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Friday, October 30, 2015

SMPlayer 15.9 (Stable) Released With mpv Support, More

SMPlayer, a Qt front-end for mplayer, has reached version 15.9.0 recently, this being the first stable version to support mpv. There are various other new features as well, like support for 3D stereo filter, MPRIS v2 support, a new default theme and more.

Note that if you've been using the official SMPlayer PPA, you've got SMPlayer with mpv support for quite some time - that's because the SMPlayer developers have been updating this PPA for a while with SVN builds which had this feature.

mpv is a media player based on mplayer2 (and MPlayer), which comes with extra features and improvements, like native support for VAAPI and VDA along with improved VDPAU video output, precise seeking, gapeless audio support, better MKV support (including ordered chapters, 3D metadata) and more. You can see a list of changes / differences between mpv and mplayer2, HERE.

Changes in SMPlayer 15.9:

mpv can now be used instead of mplayer;
mpv only features:

you can now use two subtitles in the same time;
it's now possible to play videos from streaming websites like DailyMotion, Vimeo, Vevo and many others (previously, only YouTube was supported). mpv uses youtube-dl so you'll be able to play videos from any website supported by it;
added an option to step back one frame;
a new option was added which allows setting a template for screenshots;

support for the 3D stereo filter;
better support for YouTube (VEVO videos);
you can now use a proxy with SMPlayer;
added a new action (assigned by default to key "I") which shows the current playback time, total time and percentage, for 2 seconds on the OSD;
added the possibility to use the mouse buttons for "next chapter" and "previous chapter";
a new option was added which allows deleting a file in the playlist from the filesystem;
MPRIS v2 support;
a new theme, called H2O is now the default theme.

To be able to use SMPlayer with mpv, you'll need mpv 0.6.2 or newer! Also, some mpv-only features may require an even newer mpv version (for instance, to be able to play videos from websites such as DailyMotion, Vimeo, etc., you'll need mpv 0.7.0 or newer).

The new default theme is only used for new installs and if you don't like it, you can go back to the previous style from the SMPlayer Preferences > Interface (select "Default" for the "Icon set" - in my test, this also affected the UI colors for some reason).

Install SMPlayer and mpv in Ubuntu or Linux Mint

To add the official SMPlayer PPA and install the latest SMPlayer 15.9 in Ubuntu or Linux Mint, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install smplayer

For Ubuntu 15.04 and 15.10, mpv is available in the official repositories so to install it, simply use the following command:
sudo apt-get install mpv

For Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17.x, the mpv version available in the repositories is very old and not compatible with SMPlayer. However, you can install a newer version by using Doug McMahon's PPA. To add the PPA and install mpv, use the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/mpv-tests
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mpv

To configure SMPlayer to use mpv, open its Preferences and under "General", on the "General" tab, set "mpv" (without the quotes" as the "MPlayer/MPV executable" and click Apply:

And an extra tip: to be able to play videos from all the streaming websites supported by youtube-dl (again: this requires mpv 0.7.0 or newer), in the SMPlayer Preferences click "Network" on the left and check the "Enable MPV's support for streaming websites" checkbox:

This feature requires youtube-dl so make sure you've installed it (I recommend installing it via the main failsdownloads PPA to get the latest version).

For other Linux distributions and Windows, see the SMPlayer downloads page.

How To Install SMPlayer With mpv Support In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint [Updated]

SMPlayer, a Qt graphical front-end for mplayer, added mpv support a couple of months ago however, because there are some missing bits, it will take a while until a new stable version with this new feature is released.

But you can already install SMPlayer with mpv support in Ubuntu or Linux Mint, by using the official SMPlayer ~~Testing~~ Stable PPA.

For those not familiar with mpv, this is a media player based on mplayer2 (and mplayer), which comes with numerous extra features and improvements compared to mplayer2, such as:

native support for VAAPI and VDA and improved VDPAU video output;
option to display two subtitles at once;
Wayland support;
precise seeking;
gapeless audio support;
built-in encoding feature (replacement for mencoder);
improved PulseAudio support;
better MKV support (e.g. ordered chapters, 3D metadata);
much more.

Since there are way too many changes between mplayer / mplayer2 and mpv to post them here, check out the official mpv changes page.

Also, SMPlayer already supports playing YouTube videos however, with mpv, it can play videos from any youtube-dl supported website (despite its name, youtube-dl supports numerous video websites). This includes Youtube (obviously), DailyMotion, Vimeo, BlipTV, CBS, CollegeHumor, ComedyCentral, NBC, Vevo and many more - about 500 websites are supported and you can see a full list HERE.

