Download latest version: FFPlayer.v0.97.zip (Setup, 1.097kb)
FF Player is a small, leight-weight, fast and easy-to-use media player. It offers all basic functionality one could need and adds quite advanced features, all within a simple user interface. The advances integration with Windows Explorer makes it easy to work with it. The new Directory Mode is ideal if you want to play back whole series or music videos: Just start one file, FF Player will automatically resume playing back the current directory!
FF Player uses DirectShow so you will need to install codecs for
the media you want to play back.
If you experience any problems or have feature suggestions please send me a
mail! I can only
solve the problems that I know! :-)
Normal playback window (with Playlist)
Different visual styles...
Context menu (currently, english (default/fallback) and german language are used, depending on system language)
Fullscreen mode: Playlist and control bar fade in from the sides to allow full control while staying in fullscreen mode.
FF Player is optimized for fast switching between video files by partly pre-loading the next file before switching. Due to the design of FF Player, the startup and shutdown times are very low, once the .Net Framework is initialized.
FF Player features advanced explorer integration. You can select multiple files and open them all directly (by pressing return for example). In comparison to most other players this will happen extremely fast if the player is already running and you won't have the player started multiple times simultanously. You can right-click selected media files and/or folders in Windows Explorer and choose from options like "Play with FF Player", "Add to playlist", "Play as next" (which will insert them directly under the currently playing item).
As windows explorer has the strange behaviour to often pass files out-of-order, FF Player sorts files and folders before adding and playing them. FF Player uses intuitive file sorting, so file "File 10.avi" will come after "File 9.avi", not between "File 1.avi" and "File 2.avi".
If the new Directory Mode is enabled and only a single file is opened, the player will resume with the next file from the current directory on file end. Also, if pressing the previous/next buttons, the previous/next file from the directory is played. This is pretty handy for all those lazy people like me who just like to double-click a single file. ;)
FF Player supports drag+drop of files and folders. Dragging them on the video image will replace the current playlist and instantly play the dropped files, while by dropping them into the playlist you can insert them in the at a specific location. Pressing Ctrl key causes a forces "add to playlist" while Shift key forces instant playback with replaced playlist.
FF Player supports "Media Keys" of almost all keyboards (and laptops). You can start/stop/pause playback and skip between playlist items just by pressing one key. You can also use FoxyTunes plugin for FireFox to control FF Player from Firefox. There are configureable keyboard shortcuts for almost all relevant functions.
The video image can be easily adjusted: You can dynamically change the aspect ratio of the image and as well compensate overscan (reduce black bars of the image). Use Ctrl key + arrows to adjust the image. When going to fullscreen, the image will by default be set to fill the entire screen, so you won't get a centered image with black bars left+right for example when playing a 4:3 video on a widescreen display. You can lock the AspectRatio and Overscan settings when playing multiple files of a series for example.
The VMR7 Overlay renderer sometimes forces the aspect ratio with some video codecs, try using VMR9 or VMR7 Windowed if you experience problems.
Overlay Renderer:
Compatibility renderer, fastest on old systems. Allows using "Theater Mode / Video Mirror" on ATI Cards (NVidia Cards allow "Theater Mode" with all renderers). Overlay Renderer can, depending on the video codec used, disable/override the image adjustments offered by FF Player.
VMR7 Renderer:
DirectX 7 based video renderer. Uses DirectDraw 7 Surfaces to draw video images with hardware acceleration.
VMR9 Renderer (recommended):
DirectX 9 based video renderer. Offers advanced hardware acceleration through DirectX 9. Best when using hardware accelerated video decoders. Some video codecs require the VMR9 Renderer for full hardware acceleration (for example the NVidia PureVideo Codec offers advanced deinterlacing when using VMR9).
Windows Vista Enhanced Video Renderer (recommended on Vista systems):
This new video renderer comes with Windows Vista and buffers several video images to allow for a smoother playback. Old renderers have to wait for "Vertical Blank" (time the next video image is to be shown on your display), so if a video frame comes just after a VBlank, it is delayed until next VBlank. The new EVR has several images in cache, allowing it to better sync to the display's refresh rate. It is highly recommended to use the EVR Renderer on a Vista system!
