BSPlayer: The Best Desktop Video Player I've Seen!

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Like some of you, I have my share of custom-ripped DivX video files (note: ripped from my own DVDs).

As far as desktop video players, WMP works fine for most of my videos. However, there are some videos in which the color reproduction is terrible (very noticeable color banding as if you're using a 8-bit display). Now the video player aptly titled DivX Player (which is made available through the DivX.com site) does a good job, unfortunately, it only plays provides very basic functionality (e.g. - no playlist support, limited playback controls, etc.)

After posting a question on the DivX.com boards, I was pointed to a freeware video player called BSPlayer, which can be found at BSPlayer.org (http://www.bsplayer.org).

Wow! 8O There are some cool features in this player!! It can play nearly every video type available; it supports playlisting; it ensures that the latest DivX codec is used in playback; there's an awesome "Desktop" mode in which the videos will play as a desktop wallpaper (not to be confused with a screensaver as this mode literally replaces your desktop background with the running videos); the video themselves plays with minimal borders. There's a ton of features I haven't even yet played around with yet and nearly all the features can be accessed through keyboard shortcut keys.

Best of all: it's FREEWARE!

For ANYONE who plays videos on their desktop/laptop. Check it out!!

[Tom W.M.]

I just checked it out-- it's pretty cool. I just wish it would play Quicktime videos. And it's only for Windows. *sigh*

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I just checked it out-- it's pretty cool. I just wish it would play Quicktime videos. And it's only for Windows. *sigh*
Yeah, I'm not sure any video packages will play Quicktime other than Quicktime itself. If Apple does allow other packages to play Quicktime, it probably comes at a substantial licensing fee, which is too bad.

I've been demo-ing this video player to my co-workers though, and now I'm busy emailing everyone a copy of the setup files (less than 1MB).

Incredible player!!

[Janak Parekh]

It is indeed a very cool player. A little buggy and a little incomplete, but I'll probably hang on to it.

Re Quicktime: it would be cool if they detected it and at least launched the QT ActiveX component within their player.

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

It is indeed a very cool player. A little buggy and a little incomplete, but I'll probably hang on to it.

I haven't had the chance to fully try out all the features or test it against all different types of media files...

What kinds of bugs are you running into?

[Janak Parekh]

What kinds of bugs are you running into?
Well, it was 1:30 in the morning, but - for example - I managed somehow to corrupt the "remote control", so I couldn't see it and had to click blindly. I was playing with a number of features, including the desktop mode, just for kicks. Maybe it was the DirectX overlay implementation that was having problems.

FWIW, Media Player does occasionally crash on me. In either case, I can always kill the task and restart it.

Also, they should have 1600x1200 in the resolution switcher. Once you go to a lower resolution, you can't go back easily without exiting the player.

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Well, it was 1:30 in the morning, but - for example - I managed somehow to corrupt the "remote control", so I couldn't see it and had to click blindly. I was playing with a number of features, including the desktop mode, just for kicks. Maybe it was the DirectX overlay implementation that was having problems.
Not sure if it was the same thing I ran into, but I put the remote control into hide mode and then put the video into desktop mode and from there it wasn't clear how I could undo stuff (clicking around does nothing). Well it took me a while to figure out that the program places itself into your taskbar and double-clicking the task-bar icon would bring back the control panel (right-clicking the taskbar icons would reveal a set of options).

Once you go to a lower resolution, you can't go back easily without exiting the player.
I haven't played with the resolutions yet... I have resized to 50%, 100%, 200%, and of course fullscreen, but never worked with the resolution options... I had assumed that specifying a resolution changed the actual video playback resolution, but it sounds like you're saying that it actually changes your screen resolution? I'll try that out.

[Tom W.M.]

The movie player in BeOS plays (older) Quicktime videos. I suppose that could have been licenced, but I kinda doubt it, since Be was such a small company. (On the other hand, for a "Media OS," Quicktime might have been very usefull at the time...)
Anyway, it's a shame that only Quicktime seems to be able to play QT format movies. It's such a barebones player.

[david_brandt]

I used to use BSPlayer but then one day i came across a player called Zoom Player (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml). It seems much more complete and have similar cool features... one of the things i really like about it is that you can access most menus from the mouse through on-screen display... Handy when watching a divx movie from the couch :D

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I used to use BSPlayer but then one day i came across a player called Zoom Player (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml). It seems much more complete and have similar cool features... one of the things i really like about it is that you can access most menus from the mouse through on-screen display... Handy when watching a divx movie from the couch :D
I'll have to try Zoom player when I get the chance. Upon looking at the screenshots, one thing I really like about BSPlayer is it's it's "no-frills" border around the video window... makes it much easier to keep the "always on top" feature enabled while doing other tasks. BTW, when did you last use BSPlayer. The reason being that my boss (who's quite the techie himself) said that he used BSPlayer a while back but didn't recognize many of the features that I was showing him... he decided to redownload it.