LinuxQuestions.org - Video Media Player of the Year

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Video Media Player of the Year

What's your preferred app for watching video?

--jeremy

I usually use VLC, so that's what I'll vote for. But I do find mpv to be much better at handling large MPEG-TS video files recorded off my TV card, and I find it much better at handling MPEG-PS (MPEG 2) videos than VLC

I use mplayer, mpv, ffplay. They work fine and are easily script-able.

The code base for mplayer may be crustier, but I think that mplayer is a little more useful.

mpv dropped DVD menu support years ago. When playing a stream mpv will start to download the whole video as soon as it starts. mplayer will stream it. That is useful if you only want to watch the first few seconds of the vid, also saves bandwidth.

Ever notice that? Start your system monitor, like gkrellm, so that you can watch the ethernet interface.

Let me get a video to demonstrate.

Code:

a=$(youtube-dl -f 18 -g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ11fPpPKwg)

Now try them one at a time and watch the ethernet.

Code:

mplayer "$a"



mpv "$a"

Unless there is something that I have missed in the man page. Where that can be changed.

But, mplayer will complain about not being able to seek backwards in an online stream, where mpv won't And mpv will use youtube-dl to get/play a vid. But, I don't like it downloading the entire video.

I find all 3 useful. ffplay is a natural for getting the exact time to cut a video with ffmpeg, such as when you are editing commercials out of a tv show capture. It will give a more accurate time than mplayer. That's my 2 cents.

long time mplayer user here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbjsb001 (Post 6199091)

I also use VLC, but curious about mpv.

Quote:

but curious about mpv

Code:

pacman -Si mpv

...

Name            : mpv

Version        : 1:0.33.0-3

Description    : a free, open source, and cross-platform media player

...

URL            : https://mpv.io/

Licenses        : GPL3

...

Provides        : libmpv.so=1-64

Depends On      : alsa-lib  libasound.so=2-64  desktop-file-utils  ffmpeg

                  libavcodec.so=58-64  libavdevice.so=58-64  libavfilter.so=7-64

                  libavformat.so=58-64  libavutil.so=56-64  libswresample.so=3-64

                  libswscale.so=5-64  glibc  hicolor-icon-theme  jack

                  libjack.so=0-64  lcms2  liblcms2.so=2-64  libarchive

                  libarchive.so=13-64  libass  libass.so=9-64  libbluray

                  libbluray.so=2-64  libcaca  libcdio  libcdio-paranoia  libdrm

                  libdvdnav  libdvdread  libgl  libglvnd  libegl  libgl  libjpeg

                  libjpeg.so=8-64  libplacebo  libplacebo.so=72-64  libpulse

                  libpulse.so=0-64  libva  libva.so=2-64  libva-drm.so=2-64

                  libva-wayland.so=2-64  libva-x11.so=2-64  libvdpau  libx11

                  libxext  libxinerama  libxkbcommon  libxkbcommon.so=0-64

                  libxrandr  libxss  libxss  libxv  lua52  mesa  mujs  rubberband

                  librubberband.so=2-64  shaderc  libshaderc_shared.so=1-64

                  uchardet  vulkan-icd-loader  wayland  xdg-utils  zlib

Optional Deps  : youtube-dl: for video-sharing websites playback

...

Download Size  : 1391.55 KiB

Installed Size  : 5069.56 KiB

...

mpv was already my unbeatable No.1 choice before I discovered its youtube-dl integration.

mpv. I'll still have to find a video file which it cannot play, and it does not distort the sound (like VLC often does) or freeze. Very good piece of software.

I voted for mpv, but I've noticed that I have more stutters and A/V desyncs with mpv than with VLC. At least on Fedora.

I always use mplayer first. I it couldn't do it, give vlc a shot.

For me, VLC has been the go-to for years. No fault, no hassle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugan (Post 6200189)

I voted for mpv, but I've noticed that I have more stutters and A/V desyncs with mpv than with VLC. At least on Fedora.

I set the "video-sync=display-resample" option and things seem to be much better.