Playing media apps

PotPlayer — Local player

So far my favourite app is PotPlayer, by Korean media company DAUM.

It beats VLC for functionality and keyboard shortcuts by far.

There are keyboard shortcuts for:

• Changing speed fractionally

• Setting, adjusting & clearing A/B loop markers

• Changing subtitle size.

I like to learn lyrics and choreography from songs & videos, so speed adjustment and A/B loop control are absolutely necessary, especially if the lyrics are not in your native language! I have used PotPlayer to learn several songs!

And it hasn't yet failed to play a media file format that I've thrown at it — but I haven't tested it much. I'll check what decoder library it uses.

It supports 3D viewing with several 3D glasses types. It supports subtitles in SRT and SSA/ASS formats (the latter features word highlighting). It also supports skins, if you're into that kind of thing. For me, the default skin is fine, although IMO it's all a bit small. Maybe I just need glasses. (The elements & text are actually smaller than the UI resolution of Windows though.)

JellyFin — Library player

JellyFin is actually a media server, but it also has a web interface to browse the library and play videos.

Playing through the web UI has all the features you'd expect from a good video player — various subtitles, speed adjustment, time stepper, etc.

JellyFin's main power comes from its library backend. It does more things than even I'm aware of yet!

• Track which videos you've watched

• Automatically offer the next episode in a series

• Resume video playback from last position

• Find subtitles in every language from around the internet

• Organise media by series, by genre, and more

• Media cover art automatically downloaded

• Optional media metadata fixing from the web

Configuring it does take a bit of time, and there are a few settings which should be on by default. Visit my JellyFin page to learn more about setting it up!

VLC — safe bet

VLC plays basically any media file format you've ever heard of. Its codec support is within the app, so you don't need to worry about installing additional codecs to use it.

Unfortunately, this is probably its strongest point these days. The project seems to have been abandoned, inasmuch as the interface is from the 90s, its menus are janky, and there's no side-panel for additional dialogs like the playlist — the playlist panel overtakes the main view, which is not great if you're watching videos!