MPlayer Everything Star

Pros

• Expansive support for video and audio codecs
• Loads and runs in a fast and stable manner
• Operation doesn’t require a lot of resources
• Powerful and versatile support for hotkeys

Cons

• User interface a bit too simplistic
• Lacking customization options

MPlayer Everything Star is an excellent choice for users who want a multimedia program for Windows that can do it all.

MPlayer Everything Star is superb multimedia player for casual and advanced users alike. The average user can play just about anything without having to learn their way around the program. There are just a handful of buttons, and they’re the same buttons you’ve been using your entire life: Play, Pause, Stop, and so forth. Power users like MPlayer because it takes a very streamlined approach. Rather than clutter the experience with bells and whistles you may never need, it eschews them. Instead, it focuses on doing what it does well exceptionally well. An added benefit to this approach is that it initializes fast, runs fast and stable, and does that all without requiring gobs of memory and processing power.

In addition to being one of the fastest multimedia players around, it distinguishes itself with codec support that’s only rivaled by programs like VLC. In fact, it includes support for nearly 200 video codecs and nearly 100 audio codecs out of the box. That means that no matter how your multimedia file was created, converted or compressed, MPlayer will likely recognize and proceed accordingly. If you do use or come across a codec MPlayer doesn’t recognize by default, it can resort to the codecs available through Windows. This makes the program quite versatile and means that you can expand its capabilities whenever new technologies come to the forefront.

The MPlayer user interface may be off-putting to some while others will love the no-nonsense approach. The UI only features buttons that are essential. That doesn’t mean that the program is limited to that functionality. In fact, there’s a wealth of functionality and options that simply aren’t exposed through the UI. Advanced users may love this, but casual users may find themselves frustrated when lacking intuitive access to a common feature. Another potential issue is that there’s no way to customize the UI, such as installing a skin or adding items to the menu.

MPlayer Everything Star is most certainly designed to take advantage of hotkey support, and that support is beyond fantastic. Practically every feature that MPlayer Everything Star provides can be bound to a hotkey. Most features are bound to a shortcut by default, and you can change those assignments to your liking. You can also create lightweight macros by assigning multiple features to a single hotkey.

Memorizing everything and getting used to it can take some time, but that process is worth it. It lets you make changes on the fly without accessing the user interface. This is particularly nice when watching video on the big screen. If you have an appropriate remote, you can even bind these hotkeys to remote presses so that you never have to get off the couch.

Pros

• Expansive support for video and audio codecs
• Loads and runs in a fast and stable manner
• Operation doesn’t require a lot of resources
• Powerful and versatile support for hotkeys

Cons

• User interface a bit too simplistic
• Lacking customization options