Media Player

#What it is

The Media Player (app id player) is Octoolo's player for videos and songs, like VLC or Windows Media Player. It plays almost any video or sound file from the PC: MKV, AVI, MP4, MOV, WMV, FLV, MPEG, VOB, TS/M2TS, WebM, MP3, FLAC, M4A, WAV, WMA, OGG, Opus, APE and many more, with subtitles, sound tracks, chapters and a playlist. Videos play on a dark screen whose controls fade while you watch; songs get a calm view with their cover, title, artist and album.

Everything plays on the PC: nothing is uploaded. Files the PC can play itself play as they are; everything else is made playable while it plays by FFmpeg, a video engine Octoolo downloads once (see "Downloads it needs" below).

#Opening it and what it costs

• On the home screen the Media Player is in the Every day group. The home search finds it by words like "vlc", "video player", "music player", "mkv", "subtitles" or "codecs".
• It has two tasks, which open the same player: video-player (start screen "Play any video or song") and music-player (start screen "Play your music").
• Addresses inside Octoolo: #/app/player, #/app/player/video-player, #/app/player/music-player. A shortcut can open it with Octoolo.exe --open=app/player.
• It needs Octoolo Cloud (the subscription) or its free trial. Prices, the trial and the three free apps are in Prices and limits.
• Octoolo does not register itself as a video or music player in Windows: videos and songs do not open in Octoolo with a double-click in File Explorer, and Octoolo is not offered as a default player. Picking Octoolo.exe by hand in Windows' "Open with" only brings up Octoolo's window; the file does not play. Open files from inside the Media Player (see the next sections).

#Tasks

• Video player (video-player): play MKV, AVI, MP4 and almost any video, with subtitles. Open the Media Player, then Open files (or Open a folder), or drag files onto the window.
• Music player (music-player): play MP3, FLAC and any other sound file, in a playlist. The same player; the start screen says "Play your music" and a song shows its cover, title, artist and album.

Both tasks work in version 0.8.0. The Media Player has no tasks marked Coming.

#How to play a video or a song

1. Open the Media Player from the home screen.
2. The first time, if FFmpeg is not on the PC yet, press Download FFmpeg and wait for it (about 77 MB, once). See "Downloads it needs".
3. Press Open files (or press Ctrl+O) and pick one or more files in Windows' "Open videos and songs" dialog. Or drag files or a whole folder anywhere onto the window ("Drop to play").
4. The first new file starts playing. Use the bar at the bottom: Play/Pause, Previous, Next, Back 10 seconds, Forward 10 seconds, the volume, the seek bar, and on the right Subtitles, Sound track, Speed, Chapters, repeat, shuffle, More, the playlist button and Full screen.

In the Media Player, clicking the video plays or pauses it, and double-clicking it switches full screen on or off. The controls fade about 2.6 seconds after the mouse stops moving while a video plays (not while a menu is open or the pointer is on the controls); moving the mouse brings them back.

The Open menu in the title bar has Open files… (Ctrl O), Open a folder…, Add to the playlist…, Add subtitles… (while a video plays) and the Recent files.

#How to play a folder or a playlist file

• A folder: in the Media Player press Open a folder (or Open > Open a folder…), choose it in the "Play a folder" dialog, or drop the folder on the window. The player takes the videos and songs in it and in its subfolders, four levels down, in name order, up to 5,000 files. Only files with known video or sound extensions are taken from a folder.
• A playlist file: open an M3U, M3U8 or PLS file like any other file. The Media Player plays the files it lists that are on the PC (paths relative to the playlist's folder work too). Entries written as links (http://, https://, and also file:/// links to files on the PC) are skipped, as are files that are missing and non-media files. Up to 5,000 files.
• If nothing playable is found, the Media Player says "There are no videos or songs in what you opened."

Opening files never empties the playlist: new files are added at the end and the first of them starts. Add to the playlist… adds files without interrupting what plays, and says "<name> is in the playlist." or "<N> files are in the playlist."

#The playlist

In the Media Player the playlist panel shows on the right by itself when it holds more than one file. The playlist button in the control bar (Show the playlist / Hide the playlist) shows or hides it, and the player remembers that choice. The panel is hidden in full screen.

• The header shows how many files and their total length ("at least" while lengths are still being read).
• Click a row to play it. Drag rows to change the order. The × on a row removes it.
• + (Add files) adds files; the bin button (Empty the playlist) stops playback and empties it; × (Hide the playlist) hides the panel.
• A file that cannot be read shows why under its name.
• With an empty playlist the panel says "Drop videos, songs or folders here, or press +."

