Does the perfect video player exist?

I've tried media player classic (32/64bit), kmplayer, vlc, media player, creative player, mpcstar, quicktime, and more. Out of all the players I've tried, I think I've managed to find 1 or 2 things that are wrong with some of them.

Now, before you say anything else, I understand that there is a lot of factors when it comes to videos, especially codacs. I've used coreavc, coreaac, ffdshow 32/64 bit, k-lite, and cccp. In the end, I find that all the codacs seem to be useful depending on the video.

for example, I was using coreavc for my h264 mkv files. Some of them played very smoothly, others were choppy, or stat icky at times. When this happens, I switch to my internal codacs inside my player and it works fine or try out ffdshow or whatever.

What am I babbling about? I guess I'm just wondering if there is a player out there that doesn't need the use of external codacs. Or perhaps the best combo that people have used.

I just want to stick with one and have it work for most if not all my videos. What are some of ya'll thoughts?

 

On Vista, Vista CodecPack and Windows Media Player, done. With h.264 you might need to change the codec setting - done.

There is a Win7 CodecPack from the same author.

 

I've personally never had an issue with VLC. It's played everything I've thrown at it, aside from Blu-Ray (for the obvious reasons).

 

VLC is the best, though it's UI leaves something to be desired.

What I'd love to see is VLC develop an iTunes-like interface.

But yeah, for just straight video playing, VLC is the topps of the topps.

 

hows vlc at playing BD files in mkv?

 

HD MKV's play flawlessly, even on my old Mac Mini with GMA950 graphics. That says a LOT.

It won't play BD-ROM because of the encryption standards. AACS isn't open to VLC.

 

CCCP + MPC + VLC is all I need to play anything/everything

I agree though while I find MPC and VLC the best there are a few things one can do that the other can not.

VLC can play .ISO files and likes to play a few files properly th at MPC may not.

MPC supports more codecs and seems faster to load and does a lot of neat things like live interlacing.

I prefer MPC the most and only turn to VLC when I need too.

 

I've always used MPC and never once had a issue playing a .mkv blu ray. VLC is in my opinion just as good but I like MPC interface better.

 

Never had any issues with VLC and it's my preferred choice for a video player.

 

Ok, I'll give vlc a try. U guys tried kmplayer? If anything, I give kmplayer the fastest FF RR award. I click to the end of a video and instant jump without any wait time.

But I find some bugs in kmplayer like the issue with playing in enhanced video renderer on win 7, and the saturation issue it has. The default is off so it needs to be adjusted. And sometimes the subs won't work properly after FF/RR.

 

VLC has, from my experience, poor hardware acceleration for videos. When I try to play 720p content on my 1.8GHz Intel Celeron + ATI Radeon 4350 desktop (hooked up to a 1920x1080 TV), there's so much stuttering that it's nearly unwatchable. Using Windows Media Player and the Win7 Codec Pack by Shark007 that DetlevCM mentioned, though, the content plays fine with little to no hiccups.

 

If you are anime folk, then use CCCP (use the bundled MPC-HC) and madVR.
If you are other folk, then use CCCP (use the bundled MPC-HC) and madVR.

If you have playback issues, open the video in MPC-HC, pause it and tell me what is listed in the menu: Play-> Filters.

CCCP generally does not support DXVA which is dodgy on nVidia and even worse on ATi.

 

both lol. I mean, its not like I can't get anything to work, I just can't seem to stick to one thing that works for all. So I intend to use coreavc for h264, and if it feels choppy, I switch to internal, then there is k-lite and ffdshow.

right now with mpc, I'm using coravc, and I have dxvah264 enabled internally. Sometimes that works, sometimes I check just the h264 internal non dxva.

Everyone does say use cccp for anime, but I normally don't have issues with k-lite either.

 

For a video that is choppy, what does the Ctrl+J jitter graph in MPC-HC look like? (applies only to EVR Custom Pres video renderer)
Is it constant? You can post a screenshot. Also, do you have Aero (that 3D Flip thing) enabled or disabled?

What filters are listed in the menu: Play-> Filters?

(Personally, I am only familiar with CCCP and MPC-HC)

MPC-HC's h264 internal non dxva is generally slower than FFDShow as it is not multithreaded. (FFDShow can use ffmpeg-mt which is more efficient) CoreAVC is generally the fastest H.264 decoder, though only by a small margin now. DXVA is unpredictable.

 

Just looked up MadVR never head of it, I am interested but it says no subtitle support... If that is the case its useless to me for anime.

