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> <channel><title>gHacks Technology News &#124; Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials &#187; video-player</title> <atom:link href="http://www.ghacks.net/tag/video-player/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><link>http://www.ghacks.net</link> <description>A technology news blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas.</description> <lastBuildDate>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:51:26 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1</generator> <atom:link rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com"/><atom:link rel="hub" href="http://superfeedr.com/hubbub"/> <item><title>Miro 4 Beta Released, Better Performance, More Features</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/05/03/miro-4-beta-released-better-performance-more-features/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/05/03/miro-4-beta-released-better-performance-more-features/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 03 May 2011 13:25:37 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bittorrent]]></category> <category><![CDATA[linux software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mac software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[miro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=44646</guid> <description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m keeping a close eye on Miro every since the product was released as the Democracy Player back in 2006. A lot has changed since then, not only the name. The developers have pushed out the first beta of the upcoming version of Miro. Let me explain quickly what Miro is all about. Miro, in [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m keeping a close eye on Miro every since the product was released as the Democracy Player back in 2006. A lot has changed since then, not only the name. The developers have pushed out the first beta of the upcoming version of Miro. Let me explain quickly what Miro is all about.</p><p>Miro, in its core, is a video player. The developers have moved beyond that however and included lots of interesting options and features that make Miro more of a media management, downloading and viewing software.</p><p>You see, Miro supports Bittorrent, online video portals like YouTube and video conversions, something that only few video players offer at this point in time. Even better, it includes a show list to get you started right away.</p><p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/miro-media-client-570x472.png" alt="miro media client" title="miro media client" width="570" height="472" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-44647" /></p><p>As I said, <a
href="http://www.getmiro.com/blog/2011/05/miro-4-beta-available-for-testing/">Miro 4 Beta</a> introduces new features. From improvements under the hood like a noticeable better performance when using the client, over geeky stuff like navigating the user interface with the keyboard, to something for everyone like the ability to sync devices or sharing with Miro libraries on a local network.</p><p>Especially the new synchronization and sharing options could prove to become very popular on campuses, companies and other mid-sized local networks.</p><p>Here is the full feature list of the first Miro 4 Beta:</p><ul><li>Share with other Miro Libraries on your local network</li><li>Sync devices and copy media</li><li>More ways to make playlists</li><li>View the playback and download history</li><li>Improved searching and organization of your music</li><li>Easier ways to add music and video to your collection</li><li>UI Navigation with the keyboard</li><li>Better performance</li></ul><p>Not everything is explained in detail in the beta version yet. The help file for instance loads the latest stable help which does not mention the new features at all.</p><p>Probably the biggest feature in Miro 4 is the ability to import music from iTunes.</p><p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/import-music-itunes.png" alt="import music itunes" title="import music itunes" width="441" height="131" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44648" /></p><p>Even better, it is possible to monitor the iTunes library for new music to add it automatically to Miro as well. The beta of Miro is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Expect a final release of Miro 4 in the coming months. (via <a
href="http://stadt-bremerhaven.de/miro-medienwollmilchsau-in-version-4-0-erste-beta?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+stadt-bremerhaven%2FdqXM+%28Caschys+Blog%29">Caschy</a>)</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/05/03/miro-4-beta-released-better-performance-more-features/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>UMPlayer, Mplayer Fork With Interesting Features</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/31/umplayer-mplayer-fork-with-interesting-features/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/31/umplayer-mplayer-fork-with-interesting-features/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:38:33 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[apple software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mac software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[umplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[youtube]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=43344</guid> <description><![CDATA[I have reviewed several video players in the past that use MPlayer as a core component. This includes my favorite video player SMPlayer but also KMPlayer (just received an update to version 3) or MPlayer WW. UMplayer is another MPlayer fork with some interesting new features that you won&#8217;t find in the other players. I [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I have reviewed several video players in the past that use MPlayer as a core component. This includes my favorite video player <a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/smplayer-067-out/">SMPlayer</a> but also KMPlayer (just received an update to version 3) or <a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/11/mplayer-ww-lightweight-mplayer-frontend/">MPlayer WW</a>. UMplayer is another MPlayer fork with some interesting new features that you won&#8217;t find in the other players. I do not want to say to much but I&#8217;m pretty impressed by the video player.</p><p>Like all other mplayer forks UMPlayer is released for all mplayer supported operating systems, which means Mac, Windows and Linux. The Windows version comes as a web installer that requires an Internet connection to download the latest package from the developer website. I was not able to find an offline installer but it may be there somewhere on the website or forum.</p><p>Universal Multimedia Player supports the same range of input, video and audio formats as other mplayer forks. From playing audio CDs and DVD videos to streaming video and audio to popular audio and video fromats like avi, flv, mp3, mp4 or mkv: It is all there and integrated in the player. No need to download codecs or codec packages.</p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/umplayer-interface.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/umplayer-interface.png" alt="umplayer interface" title="umplayer interface" width="507" height="511" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43345" /></a></p><p>First time users will probably notice the toolbar at the top with an embedded Youtube search form. This links directly to one of the unique features of UMPlayer: Youtube integration.</p><p>You can use the search form or the separate Youtube search window to find, play and record Youtube videos right in the video player.</p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-search.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-search.png" alt="youtube search" title="youtube search" width="422" height="544" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43346" /></a></p><p>The search lists thumbnails, titles, descriptions, dates and views in a convenient listing. Filters are available to sort by most relevant to the search, most recent or most viewed. A double-click on any search result loads the video in the player.</p><p>The red recording button can capture the playing Youtube video so that it is saved to the local computer. The playback and recording quality of Youtube online videos is configurable in the settings (playback is set to the standard quality while recordings to 1080p).</p><p>Another interesting feature is the integration of the popular Shoutcast Internet radio service. Just press Ctrl-c or select Tools > Shoutcast to display a list of available stations. A double-click loads the station right in the player, a search is provided in case you do not find what you are looking for right away.</p><p>Other features worth mentioning are the built-in subtitle search, support for the majority of popular subtitle formats, audio delay adjustments , video thumbnail and screenshot maker, customizable hotkeys and advanced caching and cpu optimizations.</p><p>UMplayer has a lot to offer and it is definitely worth a closer look, especially if you like the integration of Shoutcast and Youtube in a desktop video player.</p><p>Interested users can download the latest version of <a
href="http://www.umplayer.com/">UMPlayer</a> from the project&#8217;s homepage.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/31/umplayer-mplayer-fork-with-interesting-features/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>16</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>FlashVideoReplacer, Play Web Videos In A Different Media Player</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/26/flashvideoreplacer-play-web-videos-in-a-different-media-player/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/26/flashvideoreplacer-play-web-videos-in-a-different-media-player/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sat, 26 Mar 2011 16:11:31 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Browsing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Firefox]]></category> <category><![CDATA[firefox add-ons]]></category> <category><![CDATA[flash player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[youtube]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=43076</guid> <description><![CDATA[Web video is still largely powered by Adobe&#8217;s Flash technology. Sure, some sites like Youtube begin to offer videos in different formats like WebM, but Adobe Flash is still the dominant format, even on Youtube. That&#8217;s a problem if Flash is not working properly on your system. If you experience lags, endless buffering or other [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Web video is still largely powered by Adobe&#8217;s Flash technology. Sure, some sites like <a
href="http://www.youtube.com/">Youtube</a> begin to offer videos in different formats like WebM, but Adobe Flash is still the dominant format, even on Youtube. That&#8217;s a problem if Flash is not working properly on your system. If you experience lags, endless buffering or other related issues.</p><p>So what&#8217;s the alternative? When available, use WebM or another plugin that supports streaming video. If not? One option would be to download the video to the local computer to watch it in a desktop media player.</p><p>That&#8217;s what the Firefox add-on FlashVideoReplacer does. Well, not completely, it offers much more than that. The extension basically replaces the Flash video player on the video site with an alternative, or sends the web video directly to a compatible desktop media player.</p><p>The available alternatives depends largely on the operating system, the desktop media players and the media plugins that are installed on the system.</p><p>The developer&#8217;s website <a
href="http://www.webgapps.org/addons/flashvideoreplacer">offers</a> compatibility information. Linux users for instance will see best results with the gecko-mediaplayer plugin and standalone players like SMPlayer, MPlayer or Totem. Windows users with the Quicktime plugin, Microsoft&#8217;s Windows Media Player Firefox plugin and the standalone players SMPlayer, Windows Media Player or KMPlayer. Mac users, well, they can try to use the Quicktime plugin, but there is no support for desktop media players on that operating system.</p><p>Flash may or may not be needed depending on the plugin used. The Media Player plugin for Firefox for instance requires Flash, while Quicktime does not. Standalone players do not require Flash at all. This in theory makes it possible to disable or uninstall Flash without losing video playback capabilities on supported sites.</p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-standalone.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-standalone-550x515.png" alt="youtube standalone" title="youtube standalone" width="550" height="515" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-43078" /></a></p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-videos-media-player.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-videos-media-player-550x362.png" alt="youtube videos media player" title="youtube videos media player" width="550" height="362" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-43083" /></a></p><p>The standard Flash player video interface is replaced by the Firefox add-on. It now displays options to play the video on the site with the help of another media player plugin, or to send it to one of the configured desktop media players if the standalone option is selected.</p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-videos-quicktime.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/youtube-videos-quicktime-550x455.png" alt="youtube videos quicktime" title="youtube videos quicktime" width="550" height="455" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-43084" /></a></p><p>The extension can be configured to automatically switch to another video plugin so that videos start to play right away. The configuration options are different for each replacement option. They usually include the selection of a video player alternative, quality settings, site support and the selection of a download folder.</p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/flash-video-replacer.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/flash-video-replacer.png" alt="flash video replacer" title="flash video replacer" width="431" height="452" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43080" /></a></p><p>FlashVideoReplacer detects installed media players automatically, with the option to point the extension to a custom player on the computer&#8217;s hard drive, good for video players that were not detected during scan or players that are not installed but available.</p><p>The Firefox add-on worked well on supported sites like Youtube or Vimeo. Several popular sites are on the other hand not compatible with the add-on, Gametrailers and Dailymotion for instance. The add-on supports downloading of videos from popular websites. It is for instance possible to download Youtube videos. The download capabilities fall short on a lot of other sites though. It is more of a nice to have than an actual replacement for the excellent <a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/01/download-helper-firefox-add-on/">Video Download Helper</a> add-on.</p><p>The idea to replace Flash player is great, and it works well for users who only watch videos on supported sites. It is great to watch Youtube videos on a standalone desktop player without even thinking of installing or using Adobe Flash on the computer. It is however not a complete solution, at least not yet, as it is not working on all video websites.</p><p>Firefox users who want to give this a try can download the Flash Video Replacer add-on from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.</p><p><strong>Update</strong>: Flash Video Replacer has been removed from the Mozilla Add-ons. repository. An alternative is <a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/07/play-embedded-media-in-external-media-players/">Media Player Connectivity</a> which redirects videos to external players.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/26/flashvideoreplacer-play-web-videos-in-a-different-media-player/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>9</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Image By Image, View Videos In Stop Motion</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/22/image-by-image-view-videos-in-stop-motion/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/22/image-by-image-view-videos-in-stop-motion/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:58:20 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[image by image]]></category> <category><![CDATA[portable software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[stop motion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=38236</guid> <description><![CDATA[Sometimes you may want to see a specific scene of a video, or a movie in full detail. Some action scenes for instance are to fast to see all the details. That&#8217;s where Image by Image can help the viewer with. The free sub 150k video player can play videos slower than usual so that [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Sometimes you may want to see a specific scene of a video, or a movie in full detail. Some action scenes for instance are to fast to see all the details. That&#8217;s where Image by Image can help the viewer with. The free sub 150k video player can play videos slower than usual so that it is easier to see all the details of the current scene.</p><p>The portable software is compatible with avi and wmv files, and offers a basic interface to load videos from the local system, enable the image by image mode and configure it with the Set Position button.</p><p>The video plays in stop motion, sort of when Image by Image is selected from the menubar of the video player.</p><p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/image-by-image.jpg" alt="image by image" title="image by image" width="522" height="422" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-38237" /></p><p>The program uses Microsoft&#8217;s Windows Media Player to play the video. The standard video controls are displayed below the image, it is possible to pause the video, change the volume or move to a specific position of the current video.</p><p>A right-click on the video displays a context menu with options to change the play speed, zoom in or out and control the video this way.</p><p>The Set Position button offers to display a specific video position by specifying the time of the scene. There is another option to go back and forth in steps in the video.</p><p>Image by Image can be handy for users who want to view a video in detail, and for users who need a specific screenshot taken of a video.</p><p>The software requires the Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 and Windows Media Player 9 or higher. The download is <a
