List_of_video_players_(software)

Comparison of video player software

Comparison of video player software

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The following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.

This article is about video player software. For a comparison of audio player software, see Comparison of audio player software. For a comparison of hardware device type portable media players, see Comparison of portable media players.

For the purpose of this comparison, video players are defined as any media player which can play video, even if it can also play audio files.

General

Active players

More information Name, Author ...

Inactive players

More information Name, Author ...

Operating system compatibility

This section lists the operating systems on which the player works. There may be multiple versions of a player, each one for a given operating system.

More information Video player, Windows ...

      Features

      More information Video player, Outbound streaming ...

      Extended features

      More information Video player, Color controls ...
      1. [F 1]
        "gapless mp3 playback - The KMPlayer's Forums". Kmplayer.com. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
      2. [F 2]
        Available with QuickTime Streaming Server.
      3. [F 3]
        Only the media creator can create skins.
      4. [F 4]
        anaglyph only
      5. [F 5]
        Via media library in "modern" skin
      6. [F 6]
        Kodi/XBMC has a built-in UPnP AV MediaServer, FTP-server (based on FileZilla), and a web server (however the web-server is mainly designed for remote control and not for streaming, but it can be used for streaming with some small modifications any user can make)
      7. [F 7]
        Bookmarks are limited to 20 files Archived July 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine and are stored with absolute paths, which renders them inaccessible when files are moved Archived July 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
      8. [F 8]
        Pitch-shifting and AB-Repeat are not included in Mplayer's interactive keyboard controls, but can be set up via command line parameters. Mplayer manual
      9. [F 9]
        www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/ Archived January 10, 2007, at the Wayback Machine - A-B repeat using Play Selection Only command
      10. [F 10]
        As of SVN 3349

      Consumer video format ability

      Information about what video formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins/filters that provide such abilities.

      More information Video player, MPEG-1 ...

      Production video format ability

      More information Video player, MPEG-4 SStP ...

      Audio format ability

      Information about what audio formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins/filters that provide such abilities.

      More information Video player, Lossy compression ...

        Container format ability

        Information about what container formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or filters that provide such abilities.

        More information Video player, AVI ...

        Streaming support

        Information about which protocols the players understand, for receiving streaming media content.

        More information Video player, HTTP ...

        Playlist format ability

        Information about which playlist formats the players understand.

        More information Video player, asx/wax/wvx ...

        Electronic program guide format ability

        Information about which Electronic program guide format the players viewable.

        More information Video player, PSI EIT ...

        Subtitle ability

        Information about what subtitle formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or filters that provide such abilities.

        More information Video player, Text ...
        1. [S 1]
          Subtitles stored separately from the media file are not supported.
        2. [S 2]
          only if FFmpeg was built with libass and 'subtitles' video filter.
        3. [S 3]
          This player understands some of the formatting data from SSA/ASS (at most coloring but no positioning, animation, typesetting etc.), but some players could understand the rest of it by using DirectVobSub as external subtitle filter instead of the built-in one.
        4. [S 4]
          For Windows, the ability to use many subtitle formats can be added by installing DirectVobSub or ffdshow.
        5. [S 5]
          "FAQ | Kaffeine - KDE Media Player". Kaffeine FAQ. Retrieved October 2, 2009.

        Metadata ability

        Information about what metadata, or tagging, formats the players understand. Most other containers have their own metadata format and the players usually use them. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such abilities.

        More information Video player, ID3v1 ...
        1. [M 1]
          Supports via plugin available in Cowon Forums
        2. [M 2]
          MPlayer can read .cue files with cue:// type URL, but has problems, see Talk:Cue sheet (computing)#mplayer have more faults
        3. [M 3]
          Winamp relies on the tagging of its decoder. Replacing the standard decoder with an APEv2 capable one is possible.
        4. [M 4]
          ID3 V2.4 not supported (even on Windows Media Player 12).
        5. [M 5]
          Displays basic ID3v1 / ID3v2 / Ogg Vorbis tags

        Optical media ability

        Information about what kinds of optical discs the players can play. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such abilities. Playback of Super Audio CD is not possible for any media player, because no suitable hardware exists. All media players capable of audio CD playback will also play the Redbook core of any HDCD disc, providing no sound-quality benefits over standard audio CDs.

        More information Audio, Video ...
        1. [O 1]
          A built-in hdcd audio filter is available but needs to manually enable via commandline option.
        2. [O 2]
          Non-commercial BDs supported through plug-in, see this thread on team-mediaportal.com
        3. [O 3]
          See VCD and SVCD players on The X Lab
        4. [O 4]
          DVD Audio files are playable in VLC 1.1
        5. [O 5]
          See VLC playback Features at videolan.org.
        6. [O 6]
          HD-DVD .evo (H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, PCM, AC-3, E-AC3, MLP, DTS) from version 3.0.0
        7. [O 7]
          VCD menu and SVCD menus are not supported nor displayed.

        See also

        Related lists on other projects

        Notes

        1. [v 1]
          Plugin available.
        2. [v 2]
          This format is supported out-of-the-box in Windows 7 and later. In Windows Vista and earlier, the playing compatibility depends on the availability of DirectShow filters.
        3. [v 3]
          The playing compatibility depends on the availability of DirectShow filters.
        4. [v 4]
          The playing compatibility depends on the availability of MPEG2 component for QuickTime.
        5. [v 5]
          The playing compatibility depends on the availability of WMV Player component for QuickTime.
        6. [v 6]
          3rd party plugins are available. The Xiph QuickTime Components allow any QuickTime application to parse Ogg files and play Vorbis, FLAC (Doesn't work with FLAC containers), Speex, and Theora.
        7. [v 7]
          On macOS, 3rd party plugins are available. The Perian QuickTime components for Mac OS X 10.4.7+ allow any QuickTime application to play a wide variety of formats.
        8. [v 8]
          Available via Gstreamer plugin.
        9. [v 9]
          This format is supported out-of-the-box in Windows Media Player 12 and later (which requires Windows 7 or later). In Windows Media Player 11 and earlier, the playing compatibility depends on the availability of DirectShow filters.
        10. [V 10]
          The playing compatibility depends on the availability of DirectShow filters, or in the case of Windows Media Player 12 and above, there is also the option of using Microsoft Media Foundation components, which have the added bonus of adding WebM support through the HTML5 <video> element to Internet Explorer 9 or later.

