Manage updates with the Download AppCNET Editors' review
On the video-player spectrum, SMPlayer is somewhere between the full-bodied Miro and the super-lightweight VLC Player. The freeware player, intended to be a front-end for MPlayer, supports an impressive list of features and options.
The list of supported formats encompasses both major audio and video codecs and does a good job of trying to differentiate itself from the competition. One of the best features is that the player will remember your settings per video, so if you quit the app in the middle of playing, it'll restart it with the exact same settings as before. Subtitles are fully customizable, including color, font, and size, and it can stream in content from the Internet. The app also works on both Windows and Linux, and it's supported in more than 20 languages. There's also a karaoke filter, so you can remove the audio track.
As you might expect, the install file is quite large at 17MB, and it takes up a fair bit of RAM. We experienced no stability issues with the program, so we're quite comfortable in recommending it as a strong secondary player or even a primary, if one of its more esoteric features is just what you need.
Publisher's Description
From rvm:
SMPlayer is a new multimedia player. It uses the award-winning MPlayer as engine, so it's able to play the most known video & audio formats without the need of external codecs: avi, mkv, ogm, mpeg, vob, 3gp, asf, mov, wmv, mp3, ogg. You can also play DVD discs and Internet streams. Special care have been taken with subtitles. It supports srt, sub, ssa, embedded subtitles in Matroska files, DVD subtitles. SMPlayer subtitles can be very nice, you can choose font and size, and even colors for the subtitles. One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave. don't worry, when you open that movie again it will resume at the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume.
Version 0.5.62 supports changing the subtitle size, configuring the middle click button, running the UI in mini mode, and more.
What's new in this version:
Version 0.5.62 supports changing the subtitle size, configuring the middle click button, running the UI in mini mode, and more.
More Products to Consider
-
Mix, scratch, and remix MP3 or music videos live. -
Rip CDs, convert audio files, and burn discs easily. -
Convert audio between formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, M4A, ... -
Convert between WAV and mp3, wma, ogg, and FLAC. -
Play video and audio files, convert to other file formats, burn... -
Convert CDs to MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC formats, convert audio ... -
Emulate up to 18 DVD/BD drives. -
Convert DVD movies to all the popular video or audio formats wi... -
Cut desired parts from your MP3 files. -
Create, edit, burn, mount, and encrypt CD, DVD, and BD image fi... -
Convert M4A/AAC into MP3/WAV format. -
Copy DVD to iPod, iPhone, 3GP, PSP, Zune, HD TV, AVI, Divx, Xvi... -
Get fast and flexible digital-media playback with access to sma... -
Convert and backup DVDs to AVI, DivX, iPod, iPhone, iPad, WMV, ... -
Download YouTube videos and convert them into MP3 files. -
Play audio and video files in real-time and streaming modes. -
Play video files of multiple video formats. -
Burn the files and images on CD and DVD discs. -
Play digital media of various formats with 3D and WiDi support. -
Run a virtual mixing console for MP3, WAV, and? Karaoke (MP3+G)... -
Play 99.9 percent of files with a collection of codecs for Wind... -
Convert FLAC audio files to MP3. -
Play virtually any media file in open-source cross-platform mul... -
Play various types of video, audio, movie, music files in Media...
-
All versions:
4.0 starsout of 45 votes
-
Current version:
4.3 starsout of 15 votes
-
My rating:
Write review
-
"Great player"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
Very good pic quality
Cons
Keyboard and mouse shortcuts could have been more customizable
-
"UNIQUE Feature: increase playback speed with 10% steps"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
Something I could only do with the winDVD software that came with my VAIO, until... this app. came along.
(actually the feature is Mplayer's but SMplayer is a frontend for this commandline based player)
It's great to watch boring parts at 120% speed, documentaries, etc, fast dialogue at 80% with no pitch change (ac3 and mp3 audio are frequency based, so can just shorten the time tones are played without changing the pitch). a feature EVERY player SHOULD have!!!
Cons
ok one time it just quit playing smoothly after hitting it hard with some HD x264 files and tweaking some, it kept 'remembering the bad settings' and i had to re-install.
otherwise fine. there's a portable version out there too.
latest version today is 0.6.2 @ soundforge.
-
"Excellent software"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
Simple to use
Cons
None that I have found
-
"Excellent"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
I've used many, many media players over the years. Media Player Classic and GomPlayer were, IMO, at the top. However both had issues handling subtitles in movies, resulting in frame skips occasionally. SMPlayer has not had this problem. Factor in not needing to install codec packs because many are built-in, a very fast and feature rich interface, and you have yourself a true winner.
-
"Excellent product. Number one."
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
Could play DVDs *.nob in full screen while other popular players such as wmp, real, zoom, vlc, mpstar, etc can't. No jam at all very smooth. If you are hunting for excellent player, you should try this and look no further.
Cons
I am yet to try on other media types.
-
"Lives upto the expectation"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
this is a brilliant piece of software. I spent hours lookng for a software where I could change the playback speed of a mov file and it was then I came across this. it is absolutely well made in terms of both friedliness and features.
-
"Amazing!"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
I was completely in awe of this program when I first used it. It played every video and audio file I tired on it, wma, wmv, mpeg, mpeg2, AVI(Xvid, and DivX), MKV, Mp3, Mp4, FLV, even DVDs. This is the best media player ever....and its completely free and works great. Its unbelievable.
-
"Really easy to use!"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
It´s really easy to use SMplayer, even for a dumb **** like myself who don´t understand so much about computers/media players.
I´ve downloaded a french movie and the english subtitle was in an seperate file.
When i started the movie on SMplayer, the subtitle started automaticly.
-
"good video streams"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
-
"If you don't need video streaming SMPlayer beats VLC"
Version: SMPlayer 0.5.62
Pros
I'm a long time VLC user on both Windows and Linux box's and because I use VLCs Streaming I still use it but I find SMPLayer will play every file VLC will play and it looks a lot better. It also is a lot easier to configure.
SMPlayer is a QT frontend for the incredible Linux developed Mplayer, and because of this it means it will play virtually everything. (see below for the one exception I've found).
I've found no stability issues with this player if you stick with DirectX as the Video output driver on Windows and Xv on Linux.
Cons
There is no RAR support. That is, it will not play videos in a RAR archive without first uncompressing it.
This is no great shakes to me but some people keep there videos archived and would like to play them direct.
So in conclusion as they say.
Marks out of 10 I give 11.
Yes 11.
It is that good.
Add Your Review
Submit your reply
E-mail this review
Report offensive content
Previous Versions:
