So yeah, I tried some music and video players here and there, but none was completely satisfying.
Features I want:
- At least run on Windows. Bonus if Linux too. Bonus if OS X too.
- Do not intercept Windows's volume control
- Play all common formats (mp3, ogg, flac, wav, mp4, avi, wmv, ...)
- Obviously display the image if that's a video
- Do not reduce speed for some reason because I won't notice the difference of tempo but I'll notice if notes are too high or too low
- Clear all kind of history when you leave
- Have the ability to play in the background, when all windows are closed, and with a notification icon in the tray
- Allow me to put a file at the end of the "to play" list if something is already playing but also have the ability to play two files at once when I double click a file in my explorer
Examples of players I tried:
- VLC, it had all the features except the 2nd and 5th ones. Yes, it does change speed when you play. Maybe just 101% and 99% but I notice it.
- MPV, it didn't support the last two wanted features
- Clementine, it had everything except that it didn't clear history (and there is no option to automaticaly clear it, or it is well hidden) and it doesn't play videos
So, anything you'd recommend (and I didn't specify but it's obviously better if it's free) ?
editSeems like GOM Player does what I need. The only problem is that you can't untick the "make Yahoo the default page and search engine for all installed browsers" -.-
GOM Player is what my friend uses to play anime, it works kinda well. The Yahoo as default page option sucks, though. Otherwise, did you tried MPC (https://mpc-hc.org/)?
I just tried it, and indeed, it seems to fulfill all the requirements too ^^
I'll see which one I choose between both (because I like how MPC is open-source without ads and stuff, but I also like GOM's skins which allow to skin everything, not just change the look of buttons).
Windows Media Player :trollface:
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on October 24, 2015, 02:59:27 PM
Windows Media Player :trollface:
With the CCCP codec pack. Don't forget the codec pack.
Wait, there's a codec pack named after Soviet Union? O.O
Pretty much, yes. (http://www.cccp-project.net/)
(Speaking of which it comes with MPC.)
Lol, WMP :P
I actually didn't try it again before making this thread, but from what I remembered, it lacked some features I requested. And I launched it again just now and nothing seems to have changed since last time I used it -.-
So nope :P
I would recommend just to use two distinct software for audio and video purpose.
For audio, i would recommend Audacious (http://audacious-media-player.org).
It supports lots of formats (including Sega Genesis's VGM files and more) and i like the user interface too.
I have no complain about it, just make sure to use the latest version though.
It has ports for Linux, Mac and Windows.
For video, just stick with VLC.
If you have a linux distro, you could try Gnome-Mplayer i guess.
If you are looking for a lightweight alternative then look no further than ffplay, packaged with ffmpeg.
It has no user interface but you can associate video files with it and it will play them.
EDIT: Ah crap, just realised that it may not meet all of your expections...
I still suggest you to give Audacious a try, though.
Quote from: gameblabla on October 25, 2015, 06:05:44 PM
I would recommend just to use two distinct software for audio and video purpose.
I would do this if it wasn't annoying, but I actually have a lot of music in video format on my hard drive. Don't ask why, I don't know. So I can't make the distinction between audio and video (except if I convert them all but that's what I meant by "annoying" (yes, just a simple script, etc, still)).
mpv does actually have at least the last feature, but you need to write some scripts for that.You can also run it in the background if you use it from the command line (again, requires configuration and scripting). It surpasses VLC by far in terms of video performance as well (confirmed on a friend's laptop, mpv plays most content smoothly while VLC chokes on it, and it's not a hardware decoding issue). It's my main video player and I love it. I don't really recommend it as a music player though, because it requires too much scripting for that.
For music I use mpd, not sure how hard it is to get running on Windows. I think there's a way to clear that playlist automatically. It meets your requirements as a music player though as it's a background process by design and it's playlist-based. You can also use custom scripts, GUIs, etc with it (it comes with no interface other than the API).
Quote from: Hayleia on October 25, 2015, 07:47:34 PM
I would do this if it wasn't annoying, but I actually have a lot of music in video format on my hard drive. Don't ask why, I don't know.
It's not a problem, i have the same issue as you and Audacious also plays video formats as music.
You can too make playlist of video and music files and Audacious will play them, there just won't be any video output for video files.
Seems to be fine in mpd as well. I just tried it with an mkv file.
Oh yeah, of course they do, but my sentence was not complete -.-
So yeah, what I said, but I also have real video files that I would like to read as videos (with video output). And I'd rather not have to do a right-click→OpenWith with any of both.
