SMPlayer Review – An Almost Perfect Media Player and YouTube Downloader

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Play all media formats
  • (4 more, see all...)

SMPlayer is probably one of the most used media players on the Linux platform, despite the fact that it's actually a multiplatform application. Everyone knows about this app and its reputation is well deserved. We now take a closer look at SMPlayer to see if it's really that good.

SMPlayer has been around for many years. In fact, it was first released back in 2006 and that was eight years ago. Like many other applications of this type on the Linux platform, it's actually a front-end MPlayer. You might wonder why not use MPlayer directly and stop messing with something that looks like an intermediary. The answer is very simple. It's not just a simple GUI that makes use of the already-present functions, it adds a lot of other features on top of that.

This is the kind of app you install because you know it plays everything and that you don't need to do anything else. Depending on the distribution, it's quite easy to install and to use, so it's no wonder that it's a top choice. It's not included by default in too many distros, and that's a real shame, but it's the kind of app that is usually among the first ones users get after a fresh install.

Installation

I said earlier that installing the latest version of SMPlayer differs from one distro to another. Some users might need to compile it, others to add a new repository, and others will just find the latest one in the official repos. I tested the SMPlayer in Ubuntu and the latest version in the official repos is quite old. That means users need to add a third-party repository that holds the latest version. This is done very easily from the terminal. Just enter these commands (you will need to be root):

code
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install smplayer smplayer-themes smplayer-skins
After the installation has been completed, you will find the application by searching inside Unity's dash. As you might expect, the developers also provide the source package for SMPlayer, so you're free to compile it. Keep in mind that it does have quite a few dependencies.

Usage

SMPlayer is first and foremost a media player, so the main thing it does is to play videos. This part is pretty obvious and there is no reason to dwell upon it. The extra features are the ones that make it really interesting. There is one thing we need to specify. A while ago, the developers of SMPlayer made a drastic change regarding the version number and switched from 0.8.6 to 14.3.0. They also made a series of improvements along with the leap.

The main interface comes with a few buttons that provide access to some of the more important features. Many players today go for the minimalist look, with just a few commands for the player itself, but SMPlayer is still pretty old school. On the top bar, users will see that they have buttons to play directly from a URL, to take a screenshot, to view all the details conceivable for the media file that's playing, to look for subtitles, and to open the rest of the options.

The player also comes with a niftier equalizer, which is always a nice feature to have, various filters and effects (crop, rotate, mirror), and pretty much everything that you would expect to get.

Now, there is also a second application that comes with SMPlayer, called SMPlayer YouTube Browser. This can be used to play videos from YouTube directly into the player and you can even download them locally, with just a click of a button.


The Good

SMPlayer comes with a lot of interesting features, although I do have to say that I was surprised with the quality of the SMPlayer YouTube Browser, which is quite handy, fast, and efficient. Also, looking for subtitles proved to be much more efficient than I anticipated.

The Bad

It's difficult to find something wrong with it and it's a very good application. The only problem I had with it was a crash for the first video I played with it, but that could have happened for a number of reasons, like improper rendering, issues with my system. It wasn't reproducible and it never happened since.

Conclusion

All in all, users will have a difficult time finding something better than SMPlayer. It may be a little old school for today's "kids," but it's very stable, efficient, and it's still the go-to solution when you're not happy with the default application in your distro.

user interface 5
features 5
ease of use 5
pricing / value 5


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 

SMPlayer (10 Images)

SMPlayer in action
SMPlayer file infoSMPlayer with equalizerSMPlayer find subtitlesSMPlayer options
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