPlayer's functionallity. From MPUI's site, "It does not support every feature of MPlayer ? there are just too many of them ? but it is a solid ?workhorse? media player tool suitable for most, if not all, everyday needs." Probably not anything that would affect the average user.
What makes you want to use this over VLC and media player classic?
Until I build my new computer in a few months, HD space is at a premium for me. Comparatively, VLC is a huge install, and MPC while smaller than VLC is, still larger than MPlayer. MPlayer also plays EVERY file format, whereas the other two only play most.
Basically, MPlayer lets you play any media format you'll come across, while only taking up 4MB on your HD. If you want something with a very large feature set, obviously VLC is a better choice.
you like spreading false info, don't you?
mplayer does NOT play every format. do you really thing it's going to play those 8-bit formats that were present on those old Ataris?
second of all, vlc and mplayer are both based on ffmpeg(which pretty much means that they use the SAME decoders).
but if you're REALLY concerned about HD space, then yeah, mplayer would be the best solution. but if you want more simplicity in your listening or viewing experiance, then mpc with ffdshow or vlc is a better solution.
I don't know about you but every one of my computers has at least an 80gig HD. That means I don't care how big a program is but only how good it is. If it doesn't do anything better then theres no point in using it.
you like spreading false info, don't you?
mplayer does NOT play every format. do you really thing it's going to play those 8-bit formats that were present on those old Ataris?
No, friend, I don't like spreading false information. How many people are going to try to play an 8-bit file format these days? It IS true that MPlayer will play almost every format that you'll come across today. It is also true that it will play as many, or more, formats than programs that are many times larger in size.
If you like VLC or others better, then use them. I only started this thread because I hadn't seen MPlayer mentioned here and thought it was worth bringing up.
Not trying to attack you or anything. I just wanted to know why you think its better. If size is the only thing then its not worth it to me personally.
I haven't even tried Mplayer on windows.(only with a few linux live cds)
Yeah pretty much size and simplicity. I feel it does a lot considering how small and simple it is. Just thought it was worth mentioning.