The playlist itself is not saved: it is empty again after leaving the Media Player or closing Octoolo. The Media Player cannot save a playlist as an M3U or PLS file. What it does keep is the list of recent files and where each was left (see "Carrying on where you stopped").

#Which files play, and how

The Media Player plays a file in one of two ways. About this file (in More) shows which, in its "How it plays" row, and the title bar shows it too.

Plays as it is: the PC's own web engine (Microsoft Edge WebView2) plays these directly:

• MP4, M4V, MOV, M4A and M4B with H.264 (8-bit), HEVC (when the PC can decode it), AV1 or VP9 pictures, and AAC, MP3, Opus, FLAC or Dolby Digital (AC-3, E-AC-3, when the PC can play them) sound;
• WebM and WEBA with VP8, VP9 or AV1 and Opus or Vorbis;
• OGG, OGA and OPUS sound files (Vorbis, Opus, FLAC);
• MP3, FLAC, AAC and WAV (8, 16, 24 or 32-bit PCM, or 32-bit float).

Live, through FFmpeg: everything else, such as MKV, AVI, WMV, ASF, FLV, MPEG, VOB, TS, M2TS, MTS, 3GP, OGV, MXF, RM/RMVB, DivX/Xvid, DV and animated GIF videos, and WMA, APE, WavPack, ALAC, TTA, AIFF, AMR, AC3, DTS, MP2, CAF and other sound files. FFmpeg reads the file and hands the player a playable stream as it plays. Nothing is written to disk. The title bar says which kind:

• "Repackaged as it plays, nothing re-encoded": the picture and sound are copied as they are (an MKV with H.264 and AAC, for example). No quality is lost and little power is used.
• "Repackaged as it plays, the sound made playable": the picture is copied, the sound converted to AAC.
• "Made playable as it plays (AAC)" or "Made playable as it plays (lossless)": a song converted to AAC, or to FLAC when the original sound is lossless (ALAC, APE, WavPack, TTA, PCM...).
• "Made playable as it plays: H.264 on the NVIDIA graphics card" (or "AMD graphics card", "Intel graphics", "Windows' encoder", "processor"): the picture is converted to H.264 while it plays.

When the picture is converted:

• Octoolo uses the graphics card's video encoder when there is one that works (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel), else Windows' encoder or the processor.
• On a graphics card it keeps up to 4K (2160 lines). With Windows' encoder or the processor the picture is made at most 1080 lines tall, so a 4K video plays at 1080p.
• Interlaced TV recordings are deinterlaced.
• Converting while playing uses more processor or graphics power than playing as it is.

Sound that is converted becomes AAC (192 kbit/s, or 256 kbit/s for surround sources), or FLAC for a lossless song, and is mixed down to stereo; surround sound that the player can copy as it is (for example AAC or Dolby Digital that the PC plays) stays as it is.

If copying does not work for a file (a file without proper timestamps, or a picture that never arrives), the Media Player switches to converting it by itself. Likewise, a file that should play as it is but that the web engine then refuses is played live through FFmpeg instead. A seek to a place that is not loaded yet starts FFmpeg again at that place, with a short spinner.

Other files: in the "Open videos and songs" dialog, Every file shows files of any extension; the Media Player tries any file FFmpeg can read. A still picture is refused ("This is a picture, not a video or a song.").

#HEVC (H.265) and other demanding videos

In the Media Player, whether an HEVC (H.265, x265) video plays as it is depends on the PC: Windows and the graphics hardware must be able to decode HEVC. When they can, an HEVC MP4 or MOV plays as it is, and an HEVC MKV is only repackaged. When they cannot, the Media Player still plays it: it converts the picture to H.264 while it plays (title bar: "Made playable as it plays: H.264 on the ..."), which needs a reasonably fast PC for 4K. The graphics card is also used to decode the video while converting, when it can.

The same live conversion is used for 10-bit H.264 ("Hi10P"), 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 video, ProRes, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX, Xvid), Windows Media Video, VC-1 and other formats the PC cannot play itself.

#Subtitles

The Media Player shows subtitles over videos (not over songs). Open the Subtitles menu (the button in the control bar, or press C to switch them on and off).

Where subtitles come from:

• Files beside the video load by themselves: Film.srt, Film.en.srt, Film - English.ass and any subtitle file in a Subs, Subtitles or Sub folder beside the video (also Subs\Film\*.srt). A file named exactly like the video is chosen first. Up to 40 are listed, marked "A file beside the video", with the language spelled out when the name has a language code.
• The video's own text subtitles (for example in MKV and MP4 files: SRT, ASS/SSA, WebVTT, MP4 text) are listed as "In the video (...)". A forced or default track is switched on by itself when there is no file beside the video.
• Add subtitles… (in the Subtitles menu, or Open > Add subtitles…) adds an .srt, .vtt, .ass or .ssa file from anywhere; it is marked "Added". A subtitle file dropped together with the video, or dropped while a video plays, goes with that video too (in the "Open videos and songs" dialog subtitle files show only with the Every file filter).

