I’ve been putting MPlayerX, a new free video player for the Mac, through some semi-rigorous testing this week (i.e. a brutal regimen of action movies and romantic comedies) and wanted to share a few thoughts about how it compares to QuickTime X and VLC. First off, a few general notes about VLC: it plays everything […]
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MPlayerX for Mac Combines the Best of QuickTime and VLC

Jun 3rd 2011 by

I’ve been putting MPlayerX, a new free video player for the Mac, through some semi-rigorous testing this week (i.e. a brutal regimen of action movies and romantic comedies) and wanted to share a few thoughts about how it compares to QuickTime X and VLC.

First off, a few general notes about VLC:

  • it plays everything natively without the need for extra downloads
  • it lets you scrub instantly through movies with two-finger scrolling
  • two-finger vertical scrolling adjusts the volume from 0-500%
  • the VLC traffic cone icon is cute, but not particularly attractive
  • VLC loads up in a bordered window

Then a few notes about QuickTime:

  • attractive, borderless design
  • plays most everything after you install Perian
  • cool icon
  • scrubbing sucks with the trackpad and can sometimes lock you into a permanent fast-forward
  • the volume only goes to 100%, which isn’t enough for some quiet videos
  • no preferences to fine-tune little aspects

How MPlayerX compares to VLC and QuickTime:

  • I won’t bother writing up any extra notes about MPlayerX at this point because if you take the best things about QuickTime and VLC and shove them into one app, you’ll end up with MPlayerX. I’m furrowing my brow and gnashing my teeth right now thinking of something – anything – to complain about, but I’m just coming up empty. So it’s probably a good idea of you just download MPlayer X from the Mac App Store today and start using it.

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