Media player software

Media player softwareis a type ofapplication softwarefor playingmultimediacomputer fileslike audio and video files. Media players commonly display standardmedia control iconsknown from physical devices such astape recordersandCD players,such as play (  ), pause (  ), fastforward (⏩️), rewind (⏪), and stop (  ) buttons. In addition, they generally haveprogress bars(or "playback bars" ), which are sliders to locate the current position in the duration of the media file.

MPlayer,an example of a cross-platform media player

Mainstreamoperating systemshave at least one default media player. For example,Windowscomes withWindows Media Player,Microsoft Movies & TVandGroove Music,whilemacOScomes withQuickTime PlayerandMusic.Linux distributionscome with different media players, such asSMPlayer,Amarok,Audacious,Banshee,MPlayer,mpv,Rhythmbox,Totem,VLC media player,andxine.Androidcomes withYouTube Musicfor audio andGoogle Photosfor video, and smartphone vendors such as Samsung may bundle custom software.

Functionality focus

Clementinev1.2, an audio player with a media library and online radio

The basic feature set of media players are a seek bar, a timer with the current and total playback time, playback controls (play, pause, previous, next, stop), playlists, a "repeat" mode, and a "shuffle" (or "random" ) mode for curiosity and to facilitate searching long timelines of files.

Different media players have different goals and feature sets.Video playersare a group of media players that have their features geared more towards playingdigital video.For example,Windows DVD Playerexclusively playsDVD-Videodiscs and nothing else.Media Player Classiccan play individual audio and video files but many of its features such as color correction, picture sharpening, zooming, set ofhotkeys,DVBsupport andsubtitlesupport are only useful for video material such as films and cartoons.Audio players,on the other hand, specialize indigital audio.For example,AIMPexclusively plays audio formats.MediaMonkeycan play both audio and video formats, but many of its features including media library, lyric discovery,music visualization,online radio, audiobook inde xing, andtag editingare geared toward consumption of audio material; watching video files on it can be a trying feat. General-purpose media players also do exist. For example, Windows Media Player has exclusive features for both audio and video material, although it cannot match the feature set of Media Player Classic and MediaMonkey combined.

By default, videos are played with fully visible field of view while filling at least either width or height of the viewport to appear as large as possible. Options to change the video's scaling and aspect ratio may include filling the viewport through either stretching or cropping, and "100% view" where each pixel of the video covers exactly one pixel on the screen.

Zoominginto the field of view during playback may be implemented through aslideron any screen or withpinch zoomon touch screens, and moving the field of view may be implemented throughscrolling by dragginginside the view port or by moving a rectangle inside a miniature view of the entire field of view that denotes the magnified area.

Media player software may have the ability to adjust appearance and acoustics during playback using effects such as mirroring, rotating, cropping, cloning, adjusting colours,deinterlacing,andequalizingandvisualizing audio.Easter eggs may be featured, such as a puzzle game onVLC Media Player.

Still snapshots may be extracted directly from a video frame or captured through a screenshot, the former of which is preferred since it preserves videos' original dimensions (height and width).Video players may show a tooltip bubble previewing footage at the position hovered over with the mouse cursor.

A preview tooltip for the seek bar has been implemented on fewsmartphonesthrough astylusor aself-capacitive touch screenable to detect a floating finger. Such include theSamsung Galaxy S4, S5(finger),Note 2, Note 4(stylus), andNote 3(both).

Streaming mediaplayers may indicatebufferedsegments of the media in the seek bar.

3D video players

3Dvideo players are used to play2D video in 3Dformat. A high-qualitythree-dimensional video presentationrequires that each frame of a motion picture be embedded with information on the depth of objects present in the scene. This process involves shooting the video with special equipment from two distinct perspectives or modeling and rendering each frame as a collection of objects composed of 3D vertices and textures, much like in any modern video game, to achieve special effects. Tedious and costly, this method is only used in a small fraction of movies produced worldwide, while most movies remain in the form of traditional 2D images. It is, however, possible to give an otherwise two-dimensional picture the appearance of depth. Using a technique known asanaglyph processinga "flat" picture can be transformed so as to give an illusion of depth when viewed through anaglyph glasses (usually red-cyan). An image viewed through anaglyph glasses appears to have both protruding and deeply embedded objects in it, at the expense of somewhat distorted colors. Themethod itself is old enough,dating back to the mid-19th century, but it is only with recent advances in computer technology that it has become possible to apply this kind of transformation to a series of frames in a motion picture reasonably fast or even in real-time, i.e. as the video is being played back. Several implementations exist in the form of 3D video players that render conventional 2D video in anaglyph 3D, as well as in the form of 3D video converters that transform video into stereoscopic anaglyph and transcode it for playback with regular software or hardware video players.

Examples

Well known examples of media player software includeWindows Media Player,VLC media player,iTunes,Winamp,Media Player Classic,MediaMonkey,foobar2000,AIMP,MusicBeeandJRiver Media Center.Most of these also include music library managers.

Although media players are often multi-media, they can be primarily designed for a specific media. For example, Media Player Classic and VLC media player are video-focused while Winamp and iTunes are music-focused, despite all of them supporting both types of media.

Home theater PC

Main article:Home theater PC

A home theater PC or media center computer is aconvergencedevice that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that supports video, photo, audio playback, and sometimesvideo recordingfunctionality. Although computers with some of these capabilities were available from the late 1980s, the "Home Theater PC" term first appeared in mainstream press in 1996. Since 2007, other types of consumer electronics, including gaming systems and dedicated media devices have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized computer programs designed to run on standardpersonal computers.

See also

• Comparison of video player software
• Comparison of audio player software