href="http://patrice-zwenger.co.cc/my_programs.html#P2">provided</a> at the developer website.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/22/image-by-image-view-videos-in-stop-motion/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>DivX HiQ, Replace Video Player On Youtube, Other Video Sites</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/07/divx-hiq-replace-video-player-on-youtube-other-video-sites/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/07/divx-hiq-replace-video-player-on-youtube-other-video-sites/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:09:35 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[divx]]></category> <category><![CDATA[DivX HiQ]]></category> <category><![CDATA[flash player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[youtube]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=37677</guid> <description><![CDATA[Current Adobe Flash versions cause a heavy load on many computer systems during video playback. This will change with the upcoming Adobe Flash Player 10.2 which is currently available as a beta version. Users who are experiencing performance problems during video playback, especially when they are playing high definition contents on video sites such as [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Current Adobe Flash versions cause a heavy load on many computer systems during video playback. This will change with the upcoming <a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/01/adobe-flash-player-10-2-beta-improves-hardware-acceleration/">Adobe Flash Player 10.2</a> which is currently available as a beta version. Users who are experiencing performance problems during video playback, especially when they are playing high definition contents on video sites such as Youtube, Facebook, ESPN or Break, have the option of replacing the Flash video player with a third party player; And DivX HiQ is that player. The free software is available for Windows and Macintosh systems. It gets installed as a add-on or extension in popular browsers such as Google Chrome and Firefox. One thing that I did not like about the installation was that it added itself to all browsers instead of giving the user a choice of web browser to which it should be added to.</p><p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/divx-hiq-player-550x519.jpg" alt="divx hiq player" title="divx hiq player" width="550" height="519" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-37680" /></p><p>The main purpose of DivX HiQ according to the developer page is to improve the video quality on sites like Youtube. I&#8217;m not sure about the quality improvement, it was not really noticeably for me. The new player reduced the cpu usage while playing videos by about 50% on a fairly fast computer system. Some users reported drops from a very taxing 90-100% down to 20-30%.</p><p>The DivX HiQ browser add-on displays a bar directly beneath videos on supported websites.</p><p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/divx-hiq-550x420.jpg" alt="divx hiq" title="divx hiq" width="550" height="420" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-37681" /></p><p>A click on the play button reloads the page and replaces the video player with the DivX HiQ player. The player offers similar controls than the standard player. Available resolutions are displayed and a click switches between them.</p><p>The player is an option for users who experience cpu usage spikes during video playback. Firefox users will notice that they cannot uninstall the add-on from within the web browser. It can only be disabled in the add-on manager. The only option to uninstall it is to uninstall DivX HiQ on the system which would mean that it is not available in other browsers as well. (see <a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/02/why-do-they-think-it-is-ok-response/">Why Do They Think It Is OK Response</a> for a discussion of that problem in the Firefox browser.)</p><p>Google Chrome users on the other hand can uninstall the installed extensions just fine. Computer users who want to try out the DivX HiQ software can download it from the <a
href="http://labs.divx.com/divx-plus-web-player-hiq#installers">DivX Labs</a> website.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/12/07/divx-hiq-replace-video-player-on-youtube-other-video-sites/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>8</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>MPlayer WW, Lightweight MPlayer Frontend</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/11/mplayer-ww-lightweight-mplayer-frontend/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/11/mplayer-ww-lightweight-mplayer-frontend/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:52:48 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[media-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer ww]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=34172</guid> <description><![CDATA[MPlayer is one of the most popular media players. Many media players are actually using MPlayer as their core. This is for instance the case for the two players KMPlayer and SMPlayer. Both offer an improved interface and better direct customizability. MPlayer WW is another variant for Windows users. It features a slick interface, great [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>MPlayer is one of the most popular media players. Many media players are actually using MPlayer as their core. This is for instance the case for the two players KMPlayer and SMPlayer. Both offer an improved interface and better direct customizability.</p><p>MPlayer WW is another variant for Windows users. It features a slick interface, great customizability and good resource management. It reduces the resource usage in Windows for a 700 Megabyte video file by about 15 Megabytes of computer memory when compared to SMPlayer, and even more if the video file size increases.</p><p>A configuration window is displayed on the first start of the program. It displays hundreds of available settings, which may confuse inexperienced users. Lots of settings can be changed here, from keyboard shortcuts to the video and audio decoder order, subtitle handling, file associations, and direct audio and video settings.</p><div
id="attachment_34175" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 510px"><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mplayer.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mplayer-500x361.png" alt="mplayer" title="mplayer" width="500" height="361" class="size-medium wp-image-34175" /></a><p
class="wp-caption-text">mplayer</p></div><p>The preferences can be accessed in the player as well, which means it is possible make use of the default settings in the beginning, before making gradual changes to the player whenever necessary.</p><div
id="attachment_34176" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 510px"><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mplayer.jpg"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mplayer-500x346.jpg" alt="mplayer" title="mplayer" width="500" height="346" class="size-medium wp-image-34176" /></a><p
class="wp-caption-text">mplayer</p></div><p>The MPlayer WW interface is minimalistic by design, and exactly what most users need. The default skin displays controls at the bottom in a small bar. The controls include play, stop, and seek options, access to the playlist, a see bar, volume, equalizer and fullscreen. Additional skins are available that can be activated directly, including Windows Aero skins.</p><p>Additional options are available via hotkeys and the mouse. The mouse is configured to trigger various options, including the ability to change the volume, to go forward and backward, stop the video, or enable full screen mode.</p><p>MPlayer WW is a solid media player with lots of features and options. It offers everything users expect from media players, and then some to please professional users as well.</p><blockquote><p> *  Multithreaded H264、MPEG-2 Decoder (ffmpeg-mt).<br
/> * Support DirectShow Demuxer and Decoder.<br
/> * Fully compatible with CoreAVC Decoder.<br
/> * PMP Demuxer for PSP media file.<br
/> * Better compatibility with TS, TP, HDTV.<br
/> * Skin and Windows Native Theme Support.<br
/> * Support Winamp&#8217;s DSP plugins.<br
/> * Native Playlist and Video Equalizer Window.<br
/> * MEditor2 (MPlayer Preference) Graphic Setting Program.<br
/> * Direct3D and OpenGL Video Output.<br
/> * Auto Play Next file and so on (thinks for KK&#8217;s patch)</p></blockquote><p>Windows users who want to try the media player can download it from the developer website over at <a
href="http://www.mplayer-ww.com/eng/index.html">mplayer-ww.com</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/11/mplayer-ww-lightweight-mplayer-frontend/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>9</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Building Font Cache, VLC And MPlayer Troubleshooting</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/08/01/building-font-cache-vlc-and-mplayer-troubleshooting/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/08/01/building-font-cache-vlc-and-mplayer-troubleshooting/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:08:16 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tutorials Basic]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[building font cache]]></category> <category><![CDATA[font cache]]></category> <category><![CDATA[media-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vlc]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=28989</guid> <description><![CDATA[Nothing is more frustrating than having to wait until a media player has finished building the font cache, before a video can be played on the local computer system. Especially so, if the &#8220;building font cache&#8221; window appears every time the media player is used to play videos. The first question that comes to mind [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Nothing is more frustrating than having to wait until a media player has finished building the font cache, before a video can be played on the local computer system. Especially so, if the &#8220;building font cache&#8221; window appears every time the media player is used to play videos.</p><p>The first question that comes to mind is this: Why is there a font cache at all? It&#8217;s video, not some textual content that is displayed in the program window. The font cache apparently is used for subtitles and On Screen Displays (OSD). Both VLC Media Player and MPlayer (and variants like SMPlayer) make use of a font cache to display subtitles and OSD.</p><p><span