Formats: SRT, WebVTT, ASS and SSA. Italic, bold and underline are kept; fonts, colors, positions, karaoke effects and ASS drawings are left out. Subtitle files may be UTF-8, UTF-16 (with a byte order mark) or, failing those, Windows' Western code page (Windows-1252).

Picture subtitles (DVD, Blu-ray PGS, DVB, teletext) are listed but greyed out ("...: pictures, not shown yet"); the Media Player cannot show them.

Adjusting them, in the Subtitles menu:

• Size: Small, Medium, Large, Huge.
• Place: Bottom, Higher, Middle.
• Dark box behind the words: on or off.
• Timing: Earlier and Later move the subtitles by 0.25 seconds per press; the value shows "In time" or, for example, "+0.75 s". Timing goes back to "In time" when another subtitle choice or another file is picked.

Size, place and the dark box are remembered for next time.

#Sound tracks, chapters and speed

• Sound track: when a file has more than one sound track (languages, commentary), the Sound track button appears in the Media Player's control bar. Each track shows its name or language and details (for example "Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3), 5.1, 48 kHz"). The default track plays first. Choosing another one carries on from the same place; a track other than the file's first is always played live through FFmpeg.
• Chapters: when a file has more than one chapter, the Chapters button lists them with their start times; chapter marks show on the seek bar, the chapter's name shows beside the time, and hovering the seek bar shows the chapter there.
• Speed: the Speed button offers 0.25×, 0.5×, 0.75×, Normal, 1.25×, 1.5×, 1.75×, 2×, 3× and 4×; [ and ] step slower and faster. The pitch is kept, so voices do not sound higher or lower. The speed stays when you go to another file yourself (Next, Previous, N, P or a click in the playlist) while the Media Player is open, but a file that starts by itself when the one before ends plays at Normal again. The speed also starts at Normal the next time the Media Player opens.

#Volume up to 200%

The Media Player's volume slider goes from 0 to 200%, with a mark at 100% (the slider pulls slightly towards 100%). The mouse wheel over the slider and the ↑ and ↓ keys change it in 5% steps. Above 100% the sound is boosted inside Octoolo. M or the speaker button (Mute / Sound on) mutes and unmutes; changing the volume also unmutes. The volume level is remembered for next time; muting is not.

#Repeat, shuffle and repeating a part (A-B)

• Repeat (the loop button) cycles through Repeat: off, Repeat: the playlist (starts again at the first file after the last) and Repeat: this file.
• Shuffle (Shuffle: on / Shuffle: off) plays the playlist in random order, each file once; at the end it stops, unless Repeat: the playlist is on.
• Repeat a part (A-B): in More, choose Repeat a part: mark A where the part starts, then Repeat a part: mark B here where it ends. The part between A and B (shown on the seek bar) repeats until Stop repeating the part. B must be after A; choosing B at or before A (or within a fifth of a second after it) clears both marks. The marks are cleared when another file plays.

Repeat and shuffle are remembered for next time.

#Saving a frame as a picture

While a video plays or is paused in the Media Player, More > Save this frame as a picture (or the S key) saves the frame shown as a PNG at the video's full size, through a Save dialog. The suggested name is the video's name and the time, for example "Holiday at 1-02-05.png". The player says "Picture saved." Subtitles are not part of the picture. For songs the menu item is not there and S does nothing. "There is no picture to save." means the video's picture has not arrived yet (it is still loading); try again once it shows.

#Full screen, keep on top and picture in picture

• Full screen: the Full screen button, the F key or a double-click on the video makes Octoolo's window fill the screen; Leave full screen, F, Esc or another double-click goes back. Full screen is for videos only.
• Keep the window on top: in More, keeps Octoolo's window above other windows. It turns itself off when you leave the Media Player.
• Picture in picture: in More, for videos, when WebView2 allows it: the video plays in a small floating window. Choose it again to bring the video back.

#Carrying on where you stopped, and recent files

The Media Player remembers where each file was left:

• The place is saved every 10 seconds while playing, when pausing, when switching files and when leaving the player.
• Opening the file again starts it from the beginning and offers "You stopped at 12:34." with Continue from 12:34, which jumps to that place. The × ("Start from the beginning") or waiting 15 seconds closes the offer, and the file carries on from the beginning.
• It is offered only for files longer than 2 minutes, when the place is more than 15 seconds in and more than 20 seconds before the end. A file watched to the end (or to its last 20 seconds), or shorter than 2 minutes, starts from the beginning.