Then again I know there is a way around it with an external sub renderer but wonder how complicated that is and if it will cause me to run into issues later on (and will I even notice the quality boost lol)

 

I'll check out the graph later. I don't often get choppy video. But say for an anime, unlimited blade works....

not sure y but I have it on renderless 9, just switched to EVR custom pres I could of sworn the default for mpc is evr.. unless I changed it without remembering.

great, well, I'll test later, but anyway, filters are coreavc, flac audio decoder, default direct sound, and now its evr cust pres. Now I have more things to experiment with.

 

This thread could go somewhere

Its been awhile since I wrapped my head around renders and such.

Last time I messed with it I had a higher quality but lost screen shot ability and subtitles. I ended up just sticking with the default settings from a CCCP install and have not bothered in a while.

 

I guess I'm one of the few that uses CCCP with Windows Media Player 12 + CoreAVC then? I just don't like MPC's UI very much (although I have used it a few times and it does what it needs to), but I keep it in case WMP decides to stab itself and not work. WMP12 plays a few of my files without loading any external filters and whatnot at all actually... when it wants to.

 

I like MPC UI more than any other

Its plain but super functional.

Everything seems to be a click away like subtitles or audio track, the seek bar grows with the size of the video (VLC does not one of my big cons for VLC)

Easy to find file information, aspect ratio and zoom, etc.

I like how its light and launches instantly.

All those windows based programs seem to take forever to start up in my experience and thats no good when browsing files.

 

VLC is also my favorite. It's played every kind of internet radio format I've seen, as well as a slew of video formats. I've never needed anything else.

 

You should have DirectVobSub/VSFilter for subtitles which CCCP installs and uses by default.
(in MPC-HC, make sure that following option is not ticked: View-> Options-> Auto-load subtitles - CCCP's bundled MPC-HC has it disabled)

edit: but you do lose the ability to save screenshots from within MPC-HC. You can still use Print Screen and other applications to save screenshots.

 

MPC + Halli + CCCP

 

Eh I'm sure there's a lot more people out there like us! Also using CCCP and all its' plugins (haali/ffd/a/show ect) + WMP, and WMP has never really given me grief. For a while it didn't like to play .mkv's in succession when I was on anime benders/marathons, but one of the CCCP updates seems to have resolved that a while back. MPC is solely my backup option, only used it a handful of times and each time it turned out that the video itself was corrupt.

I will never trust WMP with my music though. Winamp ftw there.

 

media player on the pc and media center on the big screen.

 

with the added codec`s i dont have any problem with windows media player
it plays everything i need a player for

 

for me, the best VIDEO player is Media player Classic with the Klite Codec

 

speaking of media player, I think mine crapped out on me. Something strange is happening, when I open a video with MP, it just shows nothing but darkness (black screen), However, when I open MP, then drag it in, it seems to play. Though I always wanted to remove MP anyway but can't.

can't even find where I can change settings.

 

I will admit cpu and performance wise WMP with K-lite can't be beat on my TT with the SU9300 and 4500hd. However, that said I still use MPC-HC as it supports the most codecs around, and I have yet to found an issue with HD video(be it 720 or 1080).

 

Windows Media Player with Shark codecs is the best option, for me anyway. Good interface, and basically every format playable (and key to me, works with my HD5850 idle clocks, unlike other codec sets).

 

DXVA or software decoding? I see no issue playing video with my 9600M GT's idle clocks and on my crappy Intel graphics either with software decoding. With DXVA, all implementations have the same load on the GPU.

 

I've been happy with WMP + k-lite.

 

VLC plays EVERYTHING flawlessly for me.

 

I use MPC HC 64 bit on the HTPC (47" LED LCD, so PQ matters) so I have one click access to any kind of video file and KM Player on my laptop for the same reason. The laptop is pretty old and not real 'gutsy' anymore.

 

K-lite Mega Codec Pack (MPC-HC bundle) = It plays anything you throw at it and has DVXA which is a big plus.

 

I have never seen the need for 'Codec Packs'. Especially with MPC HC which has the most important ones built in. If a video doesn't play, then get the codec that video requires. Just my 2 cents, but why would you want to muck up your system with all the extra crap a codec pack comes with?

 

Because it doesn't come with add-ons?
-> also, if you get one codec pack for everything (e.g. Vista Copeck Pack, Win7 Codec Pack) you will have less junk than if you install a codec pack after another trying to find the right one.

I think I went through 3 or 4 on XP trying to make a podcast download run on one of our old laptops that is with my grandfather running XP.
And I'm not sure if I succeeded... (And I will not accept an apple contamination to do to play a video)

 

And if you download just the codec(s) you actually need you'll have even less 'junk' on your system.
As an example, let's say you needed to open a .PDF document. You open it in NotePad and see the word 'Adobe' in it. So do you then load every piece of software made by 'Adobe' in the hopes one of them will be somehow able to read it? I wouldn't. I'd Google 'PDF' and find a PDF reader. I'd do the same if I found I had a video file that wouldn't play: Get the proper 'tool' (codec) for that file-type.

