Playing the Game

As far as video players go, I'm a big fan of VLC. It seems as though VLC's simplicity is the gold standard for players, and its sensible keyboard shortcuts are embedded deep within my muscle memory.

That's why I initially regarded SPlayer with as a poor pretender. I mean, I don't know this player. I've never heard of it before, and still, it claims to be "Neat! Safe! High Performance!" and boasts "1+ million users."

Small parts of the program's UI are actually in Chinese. But most of the interface is in English, and the player is surprisingly powerful. You can rotate and skew the video while it is playing, and it just keeps on playing with no noticeable stutter. Granted, that's a bit of a party trick, but it goes to show how powerful this thing is.

The key bindings are customizable, and there are a ton of functions available via keyboard shortcuts. There's a strip of controls both at the bottom and at the top of the window, and they're quite fetching.