MPlayer2 Is Still Alive & Kicking

Back in March I reported on the MPlayer2 fork of the popular MPlayer multi-media application. MPlayer2 came as a result of one of the MPlayer developers being denounced from the group and from there the developer and others took to implementing their own desired features and functionality from a fork of the open-source code-base. But how's the MPlayer2 project now doing?

The MPlayer2 project is still alive and kicking, as I was reminded yesterday via Twitter. The MPlayer2 Git repository is still being actively developed. Additionally, its comparison page now boasts several more features that it has over upstream MPlayer:

- Greater NVIDIA VDPAU support
- Better pause handling
- Better Matroska support
- Easy-to-use multi-threading with ffmpeg-mt being used by default
- Support for precise seeks
- Support for gettext-based translations
- No dependence on embedded FFmpeg tree or internal FFmpeg symbols
- Improved audio/video sync handling
- OSS4 volume control support
- Support for gapless playback of audio files
- Better responsiveness

Of particular interest to Phoronix readers is likely the better Matroska support, multi-threading, and the improved Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix support. The improved VDPAU in MPlayer2 is said to deliver better performance, removal of certain limitations, support for frame-timing functionality, and other minor improvements.

The MPlayer2 project also has completely dropped the Mencoder application over poor quality code and other issues.

More information on this open-source project can be found at MPlayer2.org.