id="more-28989"></span>Both media players seem to create the font cache regardless of the fact if it is needed or not to view the video.</p><div
id="attachment_28990" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 255px"><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/building-font-cache.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/building-font-cache.png" alt="building font cache" title="building font cache" width="245" height="142" class="size-full wp-image-28990" /></a><p
class="wp-caption-text">building font cache</p></div><p>In theory, the font cache is build once, and stored in a directory on the hard drive for faster access to the required data.</p><h3>Font Cache Location</h3><p>VLC stores the font cache in the AppData folder in Windows 7, more precisely under username > AppData > Roaming > vlc. The file uses a long cryptic file name and makes use of the extension cache-2. Windows XP users will find the font cache in Documents and Settings > username > Application Data > vlc.</p><div
id="attachment_28992" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 330px"><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/font-cache-directory1.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/font-cache-directory1.png" alt="font cache directory" title="font cache directory" width="320" height="213" class="size-full wp-image-28992" /></a><p
class="wp-caption-text">font cache directory</p></div><p>The most common MPlayer font cache locations are username > fontconfig > cache for Windows 7 (and Vista probably as well), and Documents and Settings > XPMUser > fontconfig > cache for Windows XP.</p><p>The cache file is as cryptic as the VLC one, seems to use the same generator, but uses the cache-3 extension instead.</p><h3>Troubleshooting Building Font Cache Issues</h3><p>The most common problem related to the font cache is the repeated generation of the font cache, followed by crashes and hangs during the building of the cache.</p><p>VLC offers no option to disable font caching, at least not directly in the Windows client. Users who are experiencing issues with it should check the VLC directory under user to see if the font cache file is generated. If it is not it could be a rights issue or permission problem.</p><p>Deleting the contents of the cache directory to force the player to build the font cache again could resolve the issues as well. Several users have reported problems building the font cache if the AppData folder is stored on a network drive.</p><p>It is a bit different if MPlayer is concerned. SMPlayer for instance can pass parameters to MPlayer, and one of those parameters can be used to prevent the building of the font cache.</p><p>To test that press CTRL-P in SMPlayer to open the options. Switch to Advanced > Options for MPlayer and enter -nofontconfig in the Options field.</p><div
id="attachment_28993" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 497px"><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/no-font-config.png"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/no-font-config.png" alt="no font config" title="no font config" width="487" height="298" class="size-full wp-image-28993" /></a><p
class="wp-caption-text">no font config</p></div><p>Some users may also need to change the subtitle display format. This is done by clicking on Subtitles > Font and colors. A click on Enable normal subtitles should resolve the issue.</p><p>A last resort is the use of a process monitor to see if a specific font cannot be loaded by the video player. <a
href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx">Process Monitor</a> is a free Microsoft tool that displays those information. The easiest way to use the program is to create a new filter for vlc.exe (or the name of the video player that is used on the PC) to see only the activity of that player.</p><h3>Using portable media players</h3><p>Another possibility is to make use of portable media players. This can be especially helpful in cases where the font cache file is not generated, or generated whenever a video is played.</p><p>The portable version of VLC is available <a
href="http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/vlc_portable">here</a>, a portable version of SMPlayer can be downloaded <a
href="http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php">from the</a> official project website.</p><p>Portable VLC will still generate a font cache, but it will be stored in the portable directory, not in AppData or another Windows system directory. This alone could resolve several of the issues users have with the building of the font cache.</p><p>The portable version of SMPlayer makes use of the -nofontconfig parameter so that the font cache is not build during usage.</p><p>Share your tips: Have you noticed the building font cache message in your video player? Let us know in the comments.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/08/01/building-font-cache-vlc-and-mplayer-troubleshooting/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>11</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Test VLC 1.1 With GPU Acceleration</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/04/15/test-vlc-1-1-with-gpu-acceleration/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/04/15/test-vlc-1-1-with-gpu-acceleration/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:40:36 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[linux software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mac software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vlc]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vlc 1.1]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vlc media player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=24631</guid> <description><![CDATA[VLC Media Player is a popular media player available for Linux, Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Version 1.0 of the player has been downloaded more than 150 million times. A recent video player comparison at Techradar saw VLC 1.0 at the top of the field together with other popular players such as SMPlayer, KPlayer or [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>VLC Media Player is a popular media player available for Linux, Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Version 1.0 of the player has been downloaded more than 150 million times. A recent video player comparison at <a
href="http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/the-best-performing-media-player-for-2010-683569?artc_pg=2">Techradar</a> saw VLC 1.0 at the top of the field together with other popular players such as SMPlayer, KPlayer or Zoom Player.</p><p>The developers of VLC are already working on the next iteration of the video player which could be beneficial in future comparisons as the developers plan to add gpu acceleration to the media player.</p><p>VLC currently is not the best player to play HD videos especially those encoded with H.264. The developer aim to change this with the release of VLC 1.1 which introduces GPU decoding on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Linux as well as faster CPU decoding on Windows.</p><p><span
id="more-24631"></span>These new implementations should reduce the cpu load during video playback and speed up the playback. This should work not only on desktop computer systems but also on netbooks or HTPC (home theater PCs).</p><p>A first preview version of VLC 1.1 has been available for two days now. The version is relatively buggy and only a early preview version. Interested users can download VLC 1.1 Pre1 from the <a
href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/testing/vlc-1.1.0-pre1/">Videloan</a> ftp. Versions are available for all supported operating systems. Keep in mind that gpu acceleration is not available in the Mac release, only Windows and Linux benefit from this.</p><p>VLC 1.1 will introduce the <a
href="http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2010/03/20/On-the-road-to-VLC-1.1.0-part-2:-better">following</a> additional features besides gpu acceleration:</p><blockquote><p> DVB HD subtitles<br
/> PGS Subtitles from Blu-Ray dumps<br
/> sftp protocol<br
/> Atrac1 audio codec<br
/> Indeo5 video codec<br
/> AMR (Narrow Band) audio codec<br
/> Windows Media Voice/Speech audio codec<br
/> Improved Flac support (7.1 and 88.2/176.4/192 kHz support)<br
/> 7.1 Vorbis audio support<br
/> ADPCM in flv files<br
/> DVD-Audio files .aob, so you can play your DVD-Audio files on your computer<br
/> vqf, amv, wpl and zpl file support<br
/> Midi files on Windows port!<br
/> And more features…<br
/> CDDB support on Windows<br
/> Podcast images<br
/> Enhancements to our Ambilight support<br
/> Extensions in lua script<br
/> Services in lua script<br
/> Chorus and Flanger audio filter<br
/> Visualisation using scripted .milk files<br
