Best media players for wmv, keyboard shortcuts, and transparency?

October 17, 2007 2:20 PM

What media players have decent keyboard shortcuts, don't mess up wmv files when fast-forwarding, and can be set as transparent?

I'm going through a lot of different video files on my hard drive, trying to clean up. Some of them are old home videos or projects which are inexplicably saved as wmv files. I'd like to figure out which ones are worth keeping by playing through them, but when I fast forward using alt+rt arrow in VLC, the video frame freezes or becomes distorted and it takes a few moments to return to normal. This means I could be missing something and I have to take the time to watch the clip all the way through.

I'd also like to be able to play my videos in a transparent mode so I could check email and complete other tasks while watching downloaded tv shows.

Can anyone suggest a media player that can play wmv files correctly while fast-forwarding and transparently display movies, but that also has the quick fast-forwarding shortcuts of VLC?

posted by abkadefgee to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Give GOM Player a try (www.gomplayer.com). Robust, has a nice set of in-built codecs, and relatively convenient keyboard shortcuts (spacebar=play/pause, esc=stop, enter=fullscreen). Also 3 levels of time-jump with customisable time intervals (Ctrl+arrow, Alt+arrow, arrow only). No transparency though.
posted by kureshii at 3:54 PM on October 17, 2007

There's also Zoom Player, which does keyboard (and mouse) shortcuts. I've found it's much smoother than VLC when jumping around in a video. I don't think it does transparency, but it does have a minimal mode which is just the video with no interface around it, which I often leave in the corner of my screen with "Always On Top" enabled while I do other stuff.

The standard version is free and will play WMVs. The Pro version adds DVD playback, and the WMV Pro version adds the ability to play DRM'd WMV files. I've been using the standard version for quite awhile.
posted by good in a vacuum at 4:07 PM on October 17, 2007

Well, i downloaded GOM since it appeared to be freeware and it seems to work quite well. I've loved VLC and I may keep it as my primary player, but so far it works much better for wmv's. Thanks for the tips, guys!
posted by abkadefgee at 6:58 PM on October 17, 2007

Try SMPlayer. It's got a lot of built in codecs.

I can't say if the shortcuts in this one is good or not (just discovered the software myself yesterday), but I guess they are quite like the ones described by kureshii.
posted by evercool at 2:16 AM on October 19, 2007