Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 10/13/2013, 2:55 AM
It looks useful. It is worth reading the 10s tutorial after installation.

The first file you download from the web site is only a downloader. The setup file itself gets downloaded to
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Wondershare\player_full1374.exe, or
C:\Users\Public\Documents\wondershare\player_full1374.exe

For some reason it plays a bit smoother on my old XP machine than my newer Win 7 machine.

When playing 1920x1080x50i AVCHD, the deinterlace setting seems to do nothing. It plays a little jerkily during fast pans, whether deinterlace is on or off, as though one field is being discarded. (With deinterlace off I don't see "mouse teeth", contrary to my expectations). A 50p version of the same file plays smoothly.

It plays better than some players such as PowerDVD but not as well as Media Player Classic Home Cinema.

On my XP machine, the player crashes when trying to open a new file after playing the first.

It shows the PGS subtitles (shooting time and date) embedded in the AVCHD file by the camera. (I don't see how to disable this.) DVMP is the only other player I know that does this, apart from my Dune hardware player.
musicvid10 wrote on 10/13/2013, 8:31 AM
Thanks for the review! Plays 1080i smoother on my Vista laptop than VLC. Chokes on DNxHD, but that was expected. Wonder if it is running ffmpeg, or ?
riredale wrote on 10/13/2013, 1:24 PM
Anybody else besides me use the really simple but remarkably flexible "Zoom Player?"

I'm using a version probably seven years old and haven't been keeping up with the most recent versions, but it was free and if the newer ones aren't then I'm sure one can get the older versions via FileHippo or such.

What I especially like about it is that the border is very simple, with simple controls at the bottom and a full-width timeline so it's easy to jump around.
ritsmer wrote on 10/13/2013, 3:44 PM
Peter Duke wrote: For some reason it plays a bit smoother on my old XP machine than my newer Win 7 machine.

Have the same issue here with Windows Media Player.
A workaround is to let WMP access the media files as if they were on an external network drive - because WMP then buffers the playback.

You can simulate a network folder on your own PC by accessing it like this: \\YourPcName\YourMediaFolder
the easiest way is to make a shortcut like this to your rendering output folder - and when you open that folder using the shortcut, WMP will play any file in the folder assuming it is through a network ...
PeterDuke wrote on 10/13/2013, 9:20 PM
@ riredale

I'll bite.

What is the name of the "really simple but remarkably flexible..."?
NickHope wrote on 10/13/2013, 11:40 PM
It's Zoom Player.
ushere wrote on 10/14/2013, 12:48 AM
do any of these players being bandied about play EVERYTHING, i mean along the lines of vlc?

PeterDuke wrote on 10/14/2013, 1:51 AM
I am sure that the answer will be NO.

Not even VLC plays everything. If you try to play say a Cineform file you will get a message along the lines of "VLC is unable to play this file and there is nothing you can do about it."

Both MPC-HC and KMPlayer allow you to add decoders.

Grazie wrote on 10/14/2013, 1:57 AM
What we need is a : "Player of Players"! : an UBER-Player. A player that in one leap delivers "that" file to "that" player.

And when I say "UBER-Player" I didn't mean Pelé or Georgie Best! - But I could have....

Grazie



ushere wrote on 10/14/2013, 2:02 AM
thanks peter...

i was only asking as i tend to use vlc / wmp. i've tried a number of other players at various times, but couldn't find any reason to use them regularly.

my logic is simple - almost 99% of my clients are windows based, many using locked down systems with just wmp on them - my end product NEEDS to play smoothly on it.

of the files i couldn't play with wmp vlc always does so (so far ;-)). of course they're maybe a great many esoteric codecs around that vlc wont play, but so far i haven't come across any in my clients files.
farss wrote on 10/14/2013, 7:11 AM
I know this has been mentioned before and I'm yet to try it but Assimilate's "Play" for $10 is surely worth a serious look. To the best of my knowledge not one of the freebies mentioned here can cope with RAW let along handle LUTs so the files not only play but look as they should.

Bob.
Maverick wrote on 10/14/2013, 8:39 AM
For a long time I have used VLC player and for the few files that fail to play or jitter/stutter along the way I try with either GOM, Splash Lite or DivX Player

So far the Wondershare Player has played everything I throw at it smoothly. Just one niggle is that frequently if I close the window while playing a file in full screen mode I get the following error displayed before the program closes:

"A call to an OS function failed"

Anyone else get this?
Gary James wrote on 10/14/2013, 9:21 AM
"So far the Wondershare Player has played everything I throw at it smoothly."

I just downloaded it and tried it out. It fails to play my Vegas rendered .m2v elementary video streams. It says they are invalid; but they play fine in other players and work fine building my DVDs.
Kit wrote on 10/14/2013, 9:25 AM
The one that I use is MPC-BE. It's played everything I've tried including flash and is 64 bit.
wwjd wrote on 10/14/2013, 9:33 AM
yes, Media Player Classic has been my alternative to VLC for a while now too.
small functional quick.

bill-kranz wrote on 10/16/2013, 1:18 PM
Viewers:

I tried the player from Assimilate Called 'Scratch" Play for $5.00 which is the Ad-free version. There are a lot of playback options, some I do not understand yet.

Quick highlights of what I like after 2 nights:

* I have a new video clip folder with 75 MP4's in it and this can play each one in succession automatically.
* The window playback options include a start/stop 2 screen view for comparisons. The one I really liked was a absolute full monitor, no borders, view.
* There is a full featured File folder view(s) that is easy to use.

A JPEG viewed fine and that was as far as I got with it. Will try a .WMV file and see what that does.

I was using the DAUM Pot Player which had a narrow border but I could not find a way to co-view the files I wanted to play and get them to play automatically.

I do not use RAW or LUT's, whatever those are so - cannot testify to those comments listed below from Bob. But thanks Bob for this tip!!

Bob:

"I know this has been mentioned before and I'm yet to try it but Assimilate's "Play" for $10 is surely worth a serious look. To the best of my knowledge not one of the freebies mentioned here can cope with RAW let along handle LUTs so the files not only play but look as they should."