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Best Video Player?

Starfyre

Starfyre

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 7, 2010
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I use VLC. Is there a better video player people use? Or is VLC still the best?
I used to really like MPlayerX, but it appears the software is out of date/no longer being updated and it just doesn't work well. I liked being able to pinch/zoom with two fingers to expand and reduce the size of the video playing area.
 
Starfyre said:
I use VLC. Is there a better video player people use? Or is VLC still the best?
I used to really like MPlayerX, but it appears the software is out of date/no longer being updated and it just doesn't work well. I liked being able to pinch/zoom with two fingers to expand and reduce the size of the video playing area.
Click to expand...
VLC updated to version 3.0 last week. Ars Technica says it's a "significant update. The interface doesn't look that different, but a lot of new features are in there."
 
Nick3 said:
Movist. It's worth every penny. Videos run smoothly with low CPU and memory consumption.
Click to expand...
Movist is a nice player.

You can do other things with MPV such as Motion-based interpolation:
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/wiki/Interpolation

"There are many available upscaling (interpolation) techniques in mpv, of which this article aims to provide some comparison screenshots."
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/wiki/Upscaling

It would be nice if Movist could use mpv as well.
 
I don't do torrents BUT I do know that:

VLC has a big update. Can't see much difference. Still very bad at HEVC.
Inna is a bit better at HEVC but still not watchable.

It would be just great if Apple would let us play 4K HDR iTunes content on 2016-2017 MBPs that have the support in CPU AND GRAPHICS. I'm afraid that I just can't travel around with a television and Apple TV strapped to my back.
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
I don't do torrents BUT I do know that:

VLC has a big update. Can't see much difference. Still very bad at HEVC.
Inna is a bit better at HEVC but still not watchable.

It would be just great if Apple would let us play 4K HDR iTunes content on 2016-2017 MBPs that have the support in CPU AND GRAPHICS. I'm afraid that I just can't travel around with a television and Apple TV strapped to my back.
Click to expand...

I wish Apple would just let us download the 4K HDR content without having to stream it so we can watch them without an internet connection.
[doublepost=1518971553][/doublepost]
mark729 said:
https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/

try this one.
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing this! IINA has the feature I missed most from MPlayerX, the ability to resize the video window using the trackpad pinch to zoom gestures! (Though it looks not as smooth as MPlayerX implementation, it is at least works!)
VLC 3.0 update is nice, though as with 2.x, if you use the pinch to zoom, it just fills up the whole screen... or not. There is no in-between, which I think from a usability standpoint, makes me feel it is more dated than IINA.
 
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Starfyre said:
I wish Apple would just let us download the 4K HDR content without having to stream it so we can watch them without an internet connection.
[doublepost=1518971553][/doublepost]
Click to expand...

The rule at Apple has always been to screw customers, cripple features, sell additional crap customers don't need, obsolete products early and pressure upgrades on users. It's been that way since the 80s.

So they cripple your graphics video acceleration UNTIL they move you on to a new machine. They produce **** graphics drivers so they move you on to a new machine. They pressure you to buy an Apple TV to watch 4K HDR content instead of using your shiny expensive machine even though you can't travel with an Apple TV. Then when you go on the iTunes Store and click on the section '4K HDR' you go in there and most of the stuff is plain 4K with no HDR.

They are a mess.

Just to prove how bad they have become at even the most simple and basic thing do this test.

1. Get any new Mac made in the last 2 years. Click the desktop. Hit Command+N 10 times very quickly to make 10 Finder windows. There is a lag of around 2 seconds.

2. Get a very old Mac that runs anything from OS 9 to Snow Leopard. Do the same thing as above. The Finder windows will be created in real time. No lag on the end.

3. Same experiment with Windows 10. Create 10 File Explorer windows using Ctrl+N. No lag.

So latest macOS operating system on latest super incredible hardware can't draw even 10 stupid Finder windows in real time.

So I don't expect any decent next generation video playback on graphics hardware from them soon.
 
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Starfyre said:
Thank you for sharing this! IINA has the feature I missed most from MPlayerX, the ability to resize the video window using the trackpad pinch to zoom gestures! (Though it looks not as smooth as MPlayerX implementation, it is at least works!)
Click to expand...
Type in commands in the advanced settings and you have even more features (MPV).
 
What makes IIANA better than MPV if mpv.io also has an OSX version?
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
The rule at Apple has always been to screw customers, cripple features, sell additional crap customers don't need, obsolete products early and pressure upgrades on users. It's been that way since the 80s.

So they cripple your graphics video acceleration UNTIL they move you on to a new machine. They produce **** graphics drivers so they move you on to a new machine. They pressure you to buy an Apple TV to watch 4K HDR content instead of using your shiny expensive machine even though you can't travel with an Apple TV. Then when you go on the iTunes Store and click on the section '4K HDR' you go in there and most of the stuff is plain 4K with no HDR.

They are a mess.

Just to prove how bad they have become at even the most simple and basic thing do this test.

1. Get any new Mac made in the last 2 years. Click the desktop. Hit Command+N 10 times very quickly to make 10 Finder windows. There is a lag of around 2 seconds.

2. Get a very old Mac that runs anything from OS 9 to Snow Leopard. Do the same thing as above. The Finder windows will be created in real time. No lag on the end.

