Which is the better of the two - MPlayer or VLC Media Player?
And which Open Source Media Player is the most popular and most used(taking into account all open source media players and not just the two I have mentioned above) whether it be single platform or multi-platform is not to be taken into account.And all open source media player whether it be video/audio player or just audio player is to be taken into account.
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Which is the better of the two - MPlayer or VLC Media Player?
August 7, 2008 - 9:55am
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Which is the better of the two - MPlayer or VLC Media Player?
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My vote goes for MPlayer. Several times smaller, a bit faster and just as good.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
Actually I use the Smplayer front end for the version of Mplayer that comes with the Mplayer Portable here. For some reason the version of Mplayer that's used in Mplayer Portable can access http links much easier than the one that comes with smplayer, on a side note it's also a couple of mb smaller. I use it with no codecs installed and it plays nearly everything that I've downloaded so far. I supposed I may have to install a codec or two for some rare file types, but most of the stuff I download is divx or wmv, so it's not been a problem so far.
I'm Partial to VLC, had a few bad crashes with Mplayer
Lead, Follow, or get out of the way.
VLC plays everything. And I mean everything. I've come across some formats that MPlayer doesn't play, and VLC plays 'em. Personally, I've never really liked MPlayer, but that's just me. I'd play with both to see what you like.
Songbird has been hyped about for a while, and I can't wait to see the official 0.7 release (coming out within the next few months). Ryan's been working on Songbird Portable. Hopefully we'll see that soon as well.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
I have opposite experience.
The only thing I found that MPlayer couldn't play was rmvb...but VLC can't play it either.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
I would have to pull it out and try it again, but I think I got MPlayerPortable to play an rmvb ????
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
it will play rmvb you just need just need the codec pack for mplayer found at the mplayer site
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
Duh !
YES, that's how I did it.
Tim
p.s. check my reply in the Off Topic Forum
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
I just read a post on this sit that says VLC can't play .flac, whatever that is. But I think that if a media player can play a few basic formats, it's fine. You don't download too many songs with a .ogg extension, even if there are capable media players. I support VLC because of the minimalistic and easy-to-use interface.
VLC plays .flac files just fine. Where did you read that? FLAC is a lossless audio codec by the way.
https://portableapps.com/node/15406
I turns out I read it wrong, it's actually coolplayer that doesn't play it.
Love songbird.
Is there an 0.7 beta release yet?
I'd really like to see that...
!!
There's a 1.0 development test release available. Check test releases page.
PortableApps.com Advocate
I use VLC 95% of the time and MPlayer 4% of the time (with a 2% margin of error).
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." -- Robert Frost
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: baby ain't mine." -- Adam Holguin
VLC is a buggy for me, but plays a lot more file types. but because it crashes nearly eery time i use it, and the interface is difficult, i tend to use MPlayer.
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake,
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
I honestly have MPlayer crash a whole lot more than does VLC. I love the simplistic interface. I find MPlayer looks too much like Windows 3.1 for me.
Guess we both have interestingly different experiences.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
it may be the fact that my pc has an AMD processor, but you never know
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake,
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
-
Why VLC? I used to need player this and codec that but since I use VLC I can play virtually everything. Some people might be biased toward other media players because they look great or are smaller. That's okay too. I just think that having just one player is much more convenient.
VLC all the way. I've tried MPlayer in the past (YEARS ago) and always seemed to end up with codec issues. VLC never gives me crap, and I don't understand why people seem to have problems with it crashing. I've never had that problem. It's definitely my favorite player of all time.
I use it, great app.
Na na na, come on!
I prefer SMPlayer-the one that I just updated and should actually work!!!
(Okay, I know I'm self promoting but I didn't self promote for the few months, maybe never? :P).
Oh that and MPlayer can play EVERYTHING as well with that closed source codec pack that I wish I knew how John would want me to wrap it into a plugin installer :(.
Oh, and if ViPlay 3 was portable, I'd lean towards that.
(Yes I want to portable-ize ViPlay 3 OS ;)).
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
Are we talking about MPClassic ? I've been using it since a few years, so it's more like I'm used to it. But it's true it doesn't play anything. I have VLC installed as a port. app. omy USB stick though. There are quite some QT movies that MPC can't play. I'll see if VLC can play them...
No we are not talking about MPClassic
We are talking about MPlayer Portable:
https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/mplayer_portable
by the way, love the cat avatar/icon
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
In that case I'd vote for VLC of course. In the meantime I've installed VLC also on my main PC and yes it plays QT.
The avatars are really just a bit too small. I think 24x24 would be better. You almost have to use a magnifying glass to see them.
That's why I like yours, it looks perrrrfect
You made a good choice, it doesn't need to be bigger.
