I just can't seem to find a video player out there that meets all my needs. I thought that we could talk about which player(s) that we prefer, and list all the major problems experienced on each. With that, here's my preferences.



#1: Xine

I love Xine. I really like its interface and the menu organization is great. I also have the best DVD playback experience with it. If I could, I would use Xine to watch everything (and I usually try to).

There are two major problems I've encountered with xine. First, it seems to support a limited number of codecs, and often fails to play certain types of video, either crashing or freezing. The second is speed: I've tried to do all the tweaks to get xine to not pop up that "slow playback" warning, but I haven't succeeded so far. All my other players have no speed problems at all (and given my machine specs, video playback should be a breeze).


#2: mplayer

I use this as a substitute for Xine. It has been successful at playing nearly anything that I throw at it. Also useful for embedded video in Firefox, which I don't believe is possible with xine.

My major (and most annoying) problem with mplayer is it will sometimes start skipping forward or backward throughout the video at totally random parts of the stream. Often after I manually stop the skipping, mplayer no longer recognizes keyboard input and I have to close the program (forcefully using Ctrl+C), restart the video, and find the spot where I left off. I also have a strong distaste for its user interface, and I've encountered a host of random/weird problems (such as having to manually specify the frame rate, and taking several tries until I guess the right frame rate of the video to match the audio). I'm really sick of all the stupidness with using this player.


#3: VLC

I didn't try VLC until recently, and it appears to be a better alternative to mplayer for me (although I still heavily prefer xine). I don't have any problems navigating the menus and I appreciate that fact after being forced to use mplayer for so long.

Problems include poor subtitle support, sometimes leading to subtitles not being displayed at all on certain videos. I'm also rather irate about the fact that key bindings don't seem to work half the time. I often toggle full screen mode while I'm watching a video when a IM pops up, and sometimes it doesn't work so I have to go to the menu and click the full screen toggle option. Haven't experienced any other major problems with it yet though.




Your turn.

I use (g)mplayer and VLC exclusively on my system.

Mainly VLC, since I just like the interface. Have you looked into different skins for mplayer? You might be able to find one that suits you a little better.

I've never had any of the problems you mentioned with mplayer. I use it - I think - with the xine engine. I do use Kaffeine for the rare occasion I play DVDs on a computer - mostly car trips with my laptop for the rugrats.

mplayer handles the plugins and such just fine.

I've never really tried VLC. I've heard great things about it.

same as PerfectReign for me. Kaffeine for dvd and mplayer for everything else. Have put it as standard player in konqueror simply because it can play everything and now I'm used to it. I use it in windows as well (if I ever boot windows).

If you don't like the interface of mplayer, maybe give kplayer a try, which is a frontend for mplayer, similar to kaffeine for xine.

vlc is giving me some trouble with certain codecs (youtube flv's for example) and won't play the mpeg stream of my ivtv card (both xine and mplayer play just fine), which is why I didn't bother with it so much.

xine-lib is ok. It does a great job syncing audio and video. It has poor tolerance for playback errors.

mplayer has horrible audio and video sync because it has none. It is up to the performance of the computer in order for mplayer to play well. gmplayer is horrible. mplayer is meant to be run from the command line. If you can, try using gl (OpenGL) as the video output device for better playback.

VLC is glitchy. Older versions work better such as 0.7.2. VLC does not support V4L2, so it is not capable of streaming data from a video capture card that uses V4L2. VLC has not improved for a few years. It just got worst.

well, I have a hauppauge pvr which doesn't use v4l(2), you can directly play the stream with mplayer, or via stdin with xine. vlc claims to support that kind of card and even has a setup tab for it. However, it crashes if I only try click on the arrows for changing the settings.

I'd love to use vlc, it's big advantage is, that it can encode it's output directly in any format I want, which would be cool for recording tv on the fly. I just wasn't able to make it work ...

hi
my choice is xine-lib at the backend and kaffeine as front end.
u will love it
regards,
Nirmal Tom.

I was under the impression that there was no technical difference between totem and xine or kaffine and xine. I thought that totem and kaffine were just gnome and KDE specific interfaces to xine, and with the exception of the UI change were no different from xine itself. Was I incorrect about this?

I use xine and mplayer but won't rate one above the other. Xine is good for dvds when you want to use menus. Mplayer has better aspect ratio control.

There is a xine plugin for firefox, but I find mplayer-plugin works better.

Please check out the LQ Members Choice results: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=514974

hi,
ofcourse kaffeine is the kde user interface for xine-lib.When i watch through xine interface ,i get frames dropping error, no smooth experience etc but it never happens to me on kaffeine
regards,
Nirmal Tom.

Kaffeine all the way. (Of course with all the required codecs to make it all work)

Kaffeine on Debian has got no problems. On other distros I had to go through all the hoopla of first removing the "limited" software (due to licensing issues) and then reinstalling the software for full playback support.

mplayer (and mencoder) still handle most all of what I want, without all the extra graphics.

hi,
In Powerdvd(ya, for windows),i like to scroll the wheel in mouse to speed or fast running like 2x, 3x etc.How can i make the same in kaffeine or vlc?i need the facility on mouse wheel itself

regards,
Nirmal Tom.

@nirmaltom

If you scroll your mouse on the seek bar in Kaffeine, the video moves forward or backward depending on the direction of the scroll.

Not sure if you can change the speed with that.