Please recommend a media player with these criteria

[vlad992]

Hello,

VLC has been my primary media player for the past 10 years or so. The customizable interface is always what kept me with it. But VLC is just behind the times when it comes to playback. Seeking is slow, A/B loops are laggy and certain videos downloaded from YouTube have playback errors (but only in VLC).

I would like it to be have following features:

1) open source
2) actively developed
3) good playback (fast seeking, no lag, etc)
4) can play directly from YouTube (drag and drop links to play YouTube)
5) must have button controls for: speed up, speed down, A/B Loop

I am currently testing PotPlayer. I know it is not open source and for this reason it makes me feel bad to use. I would, however, look past that if it were truly perfect, but it has some flaws. For as many options PotPlayer has, and there are many, there are a few things that simply cannot be disabled, such as the drag and drop behavior. It also crashes on startup, although rarely.

So If you have any recommendations aside from VLC or PotPlayer, and that meets the criteria I mentioned above, that would be awesome.

Thank you

[davexnet]

Perhaps MPC-BE would work

[lingyi]

FYI, Potplayer is great, my favorite media player, but be sure to uncheck the add-on software during the install and updates.

[vlad992]

Perhaps MPC-BE would work

Unfortunately there's no A/B Loop controls. Otherwise, it would be my top choice.

FYI, Potplayer is great, my favorite media player, but be sure to uncheck the add-on software during the install and updates.

It has the features I need but also a few annoyances. When dragging and dropping it asks me whether I want to "play now" or "play later" but I want it to always play now. Also, it crashes on a rare occasion on launch. I am using it in a portable format, no install. I extracted the exe and made sure to block any updates or incoming connections. Maybe an older version of PotPlayer will work better for me. I'll go try some now.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

[aedipuss]

wow. i'd suspect problems at your end rather than vlc.

[lingyi]

Perhaps MPC-BE would work

Unfortunately there's no A/B Loop controls. Otherwise, it would be my top choice.

FYI, Potplayer is great, my favorite media player, but be sure to uncheck the add-on software during the install and updates.

It has the features I need but also a few annoyances. When dragging and dropping it asks me whether I want to "play now" or "play later" but I want it to always play now. Also, it crashes on a rare occasion on launch. I am using it in a portable format, no install. I extracted the exe and made sure to block any updates or incoming connections. Maybe an older version of PotPlayer will work better for me. I'll go try some now.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Your portable version should be clean and blocking outgoing traffic is a good idea, but the full install and updates try to install third party software which you have to opt out.

You asked the about the drag and drop issue in your other thread, but I I've never had an issue with that in any verision of Potplayer on any of my PCs. The only things I can think of are: 1) Do you have the playlist disabled?, 2) I don't recall having to check this, but there's a box under General>Use advanced drag and drop interaction, 3) Try a non-portable install as there seems to be something wrong with your version. It shouldn't be crashing. One the reasons I switched to Potplayer is that it's much more stable on my PCs than any version of MPC. VLC is stable too.

[vlad992]

wow. i'd suspect problems at your end rather than vlc.

Possibly, but I don't think so because it behaves similar on two different systems. The lag is most noticeable when using a A/B Loop with slow down. When the loop repeats, there is a delay between repetitions. The more it is slowed down, the longer the delay. In contrast, when doing the same thing in PotPlayer, the loops repeat instantly. Also, in VLC, videos downloaded from YouTube, which are converted to MKV with youtube-dl, have a bit of delay while seeking, but are instant in other players.

2) I don't recall having to check this, but there's a box under General>Use advanced drag and drop interaction

This was exactly the option what I was looking for. THANK YOU!

For now, I will continue to use PotPlayer.

As for the crashing, it is quite rare. It only happened three times so far out of a hundred or so. It might be the portable version like you said. I'll try a fresh install and opt out of the promotions. I also might try an older version.

The one thing I will miss in VLC is my custom interface. No other player can compete with the custom layout in VLC.

[abolibibelot]

4) can play directly from YouTube (drag and drop links to play YouTube)

Works with SMPlayer (used to be that the link had to be pasted via the menu, now drag-and-drop works, but only with a highlighted link, with VLC dragging-and-dropping non-highlighted text works, but VLC 3.0.8 no longer displays YouTube videos).

By the way there was a VLC video editor in development some years ago, what happened to that project ?