External Player Recommendations (1 Viewer)

[lordflint]

Hi all,

Ive just really stumbled across mediaportal - and i have to say it is very very good indeed. Coming from an old xbox and XBMC this has some great features and i can see my old xbox going in the bin

Anyway - i was wondering what people choose for their player. I have been reading and quite a lot of people seem to use windows media player (11 or classic) and sometimes zoom player etc.

Is there any favourites out there - or is the built in one good enough?

I will be playing mainly xvid/divxs, but ocassionally some DVDs as well so if folk have any recommendations for both of those I would love to hear them!

TIA

Dave

 

[revs]

I see no reason whatsover not to use the built in player. With the right codecs it will play everything. Also - its just not as slick if MP is launching an external player You would lose all the integration, and resume features etc.

 

[errfoil]

I've been using KMPlayer with the CoreAVC codec for .mkv files. I got here (Mediaportal) after discovering this site: ProjectHTPC - HTPC Software Advice, so I sort of did it backwards.

At any rate, compared to most of the folks here I'm rather non-technical, yet my system has always played anything I've thrown at it. You also have the added advantage that anything will play from outside Mediaportal. Sometimes I'll just play a small documentary or video of some sort without importing into Mediaportal, maybe a sample that I delete immediately after viewing.

Lately, there is a new bug where Mediaportal starts the internal player after I finish watching a TV series in my external player. This has given me the unusual opportunity of comparing both players side by side with the same video file! I can actual see a difference in .mkv files at 720p. The KMPlayer is producing a better image.

Just one person's opinion, but I hope it helps.
BC

 

[gunmahoro]

Zoomplayer

I use Zoom Player Max. I have a lot of various file formats, so Zoom Player handles all my needs for me. I didn't find the player in MediaPortal to my liking. Additionally, settings specific for Zoom Player can be triggered so it's more 'integrated' to the way MedialPortal works. An example is reset player, go to full screen at launch, exit Zoom Player when video is finished. You can also use it to play aduio, if you choose.

And should you happen to find the one video file that hangs your player, Zoom Player will exit itself without having to restart your computer. Hardly ever happens, but it does from time to time.

If you use Zoom Player, don't use any codec packs. The setup for Zoom Player will do a very good job setting up itself. The one commercial codec I did get was CoreAVC Professional. It's the fastest and best video codec to handle .mkv video containers. It's not necessary as the default Zoom Player codec load with take care of you. But it you've got an older CPU, it can make the difference in smooth and stuttering playback.

 

[tourettes]

I will be playing mainly xvid/divxs, but ocassionally some DVDs as well so if folk have any recommendations for both of those I would love to hear them!

I would recommend you to try the internal player at first, as that way you can benefit from the OSD etc.

 

[Mevlock]

I used to use Zoomplayer, but your losing out on a awful lot of functionality by doing it that way, especially if your going to be using plugins such as Moving-Picture and MyTvSeries. If you setup mediaportal properly and have your codecs correctly configured there's pretty much nothing that won't play just as well as with a standalone player.

For instance I have mkvs with flac, ac3 and dts soundtracks. Using ffdshow and madFLAC for audio and mp's internal player I can seamlessly swap between all three tracks using the osd. So I can bitstream the ac3/dts over hdmi and get lossless PCM via hdmi with madFLAC. Pretty neat. MPC's standalone filters will also give me hardware accelerated playback for VC1 and h.264.

 

[gunmahoro]

Zoom Player

Zoomplayer can be configured how you want. It also depends on your hardware as well. I personally do not care for Mediaportals player [not to say it's bad, I just didn't care for it]. Everything you describe can be done in Zoomplayer. But it all comes down to personal preference. I'm glad the Mediaportal developers allow the option of an external player. It shows they understand that greater options is better than forced options. I humbly offer them my thanks.

I used to use Zoomplayer, but your losing out on a awful lot of functionality by doing it that way, especially if your going to be using plugins such as Moving-Picture and MyTvSeries. If you setup mediaportal properly and have your codecs correctly configured there's pretty much nothing that won't play just as well as with a standalone player.

For instance I have mkvs with flac, ac3 and dts soundtracks. Using ffdshow and madFLAC for audio and mp's internal player I can seamlessly swap between all three tracks using the osd. So I can bitstream the ac3/dts over hdmi and get lossless PCM via hdmi with madFLAC. Pretty neat. MPC's standalone filters will also give me hardware accelerated playback for VC1 and h.264.

 

[yhoogi]

As a long-time user I am also more inclined to zoomplayer, but recently discovered problems for tv playback. So far I couldn't figure out how to either setup zp to play the tv-server streams or enabling the internal player for tv-playback only.

 

[gunmahoro]

TV Playback

I'd love to help you but I never used the TV features of Mediaportal. My server is primarily for other video and dvds. And I have my server torn down since I'm moving. I don't recall if the tv options had the same options to use an external player. If it does, I would guess you could use the same settings as you would for dvd/other video. Then it's only a matter of having the right codec for Zoomplayer. Beyond that I would be guessing, and that really isn't going to help you any.

 

[Vimes]

Another vote for the internal player

I love the functionality and integration within MP, its OSD and tools just add to that experience.