Video Players - Need recommendations

If you're on a mac then your choices are VLC or MPlayer with varied success depending what you're trying to run. If it's MKV or OGM be prepared to deal with some frustration.

If you're on Windows then you should be using Media Player Classic with some form of codec pak, either Defiler Pak or CCCP. Media Player Classic with the right codecs will play all media and play it best especially when it comes to fancy subtitles in MKV or OGM. VLC for Windows isn't too much different from it's Mac counterpart with the exception of it being a bit more friendly. It still sucks at subtitles for MKV and OGM.

I have no idea what you would use for Linux. Probably MPlayer. It's probably better on Linux than it is on OSX but that's just a guess. Oh, I forget that VLC is cross-platform for just about everything so that will work too.



I'm curious how MPlayer is for Windows so I'm going to try it out.

..............

Well so far it's alright but it has its aspect ratios all screwed up. It can't figure out how to do a correct 4:3 at all. It always looks stretched. No clue why.

Here's a comparison between it and good ol' Media Player Classic.





Also, I tried out MKV for it and while it will play the video and audio it won't display subtitles at all. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but I went through the settings and I see jack.

Also going into fullscreen in MPlayer is rather cumbersome as you can't double click like most media players (MPC and VLC) and you either have to right click and select it or click on a small unlabeled button on the "snazzy" control window.


Oh and for those scratching their heads wondering "what the hell is this guy babbeling about subtitles for?" as mentioned earlier let me show you.

VLC and MPC:





VLC uses a default font while Media Player Classic can do all kinds of crazy business with fonts.


Oh and here's a great example of VLC just completely fucking up subtitles because it sucks like that.




Oh yeah another note on VLC. By default it generally has subtitles turned off. Not good when a lot more fansubbers these days are releasing their subtitles using softsubs in MKV.

Oh and taking screenshots for VLC sucks ass. You have to turn off video overlay. Buh. Whatever. Also the fact that subtitles fade out if you press pause so you have to take screenshots as it plays.


I'm going to guess that Mplayer sucks at MKV subtitles for Linux and Mac as well so I'd recommend using VLC for those. Unfortunate but that's probably your best option. Although I'm unsure for Linux as I've no experience there.

If you use Windows do the smart thing and use Media Player Classic.

Most amazing jew boots

I downloaded the latest release for their GUI for Windows and subtitles did not work for MKV. I did noticed that the download for the one for Windows without a gui was larger in size but since it has no gui it is unusable to me. Perhaps you could shed some light on the situation.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

If that's all that needs to be done then I wish someone would do it. Until then I will tell you to use MPC for Windows and suck it up if you're on OSX or Linux.

Oh and I'm testing GOM Player right now. It's alright but is pretty choppy compared to MPC. Also it's another player that hasn't figured out that the easiest way to do fullscreen is not a keyboard press but double click. Groan. The subtitle support for MKV is good and bad at the same time. It takes a while for subtitles to kick in when you go into fullscreen and some of them don't even display. Oh and it does a default font like VLC too but at least it doesn't garbage the subs like VLC sometimes will. It's not a terrible media player but I'd definitely say that MPC is better. It's not a bad alternative if you're getting tired of VLC though.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.