/> Windows 7 taskbar integration</p></blockquote><p>Let us know what you think of this new release (if you have downloaded VLC 1.1) or the features that are introduced in the video player.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/04/15/test-vlc-1-1-with-gpu-acceleration/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>32</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Video Player Miro 3 Released</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/03/26/video-player-miro-3-released/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/03/26/video-player-miro-3-released/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:19:43 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[linux software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mac software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[miro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[miro 3]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=23974</guid> <description><![CDATA[The video player Miro that we have reviewed in the past has been recently updated to version 3. Miro 3 combines the features of the previous version of the application with several new features that increase the usefulness and reach of the video player. Miro on first glance is a video player that can play [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The video player Miro that we have reviewed in the past has been recently updated to version 3. Miro 3 combines the features of the previous version of the application with several new features that increase the usefulness and reach of the video player. Miro on first glance is a video player that can play videos that are located on the local computer system. It is possible to scan the PC for media automatically or add them manually.</p><p>But Miro offers more than that. It includes a torrent client that can be used to download video torrents to view them in the media player once they have been downloaded. It is furthermore possible to subscribe to RSS feeds of media sites to automatically retrieve new media when it is published on those sites.</p><p><span
id="more-23974"></span>Here are the major changes in Miro 3:</p><ul><li>Subtitles &#8211; If subtitles are embedded or in the same folder as your video, they will be available automatically in a new drop-down menu. Or pick any subtitle file.</li><li>Faster Faster Faster &#8211; Miro is faster and snappier in all sorts of ways from downloading torrents to deleting lots of files. For example, launching Miro is over 150% faster! Downloading torrents is faster!</li><li>Louder Louder Louder &#8211; The maximum volume for videos is now at least twice as high. Really nice for laptops.</li><li>Edit file info &#8211; Easily change the title, description, and category of a file.</li><li>Play Externally &#8211; We’ve added an option to play all files externally and a right-click menu for single items.</li></ul><p>Interested users can take a look at the release notes <a
href="https://develop.participatoryculture.org/index.php/3.0ReleaseNotes">that</a> lists all the changes and additions to the video player. The developers have <a
href="http://manual.getmiro.com/">also</a> created a user manual that explains the features of the program in detail.</p><p>The video player Miro 3 is available for Windows, Linux and Mac <a
href="http://www.getmiro.com/">from the</a> developer&#8217;s website.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/03/26/video-player-miro-3-released/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>SMPlayer 0.6.9. Out</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/02/23/smplayer-0-6-9-out/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/02/23/smplayer-0-6-9-out/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:14:19 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[linux software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[media-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer 0.6.9]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=23305</guid> <description><![CDATA[Windows users have two choices when selecting a media player: Select a player that makes use of system wide codecs or a player that comes equipped with all codecs. The later players offer the advantage that it is usually not necessary to go codec hunting to play a video on the computer system. SMPlayer is [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Windows users have two choices when selecting a media player: Select a player that makes use of system wide codecs or a player that comes equipped with all codecs. The later players offer the advantage that it is usually not necessary to go codec hunting to play a video on the computer system.</p><p>SMPlayer is an mplayer frontend that belongs to the second category of media players. The software comes with all codecs needed to play all popular and lots of lesser popular video and media files on the system.</p><p>Today version 0.6.9 of SMPlayer has been released by the developers. The release fixes a freezing problems under Linux, a bug that prevented the player from finding subtitles, the possibility to display the video resolution and frames per second in the status bar.</p><p><span
id="more-23305"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/smplayer-500x376.jpg" alt="" title="smplayer" width="500" height="376" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-23307" />What can SMPlayer do besides play almost any video out of the box?</p><ul><li>Can play videos, DVDs, and VCDs</li><li>Configurable subtitles. You can choose font and size, and even colors for the subtitles</li><li>Audio track switching. You can choose the audio track you want to listen. Works with avi and mkv. And of course with DVDs.</li><li>Seeking by mouse wheel. You can use your mouse wheel to go forward or backward in the video.</li><li>Video equalizer, allows you to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and gamma of the video image.</li><li>Multiple speed playback. You can play at 2X, 4X&#8230; and even in slow motion.</li><li>Filters. Several filters are available: deinterlace, postprocessing, denoise&#8230; and even a karaoke filter (voice removal).</li><li>Audio and subtitles delay adjustment. Allows you to sync audio and subtitles.</li><li>Advanced options, such as selecting a demuxer or video &#038; audio codecs.</li><li>Playlist. Allows you to enqueue several files to be played one after each other. Autorepeat and shuffle supported too.</li><li>Preferences dialog. You can easily configure every option of SMPlayer by using a nice preferences dialog.<br
/> Possibility to search automatically for subtitles in opensubtitles.org.</li><li>Translations: currently SMPlayer is translated into more than 20 languages, including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese&#8230;.</li><li> It&#8217;s multiplatform. Binaries available for Windows and Linux.</li></ul><p><a
href="http://smplayer.berlios.de/index.php?tr_lang=en">SMPlayer 0.6.9</a> can be downloaded from the project&#8217;s homepage for Windows and Linux.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2010/02/23/smplayer-0-6-9-out/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>6</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>SPlayer A New Windows Media Player</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/24/splayer-a-new-windows-media-player/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/24/splayer-a-new-windows-media-player/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:18:30 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[media-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[music player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Open Source]]></category> <category><![CDATA[splayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=20528</guid> <description><![CDATA[SPlayer, yes you read SPlayer not SMPlayer, is a new contender for the Windows media playback throne. Depending on your media player of choice you are either stuck with installing codecs to get certain video formats to work or enjoy a media player that comes with binary codecs for video formats so that the user [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>SPlayer, yes you read SPlayer not SMPlayer, is a new contender for the Windows media playback throne. Depending on your media player of choice you are either stuck with installing codecs to get certain video formats to work or enjoy a media player that comes with binary codecs for video formats so that the user does not have to hunt down missing codecs or &#8211; god forbid &#8211; install a video codec pack which sometimes does more harm than good to the system.</p><p>SPlayer uses binary codecs. The player was able to play all formats that we threw at it including video formats such as avi, mpg, mkv but also audio formats like mp3. Even better is the fact that it can also play movies from DVD, Blu-Ray or remote locations.</p><p><span
id="more-20528"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/splayer-500x229.jpg" alt="splayer" title="splayer" width="500" height="229" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-20529" /></p><p>The player uses a basic interface much like the new Windows Media Player lite does in Windows 7. The controls only become visible if the user moves the mouse cursor into the interface. It is then possible to load movies or music, configure and control playback settings and various other options.</p><p>We had to use Google Translate to translate the Chinese information on the developer&#8217;s homepage into English. The homepage does contain a table comparing SPlayer to various other media players including KPlayer and Real Player (but unfortunately not Windows Media Player, Quicktime, VLC or a MPlayer variant).</p><p><a
href="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/shooter_player.jpg"><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/shooter_player-500x296.jpg" alt="shooter player" title="shooter player" width="500" height="296" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-20530" /></a></p><p>Some of the features that speak for SPlayer are that it is Open Source, uses GPU acceleration, has a low installation size, rather low memory and cpu footprint and uses binary codecs to playback videos. The only problem could be the non-English homepage which could make it difficulty to get support or questions answered.</p><p>SPlayer is <a