How to install SMPlayer with mpv support in Ubuntu or Linux Mint

Update: the official SMPlayer Stable PPA was updated with SMPlayer builds that support mpv. If you want to purge the SMPlayer Testing PPA (which was previously used in this article), use the following commands:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:rvm/testing

Then you can install SMPlayer with mpv support from the stable PPA, by using the instructions below.

Note: to be able to use SMPlayer with mpv, you'll need mpv version 0.6.2 or newer and for youtube-dl support, you'll need mpv 0.7.0 or newer.

A. Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10 / Linux Mint 17 or 17.1

Because mpv in both Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 is very old, you'll need to use a PPA which provides a newer mpv version - that's why I've included Doug McMahon's mpv PPA in the instructions below.

To add Doug's mpv PPA and the official SMPlayer Stable PPA, and install these packages, as well as youtube-dl, in Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10 / Linux Mint 17 or 17.1, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/mpv-tests
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mpv smplayer smtube smplayer-themes smplayer-skins youtube-dl

Since youtube-dl in Ubuntu isn't updated frequently, I recommend using the main failsdownloads PPA, which provides the latest youtube-dl (you can find instructions for how to install the latest youtube-dl by using the main failsdownloads PPA, HERE).

B. Ubuntu 12.04 / Linux Mint 13

Unfortunately there's no mpv 0.7.0+ PPA for Ubuntu 12.04. The official SMPlayer Stable PPA provides SMPlayer with mpv support and mpv version 0.6.2 and while this version works, it doesn't come with youtube-dl integration so you won't be able to use SMPlayer to play videos from website supported by youtube-dl.

To add the official SMPlayer Stable PPA and install SMPlayer and mpv in Ubuntu 12.04 / Linux Mint 13, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mpv smplayer smtube smplayer-themes smplayer-skins

Windows users can find binaries with the latest SMPlayer on its downloads page.

Arch Linux users can install the latest SMPlayer from SVN via AUR (Qt5 version).

For other Linux distributions, you'll have to compile SMPlayer from SVN.

Configuring SMPlayer to use mpv

Setting SMPlayer to use mpv instead of mplayer is very easy. From the SMPlayer menu select Options > Preferences and under "General", on the "General" tab, set "mpv" as the "MPlayer executable", like in the screenshot below:

... and click "Apply". Don't close the SMPlayer Preferences yet. To be able to play videos from all the websites supported by youtube-dl (requires mpv 0.7.0 or newer so this won't work in Ubuntu 12.04!), click "Network" on the left and enable "Play videos from streaming sites":

... click "Apply" and that's it. You can now play videos from any youtube-dl supported website by copying the video URL and opening it with SMPlayer (Open > URL).

SMPlayer 14.3.0 Released With Experimental Blue-Ray Discs Support

SMPlayer, the popular mplayer/mplayer2 GUI, has reached version 14.3.0, receiving improved fullscreen controls, experimental support for non-protected blu-ray discs and other changes.

Changes in SMPlayer 14.3:

experimental support for playing non-protected blu-ray discs;
improved fullscreen controls;
new audio presets added to the audio equalizer;
better support for multimedia keys - this can help control SMPlayer with a remote control;
new option in the playlist preferences for automatically adding other files in the folder to the playlist;
the "Move the window when the video area is dragged" option has been fixed;
better YouTube support;
SMPlayer can now be compiled with Qt 5;
many bug fixes and more.

You can find the official SMPlayer changelog, HERE.

It's also worth mentioning that the SMPlayer version has changed to reflect the year and month of the release. So the new 14.3.0 version is the equivalent of version 0.8.7.

The SMPlayer version available in the Ubuntu repositories is quite old - Ubuntu 13.10 currently has SMPlayer 0.8.3 while Ubuntu 12.04 has SMplayer 0.7.0. Since version 0.8.3 for instance, SMPlayer has received many changes, including a re-written video qualizer, fixed OpenSubtitles support, automatic YouTube code update so you don't have to update SMPlayer every time YouTube makes some changes that break it, and more. That's why I recommend installing the latest version by using the instructions below.

Install SMPlayer in Ubuntu

To add the official SMPlayer PPA and install SMPlayer and SMTube (the SMPlayer YouTube player) in Ubuntu / Linux Mint and derivatives, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install smplayer smtube

Download SMPlayer (Windows binaries, source files)