Mplayer Review

Yesterday I talked about VLC and how great of a stand alone multi-media player it is. Well, today I have another cross-platform multi-media player.

Mplayer is very similar to VLC however, it started off as a command line utility and has had gui interfaces developed to add onto it. I like the MPUI fronted version. I’ve tried Mplayer with other fronted guis but MPUI is the least resource intensive. It’s very simple and doesn’t have tons of features but it gets the job done. The SMplayer is a much richer gui. If you want bells and whistles go with the SMplayer.

At the Mplayer site you can find some builds that have several guis. I use one from mulder.com and it has worked well.

The only problem I have with Mplayer is, it has problems playing some files. I don’t know what the reason is but many torrents that are in rar files aren’t playable with Mplayer after they are un-packed. Then I have to use VLC. Makes me wonder why I have Mplayer. Well, I do like it a lot and with MPUI as the gui it is very low on resources and I like the simplicity of the interface.

However, if you only want one multi-media player then you need to stick with VLC.

Mplayer has tons of features. Since it was designed as a command line utility it does help to be a little proficient in that area. Those of use who are gui only will never touch most features. Mplayer is my #2 pick for multi-media players behind VLC.