href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&#038;prev=_t&#038;hl=en&#038;ie=UTF-8&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.splayer.org%2F&#038;sl=auto&#038;tl=en">available</a> from the developer&#8217;s website. It worked fine in Windows 7 Professional and is likely to work in other Windows operating systems as well.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/24/splayer-a-new-windows-media-player/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>21</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Miro 2.5 RC1 Released</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/08/miro-2-5-rc1-released/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/08/miro-2-5-rc1-released/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:42:17 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[audio]]></category> <category><![CDATA[audio player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[miro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[miro 2.5]]></category> <category><![CDATA[rss audio]]></category> <category><![CDATA[rss video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[torrents]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=14243</guid> <description><![CDATA[The Miro team has released the first release candidate of the upcoming Miro 2.5 version. Miro is a very convenient media player that combines Internet media with local media. It offers one of the most sophisticated and easy to use interfaces. Users can integrate their audio and video files in Miro but the main advantage [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/miro25.jpg" alt="miro25" title="miro25" width="128" height="107" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-14244" />The Miro team has released the first release candidate of the upcoming Miro 2.5 version. Miro is a very convenient media player that combines Internet media with local media. It offers one of the most sophisticated and easy to use interfaces. Users can integrate their audio and video files in Miro but the main advantage is the ability to subscribe to channels to download and watch their content in the player. It is pretty much like RSS feeds only that the content is not only text but also video and audio content.</p><p>There are hundreds, if not thousands of content channels to choose from the latest movie trailers to the most popular Youtube videos to Ubuntu guides. It is also possible to add feeds that you discover that are not already included in Miro. These feeds will be handled just like any other feed.</p><p><span
id="more-14243"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/miro-500x439.jpg" alt="miro" title="miro" width="500" height="439" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-14245" /></p><p>It is possible to auto download new posts from the subscribed feeds or to download them manually. Miro offers a built in Torrent client as well which makes it possible to download audio and video torrents to watch them in the interface as well.</p><p>Version 2.5 of Miro comes with some serious (that&#8217;s what the developers call it) speed and memory usage improvements. It can be downloaded from the <a
href="http://nightlies.pculture.org/">nightlies</a> downloads page.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/08/miro-2-5-rc1-released/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>VLC Media Player 1.0 Released</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/07/vlc-media-player-1-0-released/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/07/vlc-media-player-1-0-released/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:34:24 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[linux software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mac software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[media-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[movie player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Open Source]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vlc]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vlc media player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=14198</guid> <description><![CDATA[The VideoLan team today announced the release of version 1.0.0 of their popular media player VLC Media Player. The major release introduces many few features, formats and codecs to VLC and fixes a high number of bugs that were present in previous versions of the media player. The changelog lists all of the changes and [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/videolan.jpg" alt="videolan" title="videolan" width="109" height="46" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-14199" />The VideoLan team today announced the release of version 1.0.0 of their popular media player VLC Media Player. The major release introduces many few features, formats and codecs to VLC and fixes a high number of bugs that were present in previous versions of the media player.</p><p>The changelog lists all of the changes and additions that the developers have packed into the new release of the VLC Player including live recording, finer speed controls, new HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, Real video 3.0 and 4.0), formats, video scaling in full screen or zipped file playback. VLC Media Player can still play most video and audio formats out of the box without needing third party codec installations to do so.</p><p><span
id="more-14198"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/vlc_media_player-500x297.jpg" alt="vlc media player" title="vlc media player" width="500" height="297" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-14200" /></p><p>VLC Player is still cross platform which means that the new release is available for all supported operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OSX and Linux. Users can download the new release <a
href="http://www.videolan.org/">directly</a> from the developer&#8217;s website.</p><p>A viable alternative is SMPlayer which uses less resources than VLC Player while providing most of the benefits.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/07/vlc-media-player-1-0-released/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>9</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>SMPlayer 0.6.7 out</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/smplayer-067-out/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/smplayer-067-out/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:29:26 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[linux software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[portable software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer 0.6.7]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer codecs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[videos]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows software]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/smplayer-067-out/</guid> <description><![CDATA[My favorite and default video player SMPlayer has been updated to version 0.6.7 today. SMPlayer is the complete video player solution for both the Windows and Linux operating system. It is basically a frontend for the much acclaimed MPlayer that is included in the distribution. SMPlayer comes both as a portable video player but also [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My favorite and default video player <a
href="http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/">SMPlayer</a> has been updated to version 0.6.7 today. SMPlayer is the complete video player solution for both the Windows and Linux operating system. It is basically a frontend for the much acclaimed MPlayer that is included in the distribution. SMPlayer comes both as a portable video player but also as a installer to suite all the needs.</p><p>Since it is based on MPlayer it can play pretty much any video format right out of the box without having to search for missing codecs on the Internet. It can play DVDs, supports various subtitle formats, provides multiple audio track access, playlist support and a lot more.</p><p>One of the more recent versions added support to search for subtitles in the Open Subtitles databases. Sure, there are other video players that offer a similar all-inclusive out of the box experience and it probably boils down to which was first installed on the computer system for those users.</p><p><span
