Comparison of video player software

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

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

Inactive players

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.

Features

Extended features

1. ↑ The user interface is a pluggable Mono Assembly
2. ↑ "gapless mp3 playback - The KMPlayer's Forums". Kmplayer.com. Retrieved 2009-12-16. 
3. ↑ Available with QuickTime Streaming Server.
4. ↑ Only the media creator can create skins.
5. ↑ anaglyph only
6. ↑ Via media library in "modern" skin
7. ↑ 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)
8. ↑ Bookmarks are limited to 20 files and are stored with absolute paths, which renders them inaccessible when files are moved
9. 1 2 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
10. ↑ www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/ - A-B repeat using Play Selection Only command
11. ↑ 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.

1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Plugin available.
2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Available via Gstreamer plugin.
3. 1 2 3 4 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.
4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 The playing compatibility depends on the availability of DirectShow filters.
5. 1 2 The playing compatibility depends on the availability of MPEG2 component for Quicktime.
6. 1 2 The playing compatibility depends on the availability of WMV Player component for Quicktime.
7. 1 2 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.
8. 1 2 3 4 On Macs, 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.
9. 1 2 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. ↑ 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.

Production Video format ability

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.

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.

Streaming support

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

Playlist format ability

Information about which playlist formats the players understand.

Electronic program guide format ability

Information about which Electronic program guide format the players viewable.

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.

1. 1 2 3 Subtitles stored separately from the media file are not supported.
2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 only if FFmpeg was built with libass and 'subtitles' video filter.
3. 1 2 3 4 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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 For Windows, the ability to use many subtitle formats can be added by installing DirectVobSub or ffdshow.
5. ↑ "FAQ | Kaffeine - KDE Media Player". Kaffeine FAQ. Retrieved 2009-10-02. 

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.

1. ↑ Supports via plugin available in Cowon Forums
2. ↑ MPlayer can read .cue files with cue:// type URL, but has problems, see Talk:Cue sheet (computing)#mplayer have more faults
3. ↑ Winamp relies on the tagging of its decoder. Replacing the standard decoder with an APEv2 capable one is possible.
4. ↑ ID3 V2.4 not supported (even on Windows Media Player 12).
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.

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

See also

• List of codecs
• Open source codecs and containers
• Comparison of video codecs
• Comparison of audio coding formats
• Comparison of container formats
• Subtitle (captioning)
• Comparison of portable media players
• Comparison of video encoders
• Comparison of PVR software packages

References

Related lists on other projects

• m:Open Source Toolset - short sections on Audio editing and Video editing
• Software - short lists of Ogg audio and video editors
• Help:Converting video - tools for manipulating audio and video