Favorite video player

[dimitris]

Hi I installed Kubuntu 6.06 64bit since a month ago and I was thinking to try some other video players
I noticed that Kaffeine uses about 25-35%(average) of cpu while playing an avi film.
Is there something I could do?
With this poll maybe you could help me choosing an alternative video player.
(I used to play my videos on MPlayer on my Suse 9.3 wich was really a good player)

If you think that some other players should be in the list, pm me

[someguyouknow]

Re: Favorite video player

I personally like Kaffeine on Kubuntu.....
but on XP, i always used VLC.....

[Rog131]

Re: Favorite video player

Mostly i use kaffeine, but i also have mplayer and vlc.

About avi and cpu:

Here (amd 2500 XP) kaffeine 30 % cpu load (about) avi (xvid)
mplayer 40 %
vlc 10 %

In kaffeine you can change deinterlacing (CTRL -I) settings for dvd.
Deinterlacing - http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/inde...=features&id=4

[barbarian]

Re: Favorite video player

mplayer is pretty fast

[greensh]

Re: Favorite video player

MPlayer is by far the most complete and popular video player in Linux period (just see http://freshmeat.net download stats).

The thing that makes MPlayer the 'best' is the way crop options, hue, audio processing, etc can be included in a separate config file for every video/audio file. This means that an archive of music videos for example, can all be displayed correctly and all the options stored for every video file without having to re-encode. It also has decent subtitle support for all the major formats, not to mention mencoder, providing robust encoding. Of course, low CPU usage, good codec support, and stability are some other good points.

It's only problems seem to be its significant installation not being for newbies (slow debian packages meaning you'll have to compile to use the recent release on Kubuntu), and the gmplayer GUI is not very good (just a GTK1 hack). But then again, Midnight Commander provides a much better interface for MPlayer and that's what I've always used.

And once gmplayer finally supports DVD menus, I don't see ever needing another software player...

[dimitris]

Re: Favorite video player

By changing some video settings on xine parameters (opengl quality ,processing ffmpeg and MPEG4 postprocessing quality) I got some lower cpu usage(15-25%) with also good quality.
I think that cpu usage on video players do not only depend from player but also from the codecs.
I would like to install (from source) Mplayer but I'm running the 64bit kernel so I first have to make a Chroot to use some 32bit lib.

[Teppic]

Re: Favorite video player

Kaffeine, IMHO it's the best xinelib frontend, even best video library frontend. If there was as good/better a front end for mplayer (which there is for my tv only box, freevo over toxine) then it may get a look in, but mplayers poor xinerama support, culminating in aspect ratio problems, always have xine in front for me.

If amarok could index my video collection and open an output window, I doubt any other media player would get a look in though....

[Orc65]

Re: Favorite video player

I use Kaffeine, mainly because it was installed with the distro, after a brief search for codecs and the reasons behind jerky playback of DVDs and other media, (hdparm and deinterlacing) I was up and running.

Haven't noticed the CPU usage and haven't tried VLC or Mplayer.....yet.

[sky]

Re: Favorite video player

Hi,

Usually I'm using noatun it's working well...

Cheers

[firephoto]

Re: Favorite video player

I voted mplayer but actually use kmplayer with mostly the mplayer backend but sometimes the xine backend for the media that doesn't behave. I've been using amarok lately for streaming audio most of the time.

[Nirvana]

Re: Favorite video player

I use totem over kaffeine SOLELY because of the shortcut to fullscreen is f, and I love it. Also, it doesn't save the files you played in a playlist like kaffeine (I hate that)

On windows --> Portable VLC because I can take it anywhere, and it doesn't make divx/xvid encoded movies show up blocky and green and crappy quality like WMP

[Fenyx]

Re: Favorite video player

I use totem over kaffeine SOLELY because of the shortcut to fullscreen is f, and I love it.

You mean F11?
Settings > Configure Shortcuts > Full Screen Mode > Custom > Advanced > Alternate Shortcut > Press F11.

Still trying to figure out a way to turn off the Playlist feature...

EDIT: Darn, forgot to vote!
I voted for Kaffeine, simply because I have no other reason to look for another video player. It does everything I want/need it to. And thanks to someone who thought up of libxine-extracodecs, I can play any video format using Kaffeine, from avi to rmvb.

Totem is good, too. But even with all the recommended codecs installed (from the Ubuntu wikis), there are still some avi or rmvb files I couldn't play.

MPlayer's GUI scared the s*@$t out of me first time I saw it. It's powerful, alright, but it had more than what I needed for a media player.

I once used VLC for playing a ripped DVD, but just because I couldn't play it in Kaffeine. But that's about it. Once I finished watching the DVD, I removed VLC.

Guess I'm just satisfied with Kaffeine. I'll probably be looking for something else if and when I begin to experience problems with it. But so far, it ain't broke, so I ain't fixing it.

[kintsa]

Re: Favorite video player

Mplayer has the best picture quality, period. The extra CPU consumption is well worth the experience. Interface is horrible and installation is very scary.

The new 1.0rc1 seems promising with fixes for xinerama and DVD chapter selection.

I use Media Player Classic with ffdshow which uses post-processing code from mplayer on windows. I wish could replicate the same user experience on kubuntu

[heinkel_111]

Re: Favorite video player

I use mostly Kaffeine. The reason why, is, well I follow a "strict K" dogma. The KDE / Kubuntu native applications tend to work better together (better integrated) than if I mix software based on all kinds of linux toolkits and desktop variants.

I sometimes find that Kaffeine has problems displaying stuff, and for those times I use VLC, which I find to be superior in terms off I have not found one file that it cannot play yet. The user interface of VLC is written for true mediageeks, though, and I much prefer Kaffeine's, which is easy to understand.

I only watch the odd video off the net, I don't have a huge collection of DVDs to play from my computer, cause I don't have a comfortable chair to relax in while watching. You really need that to enjoy a full length (>1.5. hrs) movie.

[varaahan]

Re: Favorite video player

Kaffeine, of course.
Because it is a no-nonsense - run off the box player and works like a charm.