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cpuin

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 3, 2013
77
0
Hi,

I would like to know your opinion about which player is better and why?
MPlayerX or VLC.

From my small experience i noticed that MplayerX performance is better, but when streaming from SMB/TimeCapsule VLC works much better.
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
You answered your own question. Each player has its strengths on your system. Use the player that works better for the task at hand.
 

bsmr

macrumors 65816
Oct 4, 2005
1,041
267
Germany
Don't wanna make a new thread.

What about those players and mavericks?

Just setting up a new machine and think about which player to use:
- MPlayerX
- VLC
- Flip4Mac Plugin for Quicktime

What's your choice?
 

dusk007

macrumors 68040
Dec 5, 2009
3,411
104
I think MplayerX doesn't hold a candle to VLC.
VLC offers a range of post processing options. Horizontal scroll works much better. It has all the LAN functionality if you need it.
MplayerX does a little more than Apple's own player but not much. It has the sleeker interface but that is about all it has going for it.

VLC is an entirely different beast.
 

KUguardgrl13

macrumors 68020
May 16, 2013
2,492
125
Kansas, USA
I used to use the Perian plugin and QuickTime, but apparently that doesn't work with Mavericks anymore. I'll probably use VLC since I already have it.
 

ElectronGuru

macrumors 68000
Sep 5, 2013
1,656
489
Oregon, USA
I think MplayerX doesn't hold a candle to VLC.
VLC offers a range of post processing options. Horizontal scroll works much better. It has all the LAN functionality if you need it.
MplayerX does a little more than Apple's own player but not much. It has the sleeker interface but that is about all it has going for it.

VLC is an entirely different beast.

Yeah, kinda like android vs ipad. You prefer ease or options?
 

onekerato

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2011
222
1
I have both VLC and MPlayerX, and use both.

MPlayerX doesn't have a playlist feature. So, you double-click a movie file on disk and it loads up and plays. When the movie finishes, it provides a next button which can lookup the next sequentially numbered file on disk. So, after watching one episode of a TV show, hit next, and it will pick up next episode of the same TV show. MPlayerX feels lightweight, great for one movie at a time.

VLC has a playlist feature. Every file you add goes into the playlist. It's great for dragging in a folder(s) of content to watch at a time, such as a video tutorial, and it shows the time/duration of everything on the playlist. So you know how much time to budget to finish the set of videos. It also has a "sticky playback rate", which means you can speed up playback to 1.7x for video tutorials and it will remember that setting while it plays through the playlist. It also has convenient gestures such as using scroll wheel up/down to change volume. Further, it provides an equalizer which you can set to "Live" or "Headphones" preset to add some clarity to video tutorials while playing them back at 1.7x.

Both are great apps.
 

smoking monkey

macrumors 68020
Mar 5, 2008
2,335
1,468
I HUNGER
I've never used MplayerX, but I've also never had a problem with VLC since they redid it.

I love the scroll up and down volume change as I often watch videos from a distance (27" imac). I also like the fact it automatically syncs srt subs to mp4 files. QT doesn't do that, does mPlayerX? My wife isn't a native English speaker and while her English is very good, it's still hard to follow the slang, so this makes it incredibly easy for her to study.

I might check out mplayerX, but unless it offers a better picture and the same functions as VLC I can't imagine changing over.

Oh, one thing I don't like about VLC in full screen mode is that it's really particular about moving the scrub bar/button. I wish they made it bigger and easier to scrub.
 

phrehdd

macrumors 601
Oct 25, 2008
4,289
1,292
VLC has more features.
MPlayerX is simple and straight forward


I use both. MPlayer is a quick and dirty local media viewer while VLC is for playing entire media files local and on the network.
 

bwat47

macrumors regular
Oct 1, 2013
124
0
VLC has several fullscreen-related bugs in mavericks ATM (with both VLC's native fullscreen and non-native fullscreen modes), so I recommend MplayerX, which is fully mavericks compatible already.
 

