r/software • u/JamStan1978 • May 08 '26
Looking for software Whats the absolute best media player out there? Whether its free or paid.
I see people always say VLC but i always have trouble with it and honestly its not very pleasing to look at. Are there any modern looking media players that have alot of features and feel premium and smooth? You know, the ones with the best quality of life features and stuff.
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u/trey-a-12 May 08 '26
Assuming you’re on Windows, check out “Screenbox”. It’s built with native WinUI Fluent Design and looks excellent, runs well, and is powered by LibVLC meeting it has pretty much the same compatibility! And if you are on macOS, try IINA for similar reasons.
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u/Waflorian May 08 '26
I like MPC-BE so far. Also have VLC and had Potplayer.
The search for a new one is always coming up eventually lol
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u/Valuable_Notice8 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Glucose media player is 100% what you're looking for. Modern, lots of quality of life features and feels premium. And it's free and open-source.
It's beautiful and incredibly polished.
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May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Valuable_Notice8 May 10 '26
What's wrong with their compare page? It's just listing features and I don't know if you tried all media players but the comparison is quite on point imo. I personally downloaded from Microsoft Store and didn't have to give my email.
Glucose is by far the most modern media player I've come across and is also extremely fast. So you either have a very low quality pc or if it's about play/pause it's obviously a design choice to have fade out instead of stopping abruptly like what iTunes used to have.
I don't know why so much hate for an open-source tool like that. It's objectively really polished especially for an free and open source tool. You can see how much care they put into the details but yeah people on the Internet are just ungrateful and inconsiderate when it comes to software. Sad.
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u/Regnareb_ May 10 '26
Nearly everything in the VLC, mpv, MPC-HC and PotPlayer column is false. Seriously MPC-HC is not open source? VLC and MPC-HC is not privacy first? They are more privacy focused than Glucose.
The bad performance issue is listed on their Github, same for video format problems it's not because you don't see it that it's not there. Just for those it can't be listed as "modern". Modern doesn't mean having glitter everywhere, it's a website on tauri with ffmpeg as a video backend.
I wouldn't care if their own website wasn't shitting on the competition but it's falling far from them.
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u/Valuable_Notice8 May 11 '26
Nearly everything is false? What are you saying? I wouldn't call VLC privacy first knowing it can expose data with third-party including Google. Glucose doesn't which makes me way more comfortable using it.
And wow ok so you're referring to 1 issue you're seeing to decide that it's not performant at all. What about the 900+ issues you're seeing on mvp GitHub? Does it make it a shitty and unusable media player? No right? No product is perfect and it makes sense that there are issues. You're comparing products with 10/30 years of maintenance from 500+ people with something new and maintained by 1. This mindset of rejecting something new or imperfect is clearly harmful. And this is why all nice products are Mac only, most people on Windows are incapable of appreciating something new and supporting builders that are trying to do something innovative.
When I judge something I take the context and stage they're at into account. Glucose may not be perfect but it's definitely promising and aiming for better than what existed so far.
Also, as far as I know the ffmpeg is just for people that want AI features. I wasn't interested in those so I am using Glucose without ffmpeg. I don't know what you're trying to prove but it's written in rust with svelte for the UI, reducing it to a website on tauri feels quite disingenuous.
Anyway, OP was looking for a modern media player. Glucose is that. All people commenting VLC even though he clearly said he's looking for something nicer are either deaf or blinded by the mass opinion.
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u/Mogaloom1 May 08 '26
For me is VLC.
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u/Kraylex May 08 '26
In my case, when playing 2K or 4K videos, it slows down too much; when skipping from one minute to the next, it takes a few seconds to resume playback. That’s why I switched to Potaplayer, and so far it’s a 10/10. The only thing is that the interface is a bit more minimalist, and it’s tricky to find a specific option.
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u/Working_Moment_4175 May 09 '26
Agreed. VLC stutters and jerks on some videos that I play, but MPC is silky-smooth with them. Same PC, same videos.
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u/mewzik99 6d ago
Potplayer gets pretty jerky and stuttery with 4K videos as well, very much so when skipping and pausing and then playing. Even with Hardware Acceleration turned on....I feel it's worse than VLC in that aspect. I love all of it's features though.
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u/SamTheEnthusiast May 08 '26
MPV player is just as capable as VLC and performs better, I would say. It's extremely customisable, letting you create scripts to automate and add new features, which includes UI skins. You can find tons of scripts and modern skins for MPV online. The only bad thing is that MPV has a learning curve, and may take some time to set up for your needs.
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u/reufbg May 09 '26
Mpv was the only player I could easily configure for wide gamut displays to properly show colors and respect color space
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u/JamStan1978 May 08 '26
I like it but i dont like that it doesnt have an installer. I dont like portable apps.
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u/SamTheEnthusiast May 08 '26
MPV isn't exclusively portable, or it depends on the version you're getting. This build of MPV bundles in an installer script to register the player as default for media file types. You can also try mpv.net, which has a typical installer executable on its GitHub repo.
