Video Player for anime?

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Discerptor

This used to be true. The current version of VLC handles softsubs just fine and is in fact more resource-efficient than the other players I've tried (Mplayer, Perian, etc.). It's currently the only option on OS X 10.5 that doesn't have some crippling flaw (Mplayer in all its forms, including non-GUI, has a memory leak that eats up "Inactive RAM" and never gives it back, and Perian has to take several seconds loading MKV files up front). The image of VLC as unusable for anime is simply false at this stage.

That said, when on Windows I still use Media Player Classic with the CCCP, and on Linux, where Mplayer does not have such problems, I use that, simply for UI reasons.

I'm not saying that you are wrong, but there is a work around... force quitting mplayer so you can regain the memory. Most cases, closing the application will regain the memory (including the mplayer window app)

Also, the main reason that MKV take a long time to load in Quicktime because there is a limitation since Quicktime does not natively support MKV format, but the load time is like 10-30 seconds, which isn't that bad unless you are impatient. I still use Quicktime and Perian as my main player... simply because it's more convenient.

I still wouldn't recommend VLC as a main player for use for Anime as it still have issues... and it's still bloated... Even though it supports any file, 50 MB or let alone, 100mb is absurd amount of disk-space used for a media player.

[Discerptor]

I have never run into an issue with a recent version of VLC playing anime (and I almost exclusively use MKVs with sofstsubs). The only concrete example anyone has ever managed to give me of a recent VLC version doing something wrong with subtitles that Mplayer doesn't was mentioned in this thread, and that is only an issue if you want to use OpenGL video output (and even then I can't reproduce the issue, so I'm rather dubious as to whether the version of VLC on which this issue existed was recent...). And this bloat does not concern me in a world where even standard low-end laptop hard drive sizes are greater than 200GB. Also, I'm not sure where you're getting this 100MB size from. VLC is 50MB, even before getting Xslimmed.

[jigoku shoujo]

Kmplayer runs fine, you dont have to install codecs

[Justin Kim]

You can download codec packs for alternative video files such as .mkv / .avi. Personally for those codec packs that didn't work on Windows Media Player for Windows 2000, I downloaded GOM player (Really good for those .mkv video files - good quality, and loads up fast without a terrible framerate at times). Realalternative works, and definently VLC media player for AVI files. I think some codec packs become installed once you download the Media Player for Vista.

[Craymel]

Originally Posted by Discerptor

I have never run into an issue with a recent version of VLC playing anime (and I almost exclusively use MKVs with sofstsubs). The only concrete example anyone has ever managed to give me of a recent VLC version doing something wrong with subtitles that Mplayer doesn't was mentioned in this thread, and that is only an issue if you want to use OpenGL video output (and even then I can't reproduce the issue, so I'm rather dubious as to whether the version of VLC on which this issue existed was recent...). And this bloat does not concern me in a world where even standard low-end laptop hard drive sizes are greater than 200GB. Also, I'm not sure where you're getting this 100MB size from. VLC is 50MB, even before getting Xslimmed.

The opengl driver problem was from 0.9.8a so yes. It's a problem in a recent version.

[SeijiSensei]

A posting about a new VLC release produced a lot of discussion over on Slashdot yesterday. Not sure how much I learned though.

[SageGaiGar]

I've had an issue with VLC where multiple subs will be on screen overlapping with some .mkvs.

Usually solved by using Niceplayer.

[IRJustman]

VLC is ALMOST there; its main issue now is that it has some trouble with H.264 decoding on some releases. Once those are cleared, I can then put my own seal of approval on it. But then again, is there a way to verify that said encodes are actually encoded properly so I can then properly assign blame? ;)

--Ian.

[Proudleaf]

Originally Posted by IRJustman

VLC is ALMOST there; its main issue now is that it has some trouble with H.264 decoding on some releases. Once those are cleared, I can then put my own seal of approval on it. But then again, is there a way to verify that said encodes are actually encoded properly so I can then properly assign blame?

--Ian.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this issue was corrected with 0.9.9 either.

Also, to all mac users, I did not notice any improved playback with this version when compared to Perian 1.1.3; in fact, Perian still plays better than VLC, even though Perian requires MKVs to load before playing them.

[pigoz]

perian and VLC fail utterly. Just use mplayer extended which has a very recent build of mplayer. On *nix mplayer is the best thing you can get.

[Proudleaf]

Originally Posted by pigoz

perian and VLC fail utterly. Just use mplayer extended which has a very recent build of mplayer. On *nix mplayer is the best thing you can get.

