Favorite Video Player

[SavantEdge]

There're a lot of video players out there. Weigh in.
(If it's not there, leave a comment.)

[BWF89]

Vlc

[maniacmusician]

xine isn't really a player, it's a backend. But I love Kaffeine, which uses xine.

[diskotek]

i think vlc is cool, it's cross-platform and plays everything i have on my box.

[qpwoeiruty]

mplayer, plays almost everything I've thrown at it, and actually gets sub and sub size/placement correct 98% of the time

[ixus_123]

I like VLC although I think it's ugly

Mplayer doesn't seem to want to play Matroska files on my PC which is weird.

[wh0rd]

xfmedia player is also awesome. it played some crazy realplayer formats from europe that i was having trouble with on VLC even.

[ihatethedekoys]

I like Kaffeine, athough it doesn't work under beryl ... but gxine does, which doesn't make any sense.

I should probably make a thread about that ...

[Polygon]

i have no favorite, as i have not come across a single player yet that will play all types of movie files

for example, mplayer and totem will not play .flv movie files, but vlc will
none of them play .wmv (all have various problems like suttering)

and various other problems where usually two will not work, but one will

[FuturePilot]

MPlayer. I have gotten MPlayer to play .flv files, you just can't FF or RW them.

[hanzomon4]

I like totem/xine-backend it plays everything(+.rm) and the interface is simple and easy on the eyes.

[maniacmusician]

I like Kaffeine, athough it doesn't work under beryl ... but gxine does, which doesn't make any sense.

I should probably make a thread about that ...
It must be something specific to your setup. Kaffeine works fine under Beryl for me and most other people. But yeah; start a different thread for that.

[reacocard]

Xine, via xine-ui. Plays everything and is infinitely customizable. Also, its the best DVD player I've found thus far.

[davtaine]

I use Kaffeine, and its working under beryl nicely...

[SishGupta]

I use VLC because normalization with videos is a must for me.

Do any other apps have normalization built in?

[Xenogis]

MPlayer. It works for every format I have ever needed. It is fast. It is simple. It can rip dvds then convert them for my ipod. It is just the best ;)

[sloggerkhan]

I like xine, vlc. Mplayer irks me cause last time I used it, it did not maintain aspect ratio as window size was scaled. Maybe that's fixed now?

[kevinlyfellow]

xine isn't really a player, it's a backend. But I love Kaffeine, which uses xine.

I think xine-ui is assumed (my favorite since 2003!)

[atdi4ever]

i use totem right now (just installed feisty) but i will get back to vlc soon..

[mcduck]

Hard question, as they all have their good sides and bad sides. I voted for Totem, as I like it's user interface most so I'm using it most of the time. Then again, Mplayer works best as browser plugin, Xine is the best for playing movies and VLC can play pretty much any media file I have ever found..

[lalakis85]

Totem as browser plug-in and vlc work fine for me. Generally i prefer VLC

[anaconda]

mplayer is best.

Vlc would be good IF it just played the colours right.. with vlc you always have to be manually adjusting the brightness & contrast..

[anaconda]

I like xine, vlc. Mplayer irks me cause last time I used it, it did not maintain aspect ratio as window size was scaled. Maybe that's fixed now?

actually it is an option.. you can select the "maintain aspect ratio" thing.. but I prefer not to. I sometimes (often) play videos, which have wrong aspect ratio and it is handy that you can change it just by resizing the window..

[Chemist]

VLC for me

[karellen]

as 99% of the time I only watch .avi/.mpg movies I use totem

[hanzomon4]

Here's one thing that vlc can't play that totem-xine can, rm videos

Mplayer is a mess.. The ui isn't that hot and the sound jumps in volume for no reason, don't even think about scrolling forward..

[LookTJ]

Most of the time mplayer seems to hate me, that's why I voted vlc.

[SavantEdge]

i have no favorite, as i have not come across a single player yet that will play all types of movie files

for example, mplayer and totem will not play .flv movie files, but vlc will
none of them play .wmv (all have various problems like suttering)

and various other problems where usually two will not work, but one will

Alright, well, they probably all play .mpg, and .avi. In that case, which would you use? :P

[hanzomon4]

Alright, well, they probably all play .mpg, and .avi. In that case, which would you use? :P

Not directed at me but.... Totem, best video ui and the hotkeys are nice too.

[Wolki]

I used to be a big mplayer fan (it was what got me to switch to linux in the first place), but its interface really sucks. Totem (w/gstreamer) has some problems, but is in general a pleasure to use, so it's my current player of choice.

If totem doesn't work well for a file (like for h264 in a matroshka container, or for videos where I need a lot of performance), I still use mplayer, and I tend to keep vlc around for emergencies.

[teet]

I used to be a big mplayer fan (it was what got me to switch to linux in the first place), but its interface really sucks. Totem (w/gstreamer) has some problems, but is in general a pleasure to use, so it's my current player of choice.

If totem doesn't work well for a file (like for h264 in a matroshka container, or for videos where I need a lot of performance), I still use mplayer, and I tend to keep vlc around for emergencies.

I feel the same way. I remember how cool mplayer was after I installed all the plugins and it could play virutally any file. Now I just use totem (with plugins installed via automatix) for most all of my files. In the rare instance that a video won't play I'll use mplayer or vlc.

I must say, however, that I still use the mplayer plugin for firefox. It works better than the totem (gstreamer?) plugin, but still only plays ~60% of videos.

-teet

[TheRingmaster]

I manly use totem with the lib-xine (or whatever plugin)

[cowlip]

I like totem-xine's interface and codec support the best.

I also like how mplayer is getting lots of new codec support. For example, they're currently adding dvr-ms support, which is the Micosoft Windows Media Center Edition proprietary file format...bit by bit being freed. I use it on my Xbox Media Center (also GPL'd and open source) all the time. On Linux that's a great value for anyone who uses MCE and feels locked into Windows due to that. But I personally don't like the interface of mplayer for everyday tasks as much as Totem.

VLC is great for those odd files that just will not play elsewhere for some reason; VLC will play em ;)

[Leeghoofd]

I voted VLC as it is mostly used on my systems.

It does appear "ugly" compared to most other players out there.. but it does the job and since i tend to run most movies "full screen" anyway i'm not bothered by the vlc UI.

I like the fact that i can use VLC on both linux and windows ( yeah i still tend to use it)

Kaffeine is a good alternative and is almost as good as vlc, however on my machine there are a fair number of filetypes that wont play with this movieplayer.

I've tried Mplayer aswell, as some used to call this the most advanced player under Linux. I however personally dont like the UI and it needed far to much configuring. For example i spend 2 hours trying to get sound and picture synchronised.. Codec support was fairly decent tho.

[Buffalo Soldier]

for example, mplayer and totem will not play .flv movie files

Perhaps this is a good news for you. I'm currently using Fiesty... and Totem manage to play FLV files :)

[Gargamella]

i vote for totem because of its interface, it's very simple and looks good

i like it ;D

[stokedfish]

Kaffeine.

[NJC]

Totem.

I read many Mplayer salivations so installed twice but no joy ... fatal error configuring -vo.

[Quillz]

I like VLC the most.

[Luggy]

For most things I perfer mplayer. Nice, clean and light ( at least when you use the non-graphical version ).

However Totem is pleasing me more and more, especially now that it can load the menus of DVDs.