Need an ultralight video player

punchy71 · 08-18-2012, 04:21 PM

Hi,

I am looking for suggestions and recommendations for an ultralightweight video player that would work well in the Fluxbox desktop environment.

Thank you

frankbell · 08-18-2012, 09:00 PM

I don't know whether you'd call it ultra-light, but I use VLC because, if it doesn't play in VLC, it probably won't play in Linux. You can run it from the command line: http://www.videolan.org/doc/vlc-user-guide/en/ch04.html

Of course, there's mplayer, which doesn't need X.

Xine also works and plays well with Fluxbox, as does Totem (your user agent icon indicates Ubuntu). Pretty much any video player will work well with Fluxbox as long as the necessary libraries are installed on your system.

jk07 · 08-18-2012, 10:56 PM

I'm not sure how lightweight it is, but the Parole video player comes with Xubuntu (Xfce desktop) so I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that it is lighter weight than some others.

SandsOfArrakis · 08-19-2012, 03:42 AM

I agree with Frankbell. VLC is one of the first programs I install if it doesn't come with the distribution itself already. Never found a better player for Linux or Windows.

clifford227 · 08-19-2012, 05:09 AM

I use fluxbox and mplayer (not Gmplayer, the gui for mplayer).

mplayer is simple and easy to use if you configure the mouse bindings (my mouse buttons control volup/voldown, toggle fullscreen/window, osd show time).

I use key bindings too, for secondary functions like switch audio stream, switch subs, switch aspect.

there is no GUI or menu, not even a window title bar.

cascade9 · 08-20-2012, 04:53 AM

VLC is a great player in many ways, but its not exactly light. Its also a real pain to try to get VDPAU, XvBA or VAAPI (hardware video decoding) working with VLC.

I'd try mplayer, maybe a couple of the mplayer fronteneds (eg gmplayer) Xine, Totem, and xfmedia, and see which one you like and is lightest.

redfox2807 · 08-20-2012, 06:39 AM

My guess pure Mplayer is the most lightweight video player for linux in case that's really critical and it's compatible with any WM/DE available as it needs nothing more than X. You can use it even in console, but the movie will be ascii-arted in that case. In case it's not that critical, VLC as suggested above is a great choice.