And yes, I know I am annoying with too many criterias, that's why I had problems finding something fulfilling my needs -.-
mpd doesn't need to be set as default, it maintains a DB of files and you play them by selecting them from your GUI of choice, not the file browser. I have mpv set as my default media player and it works just fine.
My main issue is getting used to new interfaces and for music I really prefer the old iTunes interface (which shows a list of files like in Windows explorer when they are set as lists. In newer iTunes versions you can emulate that interface by creating a dynamic playlist of all your songs). I hate iTunes for everything else, though, but its old interface is the only reason why I still use it.
As for video players, I used to like VLC, but I got tired of it a year ago because it now rebuilds its font cache everytime I start it, which takes over 2 minutes.
Quote from: Streetwalrus on October 26, 2015, 12:13:48 AM
mpd doesn't need to be set as default, it maintains a DB of files and you play them by selecting them from your GUI of choice, not the file browser. I have mpv set as my default media player and it works just fine.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 26, 2015, 04:18:22 AM
My main issue is getting used to new interfaces and for music I really prefer the old iTunes interface (which shows a list of files like in Windows explorer when they are set as lists. In newer iTunes versions you can emulate that interface by creating a dynamic playlist of all your songs). I hate iTunes for everything else, though, but its old interface is the only reason why I still use it.
I didn't think it was worth mentionning in my first post, but I actually always open all my files from the file browser, so Street, I "can't" use mpd from a GUI, and DJ, I agree about interfaces being annoying but I don't think that the old iTunes one would work for me.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 26, 2015, 04:18:22 AM
As for video players, I used to like VLC, but I got tired of it a year ago because it now rebuilds its font cache everytime I start it, which takes over 2 minutes.
True story. That was also a reason why I gave up on VLC. You double click on a file, nothing happens. So you go back to what you're doing (like browsing) and then, from nowhere, VLC appears and make you lose focus -.-
But then, what do you use now :P
Also Street, I agree about mpv, I discovered it on my netbook like one year ago (because VLC couldn't read anything on it without lag -.-) and was pleasantly surprised to see how fast it started and how smoothly it played. That's actually the last player I used before making this thread. It only lacked the last two features (without scripts :P) but apart from that, it was awesome.
Quote from: Hayleia on October 26, 2015, 07:20:03 AM
I didn't think it was worth mentionning in my first post, but I actually always open all my files from the file browser, so Street, I "can't" use mpd from a GUI, and DJ, I agree about interfaces being annoying but I don't think that the old iTunes one would work for me.
Oh I see. Well I liked the old itunes as well with the library thingy, but I guess everyone does not. I just find things messy when I have to use a file manager to play music. Library-based players are more flexible too, for example you can easily listen to all the songs by an artist on shuffle with a couple clicks.
Quote from: Streetwalrus on October 26, 2015, 10:45:10 AM
Oh I see. Well I liked the old itunes as well with the library thingy, but I guess everyone does not. I just find things messy when I have to use a file manager to play music. Library-based players are more flexible too, for example you can easily listen to all the songs by an artist on shuffle with a couple clicks.
I almost never want to listen to more than one music from an artist, mainly because for most artists, I don't listen to more than one of their musics :P
It's already pretty rare that I listen to two musics from the same artists, let alone 3, and I can only name one artist who made 4 musics I listen to right now, off the top of my head (Overwerk). So yeah, not enough to fill a playlist, and file browsers for me are just enough, libraries won't add anything :P
Yeah I have that issue with electronic music artists. Most songs I listen to are from compilations because most of the time their other work isn't that great. They often make money just from 1 hit.
With power and heavy metal bands, on the other hand, it's a different story, same for indie VGM artists.
I switched from GOM to MPC-HC because GOM was annoying me with its update popups. And you'll say "well, just update". Well, I wanted to but that checkbox to make Yahoo your default search engine was still there and still impossible to uncheck <.<
And what follows is for people like me or for me in 2 years when I'll wonder what I did to have everything to work.
When I tried to read a flac file with MPC-HC, it didn't work. I read online that you needed madFlac or things like that, so I installed it and tried to add them to MPC-HC but it didn't work.
Installing the 32 bit version of MPC-HC made everything work.
Well I have no issues with either VLC or WMP.
I normally just use Windows Media Player on Windows or ffplay on Linux.
Well the topic isn't about "no issues" but about "needed features" :P
Except maybe for VLC for which the "lack of features" was more the presence of issues, but yeah, mostly that's what the topic is about.