SMPlayer 16.6 brings exciting new features
SMPlayer 16.6 is the latest version of the popular media player for Windows that introduces a new touch screen mode, options to send video signals to external screens, and support for high DPI screens.
The media player SMPlayer is one of the two programs that I use for the purpose of playing media files on Windows devices (the other is VLC Media Player).
The reason why I use two instead of just one is simple: while both deliver good performance and support for the majority of formats out there, one does better than the other when it comes to specific formats such as wmv.
Also, there are some differences in functionality, such as SMPlayer's YouTube player or better support for resuming videos even though the latter finally worked on my system with the latest VLC release.
SMPlayer 16.6
Tablet Mode is a new feature designed specifically for touch devices that can run Win32 applications such as SMPlayer.
It can be activated with a click on Options > Tablet Mode, and will make the following changes to the interface:
- Increases the size of windows and fonts.
- Vertical slides change the volume, horizontal slides seek.
- Tapping in full screen mode displays floating controls.
SMPlayer run on Windows 10 devices will recognize of a user changes to tablet mode in the Windows 10 action center, and display a prompt to the user whether to run the media player in tablet mode as well.
Sending video to external screens
Another new feature that is been integrated in SMPlayer 16.6 is support for sending the video signal to an external screen connected to the computer.
It allows you to control the player on the main device and watch the video on the secondary screen.
You find the new option under Video > Send video to screen. SMPlayer displays all connected screens including the primary screen.
The video will play on the selected monitor in fullscreen mode automatically and the player interface remains on the primary screen so that you can control playback functions such as changing the volume, seeking and more from it.
Support for high DPI screens
Previous versions of SMPlayer did not look particularly good on high DPI screens. Starting with this release, SMPlayer will scale the interface automatically so that it looks better on high DPI screens.
You can control the feature in the preferences (hit Ctrl-P to open them). Navigate to Interface > High DPI to do so.
There you can turn off the feature completely, or pick a custom scaling factor instead of an automatic one. The latter can be useful if SMPlayer's function gets it wrong when set to auto.
Global shortcuts
Multimedia keys can be set as global shortcuts so that they work even if SMPlayer is not the active application on the screen.
You need to enable the option in Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse. Check the "Use the multimedia keys as global shortcuts" option there.
Settings remembered for online streams
SMPlayer remembers settings such as the video position for local media files already and the feature has been extended to offer the same functionality for online streams as well.
This means that online streams played in SMPlayer support resume just like local streams do. The only caveat is that this works only if the video stream supports seek.
You can download SMPlayer 16.6 from the official website. It is provided as a portable version and installer.
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screenshot from windows 98? :-)
No just a basic theme without all the fancy stuff no one needs.
And which skin is that? Media Player Classic?
Yes, it is called MPC GUI, you find it under Preferences > Interface.
Thanks for the article and info, Martin.
I continue to be a big fan of SMPlayer and do use the portable version. Oh, and I’m a fan of the Windows theme that you use, too… simple, and precise! :)
I cannot start the youtube plugin. It says i have missing dlls and to reinstall it again and again. I found some of the DLLs online and put them inside the exe folder and now complains that some instructions are not right……
same here, Inetc plugin failed, retried 3 times, tried installing smtube exe, failed
win 7 x64
http://i.imgur.com/Bn0VtVZ.png
guess i’ll stick with potplayer
Try downloading it as a separate installer: http://www.smtube.org/
For some reason the SMTube website links to version 16.3.0. What you are looking for is 16.6.0. https://sourceforge.net/projects/smtube/files/SMTube/16.6.0/
SMPlayer would also be my first choice video player on Linux. But on Windows, I still can’t live without benefit of using DXVA2 Native as it help a lot for lower CPU usage. MPlayer and mpv (the playback engine) doesn’t really play nice with that.
Any video player that can play 3D -> anaglyph faster than smplayer? I’ve always found smplayer to be a bit sluggish where this is concerned… Does PowerDVD do this better?
Thanks for the feature update news Martin. Without this article I would have probably blindly upgraded without knowing about the new stuff.
When are they going to let me put the control bar at the top for fullscreen mode? 2020?
God what a bad interface. So Windows 98. Just get potplayer and be done with it already….
Agree, there’s absolutely no reason to use anything else.
Really,the interface matters more than functions and reliability?