YUV Rendering:
FF Player can use the YUV colourspace instead of RGB. YUV is the native colour format of almost all video codecs as it uses less memory bandwidth. Enabling this option causes the video data to be transferred directly in YUV from the decoder to the renderer which typically saves about 30% memory bandwidth. The renderer can usually display YUV data hardware accelerated by using the graphics card. This again saves memory bandwidth as the conversion to RGB (native format of all displays) is done by the gfx card in graphics memory.
This can dramatically increase smoothness of some videos, especially for high-res HDTV video files, depending on codec, renderer and gfx card used.
Note: Some video decoders must be configured to properly output YUV data, or the image colours will be distorted. If you experience distorted video when using YUV, you can try to configure the video decoder used. Right-click the video image, and look for a video decoder in the "Filters" submenu (this menu lists all currently used, configurable filters/codecs).
- On the "Xvid" decoder set "Output Colourspace" to "No Force".
- On "ffdshow Video Decoder" go to "Output" tab and enable all "Packed YUV" formats.
All these features are do-able but some require a lot of work.
I don't know if and when I will find the time and motivation to work on them,
so no promises here! ;-)
If you have additional feature suggestions or found bugs, or if you desperately need one specific feature, please drop me a mail!
FF Player is free for any private use! If you like this piece of software then please consider donating for my work!
If you want to use FF Player commercially or distribute it in any commercial form (magazine disk, etc) then my authorization is required. Use FF Player at your own risk, I cannot be held responsible for any damage resulting from the use of this software.
FF Player makes use of the DirectShowNet library which is released under the terms of the GNU LGPL and ships with an official build. The source code can be obtained from their project website.
================================== v0.97 =======================================
- added: change the windowed and fullscreen video sizing strategy in the preferences
(was a hidden registy setting before)
- added: PauseWhileSeeking in preferences: pauses the playback while seeking
on the progress bar until the mouse button is released
- added: tooltip help for most preference settings
- changed: resizing with mousewheel now has finer steps (1/8 of video size)
- changed: DirectoryMode now respects Repeat Playlist setting
- changed: registry locations and file type registration is now Vista UAC compatible
- fixed: DirectoryMode sometimes stopped on unplayable files
- fixed: files from non-writeable drives (cd/dvd) could not be dragged into
the video window
- fixed: resizing on pure audio files sometimes behaved strange
- fixed: mouse click in fullscreen mode did not toggle pause since v0.96
================================== v0.96 =======================================
- added: Directory Mode: resumes playing directory if only one file is in playlist
- added: Auto Toggle Playlist - Hides playlist if only one file is opened, shows
it if multiple opened
- added: support for selecting streams through IAMStreamSelect interface (Haali
splitter supports it)
- changed: the audio/video/subtitle stream selection menus are hidden if there
are no such streams
- changed: if video window is clicked while in background, the video is not
paused anymore
- changed: left click on tray icon now toggles window state
- changed: window title and taskbar now shows only the file name during playback
- changed: open file dialog now uses registered file extensions for filtering,
instead of defaults and has an "All Files" option
- changed: if the selected video renderer cannot be instanciated, the system
default renderer is used instead (some video drivers seem to corrupt the VMR9)
- fixed: some possible 64bit issues (cannot verify on my 32bit machine)
- fixed: reduced flickering during resize with Enhanced Video Renderer
================================== v0.95 =======================================
- added: Enhanced Video Renderer (Vista only, smoother playback of video files!!)
- changed: behaviour of tray icon
- changed: mousewheel behaviour if mouse cursor is in listview
- changed: "play previous" button: seeks to beginning of current file
if position > 5sec, else plays previous file
- changed: playlist fade in behaviour in fullscreen mode
- fixed: mouse cursor sometimes disappeared in fullscreen mode on seek bar
- fixed: installer should remove old entrys in windows programs list for all
future versions
================================== v0.94 =======================================
- added: Windows Vista compatibility fixes and Vista file type registration
- added: disabled energy saving during fullscreen playback
- bunch of internal changes
================================== v0.93 =======================================
- fixed: error message on startup
================================== v0.92 =======================================
- fixed: explorer integration was broken in last release
- changed: progress bar drawing optimized
- changed: aspect ratio detection tweaked
================================== v0.91 =======================================
- fixed: wrong aspect ratio was detected on some video codecs
- added: 3gp video to default video files
- some minor changes
================================== v0.9a =======================================
- fixed: installation path was set wrong sometimes
================================== v0.90 =======================================
- initial release
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© 2006, Lukas Fellechner