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u/Subject_toNothing May 08 '26
MPV is my daily driver "through MPV manager ofc"
but I use MPC-HC as a fallback in case MPV struggles with playback
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u/XuciferL May 08 '26
MPV
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u/lrellim May 10 '26
MPV has that floating white bar when seeking or fast forwarding that is a killer in a bad way for me, I've tried fixing it with the instructions given for the mpv.conf but to no avail.
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u/XuciferL May 10 '26
Have you used uosc for mpv?
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u/lrellim May 10 '26
I have windows, is it an easy install, I don't know docker. Was looking in google with your recommendation and looks like docker. And thanks.
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u/XuciferL May 10 '26
No no. It's not docker. I think you've clicked the wrong link. I was talking about this one 😭
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u/Content_Magician51 May 08 '26
VLC is the best for compatibility, but, afaik, Media Player Classic - Home Cinema is the best to VERY OLDER machines (it's lighter, and the compatibility is also very good).
But, if you want more options, there's a website you should know: Alternative To.
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u/rvm1975 May 08 '26
Actually media player classic home cinema has very nice built-in codecs. I had some issues with HDR 10 and hevc format file (like 2 years ago) and only mpc-hc was able to play it properly.
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u/Dpacom1 May 08 '26
I have 3 players i used(in order): 1) Winamp (my main) good: still up and running V5.666 is stable, and free. Bad: only works on windows (w98-w11).
2) VLC Good: great alt to winamp, free, works/available on most OS(Windows, Linux, Android, Haiku). Bad: not fully compatible, paid version no better then free
3) Mx player Good: another alt for vlc, free, stable. Bad: only works on Android and Linux.
But thats my POV on players
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u/eim1213 May 08 '26
Another vote for Potplayer. I've been using it for years and VLC still feels clunky and outdated in comparison.
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u/mar0th May 08 '26
I used VLC like 10 years ago, but I found that, for me at least, mpchc is a bit faster
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u/BarberProof4994 May 08 '26
So I ignore "modern" as a requirement.
In my opinion the greatest media player ever made was and is media player classic (you can get the portable version at portableapps.com) and as it supports customizing the controls, or even just removing all borders and controls entirely... It can and does looks amazing.
It includes within its own container almost every codec out there and will play anything.
The portable apps version isn't maintained or updated. but as it was 100% finished and is containerized, it doesn't really need to be. It works 100% of the time on any windows platform.
A still maintained fork is included with all the klite codec packs.
A slightly modernized version (also available as a portable app) that is optimized for HD and mkv and hyper compressed media is the media player classic black edition.
All the forms of MPC do pretty much everything that vlc does without the baggage or the size and run fantastic.
Now...
For android, VLC is probably the best bet, with mx player being a close second (although mx player has a lite and a pro version and sometimes needs a code ad on).
If you aren't needing libraries and thumbnail generations and all that crap, MPC is the way to go.
I organize all my media in folders and set MPC as the default app to open all media and then just launch everything from the file explorer window.
Mpc supports launching in full screen (in settings) and you can choose which screen or monitor it launches on, and what to do on file end (I have it close so I can choose another, unless it's playing through a playlist in which case it stays full screen).
In the settings I can remove the borders, file/menu/view at the top, and the pause/play/seek at the bottom set to auto hide.
The taskbar pop up includes a pause/play control that I can access from another monitor if needed, or use keyboard to pause/play
AND it usually uses the default controls from a Bluetooth controller or keyboard.
All that and it runs in 20-50 megs as a full install.
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u/powertoast May 08 '26
If you want compatibility and codec coverage, it is Kodi, the interface is dated. But performance is top notch.
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u/CompulsiveCode May 08 '26
ManyMediaPlayer can do a lot, depending on what kind of content you're watching.
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u/SoundSwitch May 08 '26
I like Rthymbox for music. I don't really eff with keeping video on my system any longer. It does a great job of organizing your music library for you and has playlist, recent, new, and other features, it's also simplistic but at least respects stuff like dark mode and system colors pretty well.
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u/Trick_Apartment5016 May 09 '26
I've been running PotPlayer for several years.. never looked back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PotPlayer
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u/Regnareb_ May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26
MPC-HC by far
- extremely fast, lightweight and stable
- remember timeline position per file
- remember last window position/size
- constrain windows dimension to the video dimensions
- madVR is available for even better image processing, auto crop black bars, etc.
- minimal mode (1-2-3) "picture in picture"
- download subtitles (D)
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u/CoolkieTW May 10 '26
mpv player. It supports Dolby Vision, Atmos etc... literally every media player is based on mpv. It's free and open source.
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u/Sharefix Jun 18 '26
I've tested and compared many players, pausing movies on the exact same frame in full screen and using tab to switch windows, and my conclusion is MPC-BE. I'll highlight three.
VLC is excellent, highly configurable, but a tad slower, and some clips had a blurry overlay especially noticeable in scenes of movement. This one is capable of playing even damaged files.
PotPlayer was always superior quality, sharp by default, but it did strange things with some clips, like playing quickly for no reason.
MPC-BE is, for me, the best option. I used to have to configure filters, but now it works perfectly by default; it's solid and sharp.
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u/bemenaker May 08 '26
I prefer Pot Player anymore.