3. Same experiment with Windows 10. Create 10 File Explorer windows using Ctrl+N. No lag.

So latest macOS operating system on latest super incredible hardware can't draw even 10 stupid Finder windows in real time.

So I don't expect any decent next generation video playback on graphics hardware from them soon.
Click to expand...

just made over 20 finder windows, no lag (2016 12" macbook, entry level). your first paragraph says it all; thanks for sharing apple's 'rule'... o_O
 
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SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Post video. You are in denial whenever someone highlights a performance issue. You just post 'No problem here'. That's not helpful.
Click to expand...

Yea, I hear ya on some of the artifacts that show up every now and then, and I did also observe the 1-2s lag with the 10 Finder windows, but overall, I mean puh-lease, OS X is still mountains better than Windows ever was and probably ever will be.

I just re-installed an older version of macOS because the newer one still sucks, and when I think about what re-installing NT, XP, Vista and Win 7 was like, it was an absolute pleasure and breeze to deal with the Mac. Thankfully, I saw the light and switched to the Mac after Win 7, so I never had to deal with Windows 8, 8.1, or 10.

During the installation process, I also didn't have to go through 5 or 6 reboots, nor did I have to wait forever and a day for Windows to download dozens upon dozens of updates, sometimes over 100, and other times a whole Service Pack.

When it was finally done, I then had to begin the arduous process of removing all the pre-installed crap-ware and trial versions of software I didn't want. Naturally, there were reboots involved here as well. And that's to say nothing of the dreaded BSODs (blue screens of death for those unfamiliar), the not infrequent crashes and comparatively poor overall stability depending on what software you paired with what version of Windows. I can't remember the last time I had a kernel panic. It was several Macs ago. It just doesn't happen.

So yes, the 1-2 second lag is there and yes, I am no fan of the most recent version of macOS that I've been trashing in other threads as of late, but I'd rather wait 2 seconds for something I'll never do again than go through the constant pain that is working with Windows.
 
I'll put a vote in for VLC. It basically eats anything you throw at it and its my default instead of something like QuickTime. I made some dvd rips and I thought I used common mp4 settings, and mp3 for audio compatibility across devices instead of aac or vorbis, but QuickTime doesn't like those encodes. VLC has no problem. I'm not looking at the interface of the player in full screen mode, so I don't mind the dated looks personally. :)
 
It's not like you only can have one video player installed. In my own tests, mpv always performed best on a variety of files with different containers and codecs; which IINA gives a good GUI for.

- VLC i use as a secondary player. It got plenty of features like encoding (even if i'm not really using VLC to encode movies) and stream capture and can be ”integrated” with things like Sopcast and similar.

- Movist is great, and has a set of nice features. The playback is however in my experience not up to par with most of the other players as it uses somewhat outdated FFMPEG, and Quicktime (in older/non MAS versions).

- Quicktime Player X is just a sad and don't support Apples own codecs and technologies.

- For old media, with stuff using very old codecs which is not yet ready or working not so well on other players using libMPV, libVLC or similar, and wired Quicktime movies; Quicktime 7.x (which still works in some cases) is good to have installed.

MplayerX is and has been outdated for a long time, and the developer gone shady with his bundling of adware (i rather just call it malware, for adware is malware in my point of view). Even if you can install it without the adware, i don't trust a developer like that anyway.

There are other players, which is not listed here. Some of them are MplayerX based and are outdated at it's core. Others using ffmpeg or libVLC.
 
My vote is VLC as well. Too bad the Mac version can't open multiple videos at the same time and play them simultaneously. Not that I necessarily need that feature more than once or twice a year, but every now and then it would come in handy.

I haven't taken close enough a look at the new VLC 3.0 yet to see if the feature was added, but I couldn't find it just on taking a glance at it.

Every few months, I check out alternative players, and I also installed IINA, but honestly, I don't get it. What's so great about it? It's not even out of beta yet.

VLC has an insane amount of powerful features that are not even really visible to the everyday user. I'm also looking forward to checking out the 1.0 version of VLMC, VLC Movie Creator.
 
Crunch said:
I also installed IINA, but honestly, I don't get it. What's so great about it? It's not even out of beta yet.
Click to expand...

That’s half the point. Like a toddler speaking in complete sentences, they nailed the execution so well and aren’t even v1 yet.

The other half is that isn’t not the giant mess every feature possible player. It shouldnt take hours to figure out the preference window (movist). Name not withstanding, IINA feels curated - like each featured was hand picked and organized before being added. In a word: clean
 
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Regarding VLC, it's sad that VLCX project (one man) was abandoned, it had a great minimalistic UI (it did not have every feature of VLC). https://github.com/insidegui/VLCX
screenshot3.png
 
ElectronGuru said:
That’s half the point. Like a toddler speaking in complete sentences, they nailed the execution so well and aren’t even v1 yet.

The other half is that isn’t not the giant mess every feature possible player. It shouldnt take hours to figure out the preference window (movist). Name not withstanding, IINA feels curated - like each featured was hand picked and organized before being added. In a word: clean
Click to expand...

I have been running it today and I agree, it's very stable and I like the way it lets you access very commonly used controls through various buttons and menus, and it really does have a clean interface. Very intuitive too.

I would like to be able to have multiple videos playing at the same time. Perhaps in v1.0.
 
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