        References

        1. [1]
          Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
        2. [2]
          "Windows Desktop". web site. April 16, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
        3. [3]
          "Apple on the App Store". iTunes Store. March 5, 2019. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
        4. [4]
          "GOM Player". Google Play Store. March 14, 2019. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
        5. [5]
          "Release Notes MC29". Retrieved May 1, 2022.
        6. [6]
          "KMPlayer Multimedia Player". Retrieved February 17, 2022.
        7. [7]
          "MPlayer 1.5 released". February 27, 2022.
        8. [8]
          "MPlayer - The Movie Player". Retrieved February 28, 2022.
        9. [9]
          "Release v0.37.0". November 21, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
        10. [10]
          "Plex Media Player for Windows". web site. May 5, 2020. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
        11. [11]
          "Plex Media Player for Mac". web site. May 5, 2020. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
        12. [12]
          "Plex". iTunes Store. February 8, 2022. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
        13. [13]
          "Plex". Google Play Store. February 15, 2022. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
        14. [14]
          http://service.real.com/realplayer/security/09072012_player/en/
        15. [15]
          "RealPlayer 1.1". Ewandoo. Retrieved February 20, 2015.
        16. [16]
          "Version 23.12.0". December 26, 2023. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
        17. [17]
          "43.0 · Tags · GNOME / totem".
        18. [18]
          "COPYING file mentioning exception added 8th Feb 2005". Totem. May 6, 2009. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
        19. [19]
          "3.0.20". October 30, 2023. Retrieved October 31, 2023.
        20. [20]
          "3.5.4". July 6, 2023. Retrieved October 31, 2023.
        21. [21]
          "VLC - Chrome Web Store". December 23, 2015. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
        22. [22]
          Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
        23. [23]
          "Official Download of VLC media player for Windows Store - VideoLAN". www.videolan.org. VideoLAN. July 20, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
        24. [24]
          "Get VLC - Microsoft Store". www.microsoft.com. VideoLAN. July 20, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
        25. [25]
          "Official Download of VLC media player for Windows Phone - VideoLAN". www.videolan.org. VideoLAN. July 20, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
        26. [26]
          Corel WinDVD Home
        27. [27]
          Corel WinDVD Pro Updates
        28. [28]
          "Kodi "Matrix" 19.3 Release". Retrieved February 17, 2022.
        29. [29]
          "October 10, 2012". banshee.fm. October 3, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2012.
        30. [30]
          "CoreAVC Changelog". www.corecodec.com. Archived from the original on January 2, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2020.
        31. [31]
          "About the security content of QuickTime 7.7.9".
        32. [32]
          "Apple - Support - QuickTime - Downloads".
        33. [33]
          "Winamp : Supported versions : Latest supported version". Winamp Forums. December 22, 2022. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
        34. [34]
          "Winamp : Supported versions : Latest supported version". Winamp Forums. December 22, 2022. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
        35. [35]
          The playing compatibility depends on the availability of RealMedia filters. There is a distribution known as Real Alternative which bundles the needed RealPlayer components without the need to install the corresponding player.
        36. [36]
          Support MPEG-4 Studio Profile FFmpeg Project
        37. [37]
          Red Cinema r3d files not supported FFmpeg Project
        38. [38]
          Support for DNG (RAW) FFmpeg Project
        39. [39]
          Available via plugins that can be automatically downloaded during installation
        40. [40]
          The playing compatibility depends on the availability of QuickTime filters. There is a distribution known as QuickTime Alternative which bundles the needed QuickTime components without the need to install the corresponding player.
        41. [41]
          The open source Perian plug-in adds the ability to use many video formats and video codecs to QuickTime. It also adds the ability to use SubRip and SubStation Alpha subtitles.
        42. [42]
          http://www.webmproject.org/tools/#gstreamer-plug-ins As of Gstreamer 1.0, WebM related support is included in gstreamer-plugins-good
        43. [43]
          only if FFmpeg was built with OpenSSL, GnuTLS, Secure Transport or SChannel.
        44. [44]
          Since FFmpeg 3.4, only if FFmpeg was built with libxml2
        45. [45]
          FFmpeg-devel - PATCH - add hds demuxer, FFmpeg project, October 14, 2016
        46. [46]
          only if FFmpeg was built with OpenSSH.
        47. [47]
          With FFmpeg or youtube-dl
        48. [48]
          NEWS, VideoLAN
        49. [49]
          #4439 (Support SCTE-27 / Digicipher II (DCII) subtitles) FFmpeg Project
        50. [50]
          #4859 (TTML subtitles) FFmpeg Project
        51. [51]
          id3v1.h File Reference, FFmpeg project
        52. [52]
          id3v2.h File Reference, FFmpeg project
        53. [53]
          apetag.h File Reference, FFmpeg project
        54. [54]
          rtmppkt.h File Reference, FFmpeg project
        55. [55]
          [FFmpeg-devel,1/7] lavf: add cue sheet demuxer, FFmpeg project, May 8, 2017
        56. [56]
          S, Ganesh T. "VLC 'Hack' for Encrypted Blu-ray Playback Capability". Retrieved August 19, 2016.
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