id="more-11346"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/smplayer-500x312.jpg" alt="smplayer" title="smplayer" width="500" height="312" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-11345" /></p><p>Anyone else who is still using a video player that needs external codecs to play video formats should take a look at the latest version of SMPlayer as it makes that a thing of the past.</p><p><strong>Most important changes in SMPlayer 0.6.7:</strong></p><ul><li>Added experimental (and uncomplete) support for dvd menus. Requires a mplayer build compiled with dvdnav support. Please read dvdmenus.txt to know how to enable it.</li><li>Now loading an external subtitle file doesn&#8217;t require to restart the mplayer process (except for idx/sub subtitles).</li><li>(Playlist) When a file is added to the playlist, if it was already in the list, it&#8217;s moved to the end of the list.</li><li>Options for mplayer: finally spaces in arguments between quotes are handled properly.</li><li>Added two options (in the audio and subtitle menus) to allow the user to enter the audio and subtitle delay (in milliseconds).</li><li>(ASS subtitles) The outline and shadow options now accept values with decimals.</li><li>(ASS subtitles) Possibility to change the color of the border and shadow.</li><li>Now the default value for the &#8220;correct pts&#8221; option is auto.</li><li>(Windows) Now the screensaver is allowed to turn on if the file is paused or it&#8217;s an audio file.</li><li>(Windows) The direct3d video output is now the default for Windows Vista.</li></ul> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/19/smplayer-067-out/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>18</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Windows Media Player Light</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/23/windows-media-player-light/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/23/windows-media-player-light/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:24:45 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[microsoft]]></category> <category><![CDATA[operating system]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[videos]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows 7]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows media player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[windows media player light]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7169</guid> <description><![CDATA[Whenever Microsoft sends out a new version of their upcoming operating system Windows 7 to their partners they can be sure that someone will post information about it soon thereafter. Many screenshots of features of the new Windows 7 client have been posted a day ago which showed some of the new features and design [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Whenever Microsoft sends out a new version of their upcoming operating system Windows 7 to their partners they can be sure that someone will post information about it soon thereafter. Many screenshots of features of the new Windows 7 client have been posted a day ago which showed some of the new features and design changes that Microsoft made.</p><p>One of the more interesting aspects was Windows Media Player Light which was only briefly shown and mentioned in the information. Thankfully some additional information have come to light. A <a
href="http://www.windows7news.com/2008/09/23/windows-7-videos-of-m3-release/">Windows Media Player Light</a> video was posted that is showing Windows Media Player light in action.</p><p>One could think that the light version of the Windows Media Player is just the same unresponsive resource eating monster with hidden interface components but that is apparently not the case. Windows Media Player Light seems to open videos as fast as the alternative clients that experienced users use on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Clients like SMPlayer, MPlayer or VLC open videos instantly and it seems to be that Windows Media Player Light can compete on that level.</p><p><span
id="more-7169"></span><object
width="425" height="344"><param
name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rabCZDEuNKQ&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;fs=1"></param><param
name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed
src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rabCZDEuNKQ&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></p><p>It would have been interesting if the light version does use less resources than the full version of Windows Media Player. Another question that surely comes up would be the compatibility of Windows Media Player Light. Does it have the same functionality as the normal version or can it be used exclusively to watch multimedia files on the computer without having access to playlists, skins or premium services.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/23/windows-media-player-light/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>2</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>SMPlayer Portable</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/20/smplayer-portable/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/20/smplayer-portable/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:50:03 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[videos]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=6317</guid> <description><![CDATA[Now look at that. Brad Linder over at the Download Squad discovered a portable version of my favorite media player SMPlayer. SMPlayer itself is a frontend for the highly popular MPlayer which can play most media formats right of the box. It&#8217;s a multi-plattform player available for Windows and Linux. The portable version of SMPlayer [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Now look at that. Brad Linder over at the <a
href="http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2008/08/20/smplayer-open-source-media-player-goes-portable/">Download Squad</a> discovered a portable version of my favorite media player <a
href="http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1358&#038;ts=1219237643">SMPlayer</a>. SMPlayer itself is a frontend for the highly popular MPlayer which can play most media formats right of the box. It&#8217;s a multi-plattform player available for Windows and Linux. The portable version of SMPlayer is available for Windows operating systems. One thing that bothered me after downloading the software was that it was packed in 7z format.</p><p>I had to install 7-zip to unpack the package, not sure if there are other packers that support the 7z format by now. That is a bit unfortunate and it would have been nice if another format would be available as well.</p><p>SMPlayer is ready to play any video file that you throw at it after uninstallation. Just start the player and load the video that you want. The portable and installation version of SMPlayer use virtually the same amount of computer memory when running.</p><p><span
id="more-6317"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/smplayer.jpg" alt="smplayer" title="smplayer" width="347" height="382" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-6318" /></p><p>SMPlayer Portable comes with several themes that can be applied. The differences between the portable and installation version are the following:</p><ul><li>The ini will be written in the SMPlayer folder</li><li>Nothing is written to the Windows Registry</li><li>Default Home folders are not created. Screenshot folder for instance would have to be created separately in the root directory and a path would have to be edited in SMplayer</li><li>No File associations</li></ul><p>The main use would be to put the portable version on a stick and use it on computers that do not allow installations and only come with Media Player installed.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/20/smplayer-portable/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>16</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Stream Video Torrents</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/26/stream-video-torrents/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/26/stream-video-torrents/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:18:00 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[P2p]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[stream torrents]]></category> <category><![CDATA[torrents]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video torrents]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5616</guid> <description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m not really into a streaming solution for videos that are available as torrents because I prefer to download the video to have the option to play it whenever I like and not in the instant it starts playing during the download. It could be however an interesting option to preview the video before downloading [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m not really into a streaming solution for videos that are available as torrents because I prefer to download the video to have the option to play it whenever I like and not in the instant it starts playing during the download.</p><p>It could be however an interesting option to preview the video before downloading it completely. Maybe it does make sense for users who do not want to download the videos but view them right at the moment only.</p><p><a
href="http://rarbg.com/player_en.php">RarPlayer</a> combines the media player VLC with a software that can download and process video torrents. It supports the most popular video formats like avi or mov but unfortunately cannot cope with archives that contain videos. This means the video has to be available in its original format and cannot be made available as an archive.</p><p><span