Perian is still better than VLC in most cases, although I occasionally run into some files that I can't play using Perian (very rarely) and so I use VLC or Mplayer in those cases.

Also, Mplayer, at least in my experience, eats up a ridiculous amount of RAM, something which Perian does not do. And as this poster stated:

Originally Posted by chikorita157

Also, the main reason that MKV take a long time to load in Quicktime because there is a limitation since Quicktime does not natively support MKV format, but the load time is like 10-30 seconds, which isn't that bad unless you are impatient. I still use Quicktime and Perian as my main player... simply because it's more convenient.

All and all, I prefer Perian + Niceplayer. It's ssimple and reliable, and thats all that I need.

[Anavel]

WMP + CCC Pack. Don't have the other players installed, nor do I intend to.

[IRJustman]

Originally Posted by Anavel

WMP + CCC Pack. Don't have the other players installed, nor do I intend to. :heh:

Well, I do use other players because they're at least a bit more aware of some of these files, though granted the whole idea of DirectShow is that the players don't HAVE to be aware of them.

Plus I have a few more reasons:

• If I want to do an exhibition with smooth transitions between elements of the program, I know how well the others perform. Since I don't use WMP, I wouldn't know.
• I can tweak the other players a lot more than I can tweak WMP.
• WMP strikes me as being needlessly bloated.
• I don't think I like what WMP does when it comes to DRM-protected content.
• What I like even less is its license agreement, especially since Microsoft is pandering to Big Content.
• Like RealPlayer, I suspect that, given the above "pandering", WMP is a major privacy leak.

Well, those are my reasons for other players and against WMP for what they're worth.

--Ian.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Proudleaf

Perian is still better than VLC in most cases, although I occasionally run into some files that I can't play using Perian (very rarely) and so I use VLC or Mplayer in those cases.

Also, Mplayer, at least in my experience, eats up a ridiculous amount of RAM, something which Perian does not do. And as this poster stated:



All and all, I prefer Perian + Niceplayer. It's ssimple and reliable, and thats all that I need.

I decided to test this for myself and here are the results. I opened the same video file, and have both of them played in the background. After 7 minutes, I took a screenshot of the Activity Monitor. Here are my results

It looked as if mplayer is using less, but if you combine MPlayer OS X Extended with the mplayer window, it uses more memory than just using Quicktime to play the video. Too bad Perian doesn't have full support for ASS (such as special font effects like fading, etc.)

After 21 minutes, I noticed that MPlayer Window memory usage skyrocketed to around 74 MB of memory. I guess Discerptor was right on mplayer having a big memory leak... but I wouldn't agree on using VLC though...

Edit: Placed it in a graph so it's easier to interpret the results

Spoiler for graph:

[Proudleaf]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

I decided to test this for myself and here are the results. I opened the same video file, and have both of them played in the background. After 7 minutes, I took a screenshot of the Activity Monitor. Here are my results

It looked as if mplayer is using less, but if you combine MPlayer OS X Extended with the mplayer window, it uses more memory than just using Quicktime to play the video. Too bad Perian doesn't have full support for ASS (such as special font effects like fading, etc.)

After 21 minutes, I noticed that MPlayer Window memory usage skyrocketed to around 74 MB of memory. I guess Discerptor was right on mplayer having a big memory leak... but I wouldn't agree on using VLC though...

Edit: Placed it in a graph so it's easier to interpret the results

Spoiler for graph:

Thanks for testing this and showing your results. I'm sure I would use Mplayer all the time if I had more RAM, but I only have 1GB of ram, and so the need to restart the computer to get that ram back (enough to work in photoshop + bridge, at least) can be somewhat of a hassle.

Don't get me wrong though, I love anime_layer's Mplayer OSX Extended and I use Mplayer more than VLC (due to VLC's strange h264 reading problems on some releases), but because of the memory leak, I usually just use Perian.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Proudleaf

Thanks for testing this and showing your results. I'm sure I would use Mplayer all the time if I had more RAM, but I only have 1GB of ram, and so the need to restart the computer to get that ram back (enough to work in photoshop + bridge, at least) can be somewhat of a hassle.

Don't get me wrong though, I love anime_layer's Mplayer OSX Extended and I use Mplayer more than VLC (due to VLC's strange h264 reading problems on some releases), but because of the memory leak, I usually just use Perian.

The latest Mplayer build seems to fix the problem with the memory leaks presented in Rev 9 and seems to use around 67 MB of memory usage compared to 96 MB in rev 9. It seems that the new build look very promising in terms of memory usage now.