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
No, we're talking about MPlayer.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
Oh, well if we are not talking about the portableapps.com version I should move this to the Off Topic forum shouldn't I
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
or possibly Other Apps Support forum which ever is good for you
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
I haven't really used MPlayer, so I'm rather bias, but i really like VLC. I used to used WMP, with the K-Lite Codec pack, but I like not having to worry about having the correct codecs installed with VLC, it plays just about everything. Only thing i have found VLC wont play is Real Player files, but I have only ever came across 1 Real Player file I HAD to play, so its really not an issue.
Do you mean playback-quality, most supported formats, resource-usage or ...?
As much as I would like to only have 1 mediaplayer I find
that none of them can do everything needed and there is also
difference in the playback-quality,as an example WinAmp sounds a lot better than anything else when playing lossless audio formats,at least to my ears .
MPClassic can play real-media files, VLC can't, WMP gives the best picture-quality for wmv-playback but nearly everything else about it sucks and it's hardly "portable" and the list goes on ..
I use Windows Media Player, and I maintain my personal codec pack. I got no issues playing most file formats like FLVs, DVDs, DivX, OGG without problems.
Anyway I need those DirectShow codecs, as I mostly use AVISynth to transcode my media to other format like Nintendo DS DPG.
I use VLC all the time and to date I had no issues. I don't care about its appearance, as long as it does the job, I'm happy.
I got some good movies from Germany (Goodbye Lenin - quite funny!) and the only way I could see it was using VLC.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
I bought some dvds in the united states. If Vlc wouldnt exist, I would have been stuck with reading the booklet instead of seeing the movie.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Kevin, you are very wrong. There are certain formats which VLC and MPlayer can not play in a proper way. But GOM and Real Alternative can.
If we compare the 2 (VLC and MPlayer) MPlayer is certainly much more better (it plays more formats, it's really hard to find a vid which it can not play).
As you can see, I am using MPlayer most of the time. But to play everything I have I need all 4 players I named.
althogh it cannot play some of the much rarer and less used formats, it can play almost if not all of the formats you come across for both audio and video.
but really it all depends on what you want in a media player
Zoop
I am using somebody else's computer that has Windows, pre-installed sotware, software recommended by others and my software. Of all those people who have used it over the past five years, it has:
Before I touched it:
Windows Media Player
RealOne Player
Intervideo WinDVD 4
My stuff:
Winamp (years ago for streaming audio that WMP would not play)
QuickTime Alternative (for a program that insisted I install Apple QuickTime)
Media Player Classic (came with QuickTime Alternative, IIRC)
VLC (when WMP irreparably broke after a registry modification)
On my flash drive:
VLC Portable
MPlayer Portable
Mplayer works better for me, and hasn't crashed on me yet. I have never encountered anything it would not play, except for recently MTS files (AVCHD videos). MPlayer plays the audio with a black screen. VLC plays audio with a messed up, very interlaced still image of the first frame, and then crashes.
MPlayer is less than 3MB smaller than VLC without VLC's localization information, so no big difference there. Other than that, I really despise the orange road cone icons of VLC. They are almost as bad as the bright red bear blobs of IrfanView.
What I do is have both VLC Portable and MPlayer Portable on my flash drive, and that takes care of everything I generally need while using Firefox Portable. The only thing is that embedded Windows Media files don't work (because WMP is busted).
VLC has an awesome service discovery feature for finding things like online radio stations. It's phenomenal!
VLC except in the rare case it has problems.
VLC cannot play VC-1, but MPlayer can, and VLC seems to have a problem with large H.264 videos, and MPLayer handles them better.
I like the VLC interface over MPLayer's and I'm used to VLC more.
Vintage!
I think MPlayer gives the videos better quality. And Use VlC when files don't work.
vlc is better i think, though video quality may not be as good, it runs faster and doesn't crash
iLike Mac's
VLC is great, and that's what I have installed.
I have both VLC Portable and MPlayer Portable. When one doesn't work, I try the other one. More often than not, MPlayer has done better for me.
Not a PortableApps version... Well, it's portable out-of-the-box IMHO, at least it runs from flashdrive, supports relative paths and I don't remember a case when it left something behind...
Didn't have any problems with it (except of the versions that were included with SMPlayer), and it's enough for me...
Folder size (with fonts and etc) 24 581 598 bytes
The KMPlayer /KMPlayer is something different/ is only for windows, it can be portable using ini file for store setting. It plays everything what i tried, it is best player i ever used. When i switch to linux i find smplayer /mplayer/ is better for me then VLC.
According to wikipedia mplayer is best for various formats, VLC plays anything from network and the kmplayer is best for subs.
If you have small flash key then go for smallest, if you play something from network go for VLC and if you dont mind slower start and VERY HUGE bunch of settings do for the kmplayer.
KMPlayer is closed source and was caught violating the GPL (and thus copyright law) so we neither support nor recommend using their software.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
i think vlc is much better
I don't have a short attention span. I just...oh look a kitty!
Is there any way to quantify and verify the playback quality of the various open source players? It shouldn't be too hard to implement the best aspects of various open source packages as long as they follow the licences.