 

No, but the same container, e.g. mp4 can contain different codecs.

I regularly have a use for h.264, then some flash... and interestingly enough, the h.264 videos from my camera are different to most "normal h.264" videos... -> they need their own codec, or work with the right (!!) settings and the Vista Codec Pack.
-> Install all you need and be done with it.

And your example isn't entirely valid, as ffdshow will install a ton of stuff - as will most other codec bundles - while the Vista Codec Pack is set up in the way to have the lowest amount of codec for the largest amount of files.

 

doing it manually can get quite complex depending on your needs. and you might not know what codecs interoperate well with others, and how. and that's where codec-packs come into play.

you can code your own os, it will have less junk, then, than downloading a fixed os pack (be it windows, be it linux). but you might not want to, as it's much more work, and you most likely will fail to handle the complexity.

 

For all those worried about installing a lot of "unnecessary" they can just install the K-lite Standard Pack, and it includes MPC-HC as well.

I personally hate VLC because of the sometimes blocky image, the DVXA support is just useless and takes 1/2 hour to change language on the fly.

 

Post updated!!!!

please read carefully

K, so after closely reading, I've decided to do a combo I've never done before.

Windows Media Player with cccp/coreavc and directvob. I've decided to do this and I must say I'm impressed with how well it plays. This works extremely well with anime too (fansubs).

If ur interested, do the following:

1 - reinstall MP. click on "turn windows features on or off" in the programs and features in ctrl panel. uncheck media features. this will uninstall mp and the center. Uninstall all other codacs you have, then do a registry clean.

2 - restart

3 - enable media features to reinstall MP.

4 - install CCCP and DirectVob and if you have it, coreavc. VSFilter vobsub

5- To enable subs, do the following:
run CMD as Admin and type: "takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\mfpmp.exe" (no quotes) then press enter.

Then type in: "icacls C:\Windows\System32\mfpmp.exe /grant (user name):F" (no quotes) then press enter. Rename the file mfpmp.exe to anything else such as mfpmpe.exe in case u need the original file again for some reason. Once u have done this, Vobsub should play subs (green arrow in system tray).

Once you follow these steps, I think you guys may very well like this set up. Only complaints I have about MP is the fastforward and rewind is a little slow compared to kmplayer (coreavc/aac increases ff/RR speeds).

use Wind7DSfilter Tweaker. I enabled coreavc and aac and now the audio sounds good.

edit - so far, I've tested 3 1080p BD mkv files and plays flawlessly. I've tested some SD xvid viles, 480p dvds, wmv, mp4 files and so far so good. MP can't play flac audio files alone but can play h264 flac video files. so I'm forced to use KMplayer for flac audio (so still using two players but thats ok if its only for flac). haven't tested other formats yet like mov, flv, etc.

Like I said, my ultimate goal is to try to rely on only one player so I still got other files to test... well... besides swf

edit - ok, final thing, remember to enable autoload vs filter if you are using coreavc. Now the only thing that worries me is the properties shows video codac as 003 and not coreavc although the icon is in the system tray. Its showing core aac for audio just fine.

 

Ouch... is it just me, or does MP hate Mov files?

Can anyone else see if they can get this file to work? MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

Its dead fantasy 1 (epic if u haven't seen it). The video is just shaking like crazy

edit - guess I'll be using quick time for my mov files.

 

In general mov files work fine with the Vista Codec pack -> what's the codec inside?

That will tell you where the issue lies.

 

Try MPC-HC and VLC for your mov before you run all the way back to Quicktime. Quicktime is crap.

 

or try rename the .mov extension to .hdmov and try play it again...

 

I just use QTLite as my codec to let VLC & MPC play those apple movies.

 

WMP plays .mov just fine for me?

 

what codacs u got?

hdmov didn't work...

the mov file is shaky I guess cause of the SVQ3 codac ffdshow is using. I unchecked that and I guess MP tried to play its internal svq3 codac maybe? The result was it was less shaky but still shaky.

the QTLite codac I'll try and I bet it will work. thanks Vicious.

 

I can't believe I made it page 5 and NO ONE haasn't once mentioned having HD DVD.
I tend to use Windows Media player + KK++ Lite codec pack..
or
Arcsoft Home Theater 3 if I am going to be watching a HD DVD. I should probaaly see how well it handles "normal" videos since it was so much $$

 

Maybe because it's a dead format for "HD" and other people don't care.

(At least to me standard DVDs are fine...)