Mpv – A free, open-source, and cross-platform media player

Is this worth a look when you are pretty happy with VLC already?

Yes, it is. I don't understand the cult of VLC to be honest. There are better media players, at least on Windows.

mpv has less UI affordances than VLC, but it’s very full-featured and configurable. It’s kind of like the ffmpeg to VLC’s Handbrake.

Of course, if you really want to be a purist you could use ffplay.

I switched from VLC to mpv. Mpv loads quicker and is more (CPU) efficient. Besides that, I like the minimalist UI.

I think it's worth it, but to get the most out of it, you'll need to customize it to your liking (tweaking the OSC, the keyboard shortcuts... you can do many things, but it requires some reading/searching).

We love VLC because it plays anything, everytime.

And has done this, for a long time, since times when other players struggled.

Maybe it's not the "Best" - it is still the goodest.

VLC plays pretty much any media file from pretty much anywhere it can be stored, and it's got a pretty standard interface, so folks find it easy to understand how to operate it. That's it. No real "cult" situation there. Just an app that does it's job well. Same is true of mpv, but some people will prefer it (as I do) because it's lightweight and clean and quick (and all the stuff people also like about VLC).

I do use MPC-HC on Windows, but it's no longer under development :'( IIRC it can't do AV1.

There is a fork that's still under development [1], or you can use mpc-be [2].

[1] https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/ [2] https://github.com/Aleksoid1978/MPC-BE

The famous VLC seeking corruption still happens to me. Happened on an i3 NUC HTPC recently. So using MPC-HC or MPV now depending.

In my opinion, yes. It's smaller, simpler, snappier, yet has everything and then some under the hood if one really needs this or that function.

I'd say there are a few aspects that make VLC an easy, common choice: 1) it has incredibly extensive functionality (even if MPV has more capabilities, with VLC, it's all available through menus/GUI - no need to memorize any commands) 2) handles any files you throw at it EVERY time - out of the box. Throughout the years, VLC has been the only player which didn't choke on ANY file I threw at it. 3) It's multiplatform and works (in my experience) equally well on Windows, Linux, and MacOS - OUT OF THE BOX! Even on Android, where I normally prefer using MX Player Pro (bc it has a slightly nicer UI/UX), it was able to handle video files where the audio was in the DTS format. MX Player Pro required the installation of codecs to make the audio work. 4) It's been around forever, so if you want to look up any info related to it, you're sure to find it more easily than for any other player.

All that said, VLC is not always my video player of choice. On Windows, I typically prefer PotPlayer and MPC-BE. On MacOS - IINA. On Android - MX Player Pro. But I always keep it installed on all those platforms because I know that I can fall back to it reliably at a moment's notice and it will simply work.

Additionally, with regard to MPV, where I think it makes the most sense is for the highly discerning user who wants to tweak the rendering of video in a specific way. I think anime fans really like it a lot (I'd imagine they upscale or improve the image quality in very subjective, specific ways, though I didn't investigate this in detail). The other good use case is when you have somewhat limited hardware and you want the most efficient video player application. That is perfectly valid, I suppose, but I think for most people, whatever hardware they're playing a video file on is likely more than capable of running with a more 'unoptimized' video player app such as VLC.

I have a 4k SDR display and 4k HDR content on VLC looks washed out.

Mpv does not have that issue and converts 4k HDR to SDR in real-time and shows a colorful image.

VLC doesn't play everything though. mpv plays stuff that VLC can't play. I never have to worry about codecs or installing anything.

Sure. My point is that VLC gets a special place. It "just works" for a decade before MPV, still does and across 3+ platforms!

MPV is great too! I think it's important to also recognize how rad VLC was and continues to be.

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I've always found the VLC GUI quite cluttered and confusing.

99% of the time I use it, I just want to play a local video file or watch a web radio stream. I don't want to create a playlist or browse my computer using a built-in media library, yet both are front and center in VLC.