id="more-5616"></span><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/rarplayer-500x325.jpg" alt="stream video torrents" title="stream video torrents" width="500" height="325" class="size-medium wp-image-5617" /></p><p>The program achieves this by downloading the first parts of the video at the beginning so that it can start playing after a short while. It obviously depends on the number of seeders on how fast the video can be played. It can happen that it stops somewhere in the middle because it needs to buffer again.</p><p>My main point of criticism would be the lack of controls of the player itself. I was not able to rewind which is probably because of the streaming process but it becomes terribly annoying if you watch for about a minute and notice that the player stops playing and starts buffering again. It would be nice to have some kind of buffer to rewind a short time to play the video again from a certain point.</p><p>It also seems to crash quite often if you feed it with torrents that point to unsupported file types.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/26/stream-video-torrents/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>SMPlayer Uncommon Codecs Package</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/07/smplayer-uncommon-codecs-package/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/07/smplayer-uncommon-codecs-package/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2008 07:51:01 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category> <category><![CDATA[codecs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer codecs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4034</guid> <description><![CDATA[SMPlayer is my video player of choice. It comes with the most commonly used video and audio codecs installed and it is quite uncommon that one runs into a video that cannot be played out of the box in SMPlayer. A great advantage of SMPlayer in my opinion is the way it stores the codecs. [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>SMPlayer is my video player of choice. It comes with the most commonly used video and audio codecs installed and it is quite uncommon that one runs into a video that cannot be played out of the box in SMPlayer. A great advantage of SMPlayer in my opinion is the way it stores the codecs. They are actually stored in the SMPlayer directory and not global codecs which means it is highly unlikely that you will run into incompatibilities.</p><p>I recently discovered that a so called additional <a
href="http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php">codecs</a> package for SMPlayer, and MPlayer obviously, is available and can be installed to support additional video and audio formats. These codecs will also be installed as so called binary codecs straight into the SMPlayer folder.</p><p>The major problem that I ran into was that I was not able to find a list of the codecs that are installed this way. The only possibility that I can think of right now is to search for the filenames in a search engine which will reveal their purpose. The codec package adds 63 new files to the codec directory. I probably would only install it if I would encounter a video that I could not play properly though.</p><p><span
id="more-4034"></span></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/07/smplayer-uncommon-codecs-package/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Taking a second look at Miro</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/13/taking-a-second-look-at-miro/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/13/taking-a-second-look-at-miro/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:00:47 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Cool]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Software]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bablegum]]></category> <category><![CDATA[democracy player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[joost]]></category> <category><![CDATA[miro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/13/taking-a-second-look-at-miro/</guid> <description><![CDATA[When I first reviewed Miro it was still known as the Democracy Player; a lot has changed since then and I decided to take a second look at Miro. The first question that I was asking myself was how I could classify Miro. Is it a video player, a videocast player, a way to play videos from video portals ? It's actually all of this although I would not use it for everything that I have just mentioned.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When I first reviewed Miro it was still known as the Democracy Player; a lot has changed since then and I decided to take a second look at Miro. The first question that I was asking myself was how I could classify Miro. Is it a video player, a videocast player, a way to play videos from video portals ? It&#8217;s actually all of this although I would not use it for everything that I have just mentioned.</p><p>I would classify <a
href="http://www.getmiro.com/">Miro</a> as a videocast player with extended functionality. If you think Joost or Bablegum now you are wrong because Miro is open plattform while the other two are not. Open Plattform, what&#8217;s that again ? Open Plattform means that any video producer can get his videos on Miro and that every viewer can also add videos using urls. Try that with Joost.</p><p>Another huge difference is that videos are actually downloaded to your hard drive and placed by default in the My Videos folder if you are using Windows. That means that you can watch them, burn them or send them to a friend without problems. The option to send a email link to a friend also exists in Miro btw.</p><p><span
id="more-2839"></span><img
src='http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/mire_interface.jpg' alt='miro interface' /></p><p>The quality of the video depends how it was encoded but I can say that it is better than the quality of Joost from what I have seen so far.</p><p>The channel system has another advantage. You can subscribe to channels and when you do that you can opt to download new videos automatically when they are published. A few default channels are already added to your sidebar but those naturally don&#8217;t appeal to everyone.</p><p>If you take a look at the categories offered you notice 3283 categories like Music, Food and Sports at the moment. A click on a category opens a list of available publishers and a click on a publisher the list of available videos from that publishers. Videos can be downloaded with the click of the left mouse button and can be added to playlists which are filled by dragging and dropping downloaded videos into them.</p><p>Besides the possibility to add videos from channels or urls users can also search popular video portals like Youtube, Google Video and Dailymotion and add videos found there to their library. Those videos are downloaded as well which means that you can watch them with another video player or send them to your friends easily.</p><p>If I had something to criticize it would be the following. You can&#8217;t reach the category list from everywhere nor is there a home button. I had to click on Miro Guide to access these features. Another criticism is that you can&#8217;t go back since there is no back button. This is for example irritating if you browse a channel and find a publisher that sounds interesting. Once you click on that publisher you can&#8217;t get back to the list of channels.</p><p>There is no way to navigate search results if you search one of the video portals. You only see a handful of results and can&#8217;t browse to a existing second page of results. At least I could not figure out how this would be possible. It would be nice if it would be possible to search multiple video portals at once and see one results list.</p><p>Yes, that screenshot is from the game Cannon Fodder on the Commodore Amiga by the Bitmap Brothers.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/13/taking-a-second-look-at-miro/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>5</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>SMPlayer 0.5.51</title><link>http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/08/smplayer-0551/</link> <comments>http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/08/smplayer-0551/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:24:14 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Martin Brinkmann</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Music and Video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tools]]></category> <category><![CDATA[dvd]]></category> <category><![CDATA[media-player]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[multimedia]]></category> <category><![CDATA[quicktime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[smplayer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video-player]]></category> <guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/08/smplayer-0551/</guid> <description><![CDATA[A new version of the - in my opinion - best media player SMPlayer has been released and can be downloaded from the website of the developers at Sourceforge. SMPlayer is a Mplayer frontend that plays most video codecs out of the box which means that you do not have to install codecs to play the majority of video - and audio - formats. It does play for instance Apple Quicktime .mov videos without the need to install Quicktime at all.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A new version of the &#8211; in my opinion &#8211; best media player SMPlayer has been released and can be downloaded from the website of the developers at Sourceforge. SMPlayer is a Mplayer frontend that plays most video codecs out of the box which means that you do not have to install codecs to play the majority of video &#8211; and audio &#8211; formats. It does play for instance Apple Quicktime .mov videos without the need to install Quicktime at all.</p><p>SMPlayer is available for Windows and Linux in various languages including English and Spanish for instance. The download has a size of about 11 Megabytes which is not that much if you consider that you do not have to install additional codecs. All the usual features are supported as well including subtitle support, DVD / SVCD / VCD playback, audio track switching, video equalizers, fast forward, slow motion and lots of preferences.</p><p>It is for instance possible to use video playback without hardware acceleration to capture screenshots from the movie.</p><p><img
src="http://www.ghacks.net/files/screens/2007/09/smplayer.jpg" alt="smplayer" /></p><p><span
id="more-1973"></span>Read More:</p><p>SMPlayer Homepage</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/08/smplayer-0551/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>17</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>
