The best player

[vlada]

Hi all,
I'm looking for a good player with supreme subtitles support, try to give me some advices for free not well known players. Now I use MPC, ViPlay and sometimes MV2Player. I also know BSP, TCMP, ZoomPlayer, RadLight, VLC, MPlayer and many others. The most serious disadvantage I can see is the all of the players I know, except for BSP, cannot integrate subtitles into overlay. In this case my ATI9200 cannot show subtitles when using "theatre mode".
The drawback of BSP is, that DVD playback is not for free (same for Zoom Player and TCMP) and that a picture cannot be enlarged by black stripes to 4:3 or 16:9 unless you switch to fullscreen (or did I just miss this in settings?). The only option for other players is using VobSub or FFDShow for subtitles. But than all players except for MV2Player cannot adjust position or size of the subtitles. MV2Player would be probably my choice, but it's development has probably stoped and many bugs are still not fixed. Also support for matroska container is not working correctly.
Is there a player which can comunicate with VobSub or FFDShow to adjust subtitles directly from it's interface? Is there a player which can use FFDShow for post processing when playing DVDs? Next version of MPC should be able to do it, if there ever will be one :-(
Also I never saw a DVD player which would be able to move subtitles position up or down. Is it so hard to do it?

I'm sorry for too many questions, but I wanted to start this thread to hear some other people opinions. Basically my goal is to have a player capable of playing most video files and I want to be able to completely control it using a remote (ATI Remote Wonder + Girder).

Thank you for reading it up to this point and sorry for my unperfect English.

JeCh

[trodas]

I use BSplayer and it's great for me.
For DVD, i use AC3 filer for sound decoding and WinDVD filters for mpeg2 video decoding AND DVDsubber as the controling thing ;) :D

And it allow you adjust your own subtitles, so rip these from DVD/DL subtitles from net, use DVDsubber and you got what you are looking for ;) :p

http://www.darkwet.net/dvdsubber/ ;)

[DAvenger]

The most serious disadvantage I can see is the all of the players I know, except for BSP, cannot integrate subtitles into overlay

Well, as far as I know RadLight can do this since 2003 ;)

control it using a remote (ATI Remote Wonder + Girder).

Girder is supported natively. For ATI Remote Wonder you're gonna need a plugin by Goce - http://www.radlight.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1019

The subtitle support isn't perfect but it's the very next item on our TODO list (the possiblity to extend picture area to 4:3 is like the most requested feature I've ever seen :D and we've always implemented all reasonable requests by our users so far ;) )

As for DVD, anyone can code a DVD playback module for RadLight. It's easy because the architecture is open. Or wait for the official support ;)

[vlada]

Hi,
great news you'll work on the 4:3 extension for subtitles. Then add DVD playback and customizable keyboard shortcuts and it will be the best player for me.
I have no problems with Girder and Remote Wonder, it works great. But I need keyboard shortcuts (or commands) for all the actions I want to control (i.e. moving or enlarging subtitles).
For DVD playback I use currently MPC and it's internal filters or ViPlay and DScaler 5 filters. But unfortunately I cannot use FFDShow and it's deinterlacing algorithms. Would it be possible to enable FFDShow for postprocessing when playing DVDs?
Btw. the equalizer isn't working, is it not implemented yet?

Thanks/Díky,

Vláïa

[Sirber]

I like very much MPC for all my video needs :)

... also no ads :cool:

[chros]

Originally posted by Sirber
I like very much MPC for all my video needs :)

... also no ads :cool:

Me too ... :)
It's almost perfect ...

[DAvenger]

Originally posted by vlada
Hi,
great news you'll work on the 4:3 extension for subtitles. Then add DVD playback and customizable keyboard shortcuts and it will be the best player for me.
I have no problems with Girder and Remote Wonder, it works great. But I need keyboard shortcuts (or commands) for all the actions I want to control (i.e. moving or enlarging subtitles).
For DVD playback I use currently MPC and it's internal filters or ViPlay and DScaler 5 filters. But unfortunately I cannot use FFDShow and it's deinterlacing algorithms. Would it be possible to enable FFDShow for postprocessing when playing DVDs?
Btw. the equalizer isn't working, is it not implemented yet?

Thanks/Díky,

Vláïa

Go to Settings, then select Controls. You can customize all keyboard shortcuts there - even global keys are supported ;)

FFDShow can be used for postprocessing quite easily. Just go to Media playback property page, click on 'Video processing' and drag&drop FFDShow to the assigned video filters list. Make sure RAW mode is enabled in FFDShow.

Yes, EQ isn't working yet.

[pernas]

@vlada

I went from BSP & VLC to Mplayer which gave me most of the things
you stated (almost anyway :) )

Subtitles in the overlay with Mplayer done like below;

(in mplayer's conf)

....
subfont-autoscale=2
subfont-text-scale=4
vf=expand=0:-80
xy=640
fs=yes
....

