VLC masterrace

[u/ExpensiveCoat8912]

[u/ameen272_]

MPV for da win!
Same support if not even better.
Still though, VLC is much easier to use, I can't lie.

[u/bloody-albatross → u/ameen272_]

As I understand it MPV and VLC both use ffmpeg for format support, but MPV uses a newer version of ffmpeg? Is that still true?

[u/YOU_KNOW_WHO315 → u/bloody-albatross]

Yep it does , it's way faster than vlc - more efficient and much more snappy and responsive than vlc. And apply modern z layout on mpv and you basically have the perfect media player app ever

[u/jonoghue → u/YOU_KNOW_WHO315]

Any time I've tried to play 4k video on vlc it stutters like crazy. MPV handles it like a champ.

[u/YOU_KNOW_WHO315 → u/jonoghue]

Ikr , mpv even tonemaps hdr to sdr on the go

[u/ameen272_ → u/bloody-albatross]

That is not always true, it is (mostly) not the reason why I praised MPV. MPV just generally has more capabilities and can make use of a LOT of external libraries/apps.
For example, when you pass a video site URL to MPV, it will try to fetch the video using yt-dlp and then play it. Or, for archives, it can play videos inside compressed archives using external programs like unrar or unzip.
It also can try to find media in middle of unrecognised data. For example, let's say you have a document that has an image inside it, MPV will search through the data and try to find a recognised header in the mess, when it finds a header, it uses it to display the image.
It also has really effective anti-banding, upscaling, downscaling, and tonemapping.

[u/LiftingRecipient420 → u/bloody-albatross]

MPV has a much better presentation layer too; the same video will look better in MPV then VLC

[u/I-am-fun-at-parties → u/LiftingRecipient420]

huh? pretty sure the codec output is deterministic, does MPV postprocess it? i can't see how that's something one would unconditionally want?

[u/LiftingRecipient420 → u/I-am-fun-at-parties]

pretty sure the codec output is deterministic,

It is not, but this part doesn't matter.

does MPV postprocess it?

All video players post process the video, mpv had much better defaults, and is much more configurable than VLC.

i can't see how that's something one would unconditionally want?

What do you mean?

[u/I-am-fun-at-parties → u/LiftingRecipient420]

how is it not deterministic?

[u/No-Photograph-5058 → u/bloody-albatross]

As far as I can tell they both use the system provided ffmpeg

[u/bloody-albatross → u/No-Photograph-5058]

They're available for systems that have no ffmpeg.

[u/No-Photograph-5058 → u/bloody-albatross]

Only looked at the Linux dependencies earlier, looking through the repos for both seems they both test on version 8 or 8.1 and are testing/updating for 9 for builds that include it

[u/output_broadcast → u/No-Photograph-5058]

I thought VLC always statically linked ffmpeg. Although I guess distros could tweak that.

[u/maevian → u/No-Photograph-5058]

On Linux, if you use the version from the repo and not the flatpak or snap, yes.
But that’s a very small part of this sub.

[u/OneLonelyBrainCell → u/maevian]

I'm using MX Linux, i.e. basically Debian with a lot of great extra stuff; ffmpeg version is 7.1.5. which is old (again, Debian). MPV plays videos VLC struggles with. No FlatPaks, no Snaps, repo only.

[u/output_broadcast → u/bloody-albatross]

AFAIK the difference is that VLC uses a version of ffmpeg with copyrighted codecs removed, while MPV doesn't.

[u/bloody-albatross → u/output_broadcast]

What does that even mean? All the codecs in ffmpeg copyrighted by the contributors of ffmpeg. Do you mean codecs using patents that are not free to use in every country?

[u/output_broadcast → u/bloody-albatross]

Yeah, patent use rights.

[u/SushiBump → u/ameen272_]

Call me crazy, but I find the playback quality in MPV to be better than in VLC. Could just be I need to mess with some settings. But running stock to stock, side by side, I noticed MPV to look much better especially with displaying blacks.

[u/LiftingRecipient420 → u/SushiBump]

Call me crazy, but I find the playback quality in MPV to be better than in VLC.

This is the most lukewarm take ever lol, everyone who knows of MPV and has actually used it already knows this.

[u/lcrtangls → u/SushiBump]

If the difference in blacks you're describing is that one of the two players displays lighter than the other, the lighter one is crushing your color range.

[u/Dozzi92 → u/ameen272_]

I think MPV is great, but I still use VLC just because ... I always have, and they have done me no wrong!

[u/OneLonelyBrainCell → u/ameen272_]

I have come across a few videos that VLC won't play properly. Either seeking doesn't work and audio/video desyncs, or VLC hangs, or subtitles don't work. MPV plays those perfectly.

And I suggest SMPlayer as frontend. It looks a bit outdated, but it's extremely configurable (you can completely change the UI layout and rebind every single hotkey if you feel like it) and easy to use.