UMPLAYER REVIEW

Overview

UMPlayer is a cross platform multimedia player that is in fact a short addition to players using MPlayer as the core. The ability to play any kind of media file, address the needs of both tech-savvy and novice users and integration of Youtube and Shoutcast, makes the player worth checking out!

Installation

As the player is available for multiple platforms (portable version may be little hard to find), select the one for your O.S. The basic installer is just 13MB and takes around 38MB of hard disk space. If you’re using it as the only player on your system, you can continue the setup with default settings, else you might want to opt out of associating files with UMPlayer, because once associated it might be hard for another player to take over, hence I use the portable.

Interface

The GUI is based on SM Player and has an esthetically pleasing, simple and intuitive user interface. The menu based interface has a seekbar in the lower bottom with time elapsed/remaining on both sides (for some video’s the time seems to be incorrect) with repeat, shuffle and playing file information. Buttons for pause/play/stop and previous/next and increase/decrease framerate is present at the left. We have the volume slider, equalizer (buggy at the moment), playlist and full screen toggle towards the right. The full screen videos are just perfect and adorable. I just love the modern skin :-)

Features

Universal

UMPlayer includes a long array of more than 270 codecs, which means playing any kind of media file is just child’s play (double-click & play). Using MPlayer as its back-end engine, it plays anything right out of the box, no worries! Universal as it sounds right :-) You don’t have to think of installing additional codecs and this includes playing CD’s, DVD’s, streaming video and audio. It never lets you down.

Cross Platform/Reads Damaged Files

Written under Nokia’s QT platform, its available for a variety of platforms (Win,MacOS/X.GNU/Linux). It has the capability of playing damaged media files or scratched CD/DVD’s.

Youtube and Shoutcast support from its box

There’s a small search box to the top right of the window. Unlike other media players, UMPlayer has unique Youtube and Shoutcast integration in its box for streaming various video and radio stations. Search from this form and a separate window pop’s up showing results filtered by Most Relevant, Most Recent and Most Viewed. You can record the video by right click (or red button on main interface) and save it to your computer. Shoutcast shows results for the top 500 radio stations for that day filtered by the number of listeners. I personally love the Shoutcast service and it works flawlessly with excellent sound quality. 

Subtitles

One interesting feature of UMPlayer is that it fetches subtitles in different languages for the movie file you’re playing from the popular site ‘OpenSubtitles.org’ . It features shadowed anti-aliased subtitles and you can change it’s font’s and scripts to your preference.

Skins and themes

The default interface is fancy enough but that can be beautified because of its skinnable interface to suit your mood. It supports CSS skins so theming is not that difficult. ‘Get More Skins’ provides you with more skins uploaded by the community.

Wait, there’s still more:

Visualize motion vectors, audio-video-subtitle delay adjustments and equalizers , video thumbnail and running video screenshot maker, play online TV and radio stations (no preloaded stations :-( ),customizable hotkeys, record playing files, video preview and advanced caching and cpu optimizations for HD media playback and the feature list goes on like that. You can find plenty of settings to tweak and adjust in its preferences window.

Pros

• Very light on resources and sleek interface
• Plays any kind of media file, supports over 270 codecs
• Automatic subtitle download from opensubtitles.org
• Built-in search for YouTube and Shoutcast
• Record files and reads damaged files
• Plays online TV and Radio
   

Cons

• Problems with HD media playback (.h264 mkv files)
• Online TV and radio station lists are empty
• Help file needs improvement
• Quite a few bugs setting equalizer and certain menu's pauses video for a moment. files with asian characters doesn't play 
• Takes a strong hold of your media files and other players cant get it
• Time incorrect sometimes
   

Verdict

Other than a few bugs(read cons), UMPlayer has lot to offer, has a great potential and is a universal choice as far as media playback is concerned.

Installation:

Interface:

Features:

Usability:

Support and Update:

UM media player scores 3.5/5on Gizmo's reviews for Best Free Media Player . The player isn't as bad as its rating sounds, quite a number of bugs and a few rendering problems is just the negative factor here. Hope version 1 fixes them all! 

Download UM Player now

****Version Reviewed 0.97