This makes half of the subs in the picture and the other half
in the overlay (apprx)

Also, http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html has an interesting project
which works with remotecontrols and uses Mplayer as core.

Regards,
Per

[trodas]

DAvenger - As for DVD, anyone can code a DVD playback module for RadLight. It's easy because the architecture is open. Or wait for the official support ;)

Sorry to blow you bubble, but no filter or filters combination (for DVD) can change the region code - for example - so the "anyone can code a DVD playback module for RadLight" is only partly true :p ;)
Yes, anyone can. Or just use the existing filters, like from WinDVD or PowerDVD. Yes. But w/o internal support it will not be much usefull at all. I mean the subtitles switching, audio streams switching, the hotkeys for root/menu/start of movie, etc, etc etc :p

DVD playback is, sadly, nowhere near as simple, as mpeg/avi/mkv/rm/qt or such formats :o

I wish it could, but it is just not like these... :scared:

...and watch out for HDTV inside of ts container ;) Now that is wher the fun really begin! :eek:

[Winamp_Hater]

I use RealPlayer 10.5 and sometimes Media Player Classic, and I have no problem. Also VLC is good, but it does not remember its settings.

[Thomas_AR]

I am using ZoomPlayer 4.5. Pro. The configuration regarding to codecs and so on is very good and flexible. Plays nearly everything.

[buzzqw]

just a note...

today i stumbled upon "Korean Medial Player" (but i am glad its interface is in english).

Wow !

Play near anythings, lots of plugins and a infinity of configuration. Worth a try !!!

One more think i like (very much) is that you can unzip the main archive and play, no need to install lots of codec (and kmp do not install any decoder)

link KMPlayer (http://www.kmplayer.com)

download link KMP 2.8.1.1020 (http://www.kmplayer.com/down/kmp.zip)

BHH

P.S. Dunno about legit use of GPL code used ... (a great player, anyway)

[cfp999]

I agree. KMPlayer is looking good. Performance is great even on low-end computers. Jumping forth and back in movie time with the slider is very smooth. Better than anything I have seen. But there are minor glitches. Tooltips for instance are still in korean even if english language is selected. Also I am having a hard time configuring the subtitles character-set.

[vlada]

I also gave this player a try and it looks very good. It seems to me, the player can draw subtitles into overlay which is a very important future for me (as I mentioned in the begining of this thread). It can also extend the picture to 4:3.
But SUB (MicroDVD) subtitles doesen't work. The whole file is displayed at once. And I'm having problems with charset too.
What I like is the complexnes of this player. It can do just anything, looks very well. But unfortunately I think this software breaks GPL license, because it is based on opensource/GPL decoders and filters.
I'm also wondering, why is the program trying to connect somewhere to internet. But may be it is just checking for updates....

[buzzqw]

As i read on forum (there is an english section) the subs problem seems to be know and debugged (there is also a beta to download)

Also for me KMP is trying to connect... but i thinks is for collecting usage/update statistics... dunno :mad:

BHH

[cfp999]

See Options -> Preferences -> General under When Starting... "Check if New Version is Available" is ticked default I think. Maybe that explains why it is trying to connect?

Another thing that bothers me is that the On-Line Documentation is only in Korean. I havent been able to find anything in english. Of course many of the features and filters are sort of self-explaining, but I would like to know what exactly the Presets and Modes does (like HighSpeed & SuperSpeed mode or High Quality & High Speed preset).

[movax]

/me will stick with MPC for a while to come
It's lightweight and is awesome at playing back DVDs, compared to any WinDVD version I've seen.

[Thomas_AR]

Yes MPC does it for me.
By the way, how can i force MPC to use a special Decoder for some videos.

For example (i don't have that, but extreme case):
Installed: ffdshow, Xvid, DiVX.

All of these decoders work with avi files. How can i force MPC to use one these three for avi files.

Thanks
Thomas

[movax]

ffdshow has a very high DirectShow merit...what I'd do is set ffdshow not to decode XviD or DivX (though you can make ffdshow use the official xvid decoder if it is on your system), and then configure XviD/DivX Decoders (e.g., "Decode only DivX/XviD", or "Decode Generic MPEG-4").

[Thomas_AR]

Thanks for the quick answer.
So, if i understand it right, i have to configure it in the options of the decoder itself and not in MPC.
Ah, one more question. What is the purpose of the 'Overrides' funktion in the Filter options in MPC?

[vlada]

Thomas_AR> Go to View -> Options, then open dialog Filters -> Overrides. Click on "Add Filter" and then you can configure it - block it, prefere it or give it a certain merit.
But I would suggest you to use FFDShow for all MPEG-4 videos (DivX 4, 5, 6, XviD, 3ivX etc.) I would leave DivX 3.xx (DIV3 FourCC code) decoding on original DivX decoder. FFDShow has sometimes (quite rare) problems with DivX 3.xx encoded movies.

EDIT: You should configure codecs support in FFDShow docoder. It works very well.

[Thomas_AR]

Ok, thanks for all your help.

Thomas