Proxxy10

macrumors newbie
Dec 10, 2013
1
0
I personally use both, it just depends on the situation. Have been using both for several years now, this is my perception of them:

  • VLC is more solid, plays everything you throw at it, better for corrupted, damaged, broken files etc. Very resilient, keeps playing the file even if it's terribly broken, it will jump frames but keep playing. MplayerX will freeze or crash more often in these situations.

  • VLC manages big 1080p files better on my 2010 13" Macbook Pro while MplayerX stutters. I've found my computer is quite on the edge of 1080p playback capability so I always use 720p if I can but if I need to play decently 1080p VLC is better for me than MplayerX.

  • The new VLC media manager... I hate it, I loved the simplicity of the old VLC and that's exactly what I like of MplayerX: its simple. Because of that, I use MplayerX as the default player when I double click a media file, so I use it to preview files, play single songs, etc. You open a new one, it starts playing right away, no media manager.

  • I LOVE the navigation keys on MplayerX, arrow keys to back/forward 10 sec. and up/down keys for bigger gaps. I don't like mouse navigation.

  • MplayerX has some issues when navigating in a movie, audio goes out of sync frequently. It doesn't happen on VLC and if it does it resyncs sooner or later.

  • Both players have issues on fullscreen mode in Mountain Lion and Mavericks if you set them to go fullscreen on a space for it's own. I use 4 finger trackpad gesture to swithc between fullscreen applications and sometimes both players will crash if you switch spaces frequently.

  • Both players have the exact same image quality if you were wondering, which is perfect.

  • VLC has a ton more options if you want either media management, streaming, converting, exporting, you name it. I only use the media player capabilities anyways.

So to sum up, I use MplayerX as my default player when i double click a file for quick viewing.

I use VLC for 'critical' plays, like when in public or with big H.264 files or if I have a problematic file that no other player can handle.

P.S.: forget QuickTime forever, it's the slowest and less reliable of all. I never ever use it. When QuickTime Pro existed it was very good and had extended functionality but that was many years ago. Today's QuickTime is slow and very picky with the files you want it to play.
 

grizzlyedwin

macrumors member
Dec 10, 2013
45
0
Florida
I've personally been using VLC for well over 4 or 5 years or maybe even more I believe and never had any problems with it, so I say VLC.

I've never used MPlayerX or that many other players aside from VLC since I discovered it for the first time on PC since VLC has been so reliable.

I'll give MPlayerX a try to see how it works, but either way VLC is a great player nevertheless.
 

Michaelgtrusa

macrumors 604
Oct 13, 2008
7,900
1,821
VLC has several fullscreen-related bugs in mavericks ATM (with both VLC's native fullscreen and non-native fullscreen modes), so I recommend MplayerX, which is fully mavericks compatible already.

Fullscreen is a mess right now.
 

songcunzhi

macrumors member
Aug 12, 2008
71
0
The only reason that keeps me away from VLC is that, it doesn't start from last playback position, while I often stop in the middle of a video and come back later.
 

MacLC

macrumors 6502
Oct 18, 2013
414
272
I personally use VLC as I have for the past 10-12 years but VLC has 2 major limitations.
1) only 1 active video at a time. I made 2 copies of VLC apps so I can open 3 videos at a time if necessary, but not as convenient as, say, QuickTime, for example.

2) VLC removed an old feature where "forward" would skip 10 seconds. I still have an old copy of VLC 0.x that I use whenever possible. I do most computing in Snow Leopard so I don't know if that is still an option in Mavericks.
 

alexino11

macrumors newbie
Jan 31, 2014
9
0
both

well i kinda like both. i really thought VLC is alot better first.
but mplayerx gives alot of options that VLC doesn't either. specially when you're watching a movie with a subtitle. you can choose what encoding to use if the srt file doesn't define it. also it gives stretching ability which is nice for movies that were intended 3:4 though you can change the aspect ratio in VLC. but we sort of need both cause sometimes for some files VLC is able to open them while for others MplayerX is a better option like for a series episode that got cut out at 99%. i usually go with MplayerX for its easy option and the next button.
 
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