Recent files show on the start screen (Recent, up to 10, with how far each was watched, for example "12:34 of 1:32:10") and in Open > Recent (up to 8, "Left at 12:34"). Only files that are still on the PC are listed. Clear the list forgets them all; the × on a row ("Forget it") forgets one. Octoolo keeps up to 500 places.

#About this file

In the Media Player, More > About this file shows the file's name, folder, size, kind (container), length, the picture (codec, size, frames a second, bit depth, interlaced), each sound track, the subtitle tracks and subtitle files, the number of chapters, the tags (artist, album, year, genre), the bit rate and "How it plays". This is the place to look when support asks what kind of file it is.

#Windows' media keys and media overlay

The Media Player works with the keyboard's media keys and Windows' media overlay (the one that appears with the volume keys): play, pause, next and previous, and seeking. The overlay shows the title of what plays and, for songs, the artist, the album and the cover.

#Options and settings

There are no Settings switches for the Media Player. It remembers by itself, for next time: the volume, repeat, shuffle, the subtitle size, place and dark box, and whether the playlist is shown. It does not remember the speed, muting, the subtitle timing or the playlist itself.

#Keyboard shortcuts

These keys work in the Media Player (they combine VLC's and YouTube's). They do nothing while typing in a box or while a dialog is open, and apart from Ctrl+O and Esc they work only while a file is open. Letters work with or without Shift; other keys held with Ctrl or Alt do nothing. More > Keyboard shortcuts shows the main ones.

#Where it keeps things

• Recent files and where each was left: %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.octoolo.app\player\places.json (up to 500 files).
• The player's choices (volume, repeat, shuffle, subtitle size, place and box, playlist shown): in the storage of Octoolo's window (WebView2), %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.octoolo.app\EBWebView.
• FFmpeg: %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.octoolo.app\engines\ffmpeg.
• Apart from the place saved in places.json, nothing is written while playing: live playback goes through memory only, with no temporary video files. The Media Player never changes the files it plays.
• Uninstalling Octoolo keeps %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.octoolo.app unless "Delete the application data" is ticked in the uninstaller.

#Downloads it needs

The Media Player needs FFmpeg, even for files that play as they are (it reads every file's streams, chapters and tags with it). Until FFmpeg is on the PC, the Media Player shows "The Media Player needs FFmpeg": "A free, one-time download of 77 MB. It is checked against its fingerprint and kept on this computer for every tool that needs it." Press Download FFmpeg; a progress bar and Cancel show while it downloads; after an error the button says Try again.

FFmpeg (version 8.1.3, an LGPL build) is shared with the Video Editor, the Audio Editor, the Converters and the screen recorder: it downloads once for all of them. It is listed in Settings > Downloaded parts, where it can also be downloaded but cannot be removed. More about the parts Octoolo downloads: Downloads on first use.

#Privacy

Nothing the Media Player plays leaves the PC: files are read where they are, and playback (including the live conversion) happens on the PC. The only download is FFmpeg, once. The player reads only files the person opened or dropped (and the files in folders and playlists they opened), and the subtitle files and cover pictures beside them. Octoolo's usage statistics (when on) count that the app was opened and for how long, that a frame was saved as a picture, and error messages cut before any file name or path; never file names (see Privacy and data).

#Troubleshooting

#The Media Player only shows "The Media Player needs FFmpeg"

The Media Player cannot open anything until FFmpeg is downloaded. Press Download FFmpeg and wait (77 MB). If the download stops with an error, check the internet connection and press Try again. Once FFmpeg is in, the player opens by itself ("Getting the player ready…").

#"<file> cannot play. It is damaged, or not a video or a song."

FFmpeg could not find video or sound it understands in the file: it is damaged, incomplete (a download that did not finish) or not a media file. Try another copy of the file. Variants of the same problem, each after "<file> cannot play.": "Octoolo cannot read it (...)." (FFmpeg's reason in brackets), "There is no picture or sound in it that Octoolo can play." and "Reading it took too long." (FFmpeg did not answer within 30 seconds; a file on a slow network drive or a sleeping external disk can cause it: copy the file to the PC and try again). "<path> is not there any more." means the file was moved, renamed or deleted, or its drive is not connected.

The same reason shows under the file's name in the playlist. When the playlist has more files, the message has a Play the next file button; a file reached by playing on from the one before is skipped by itself after a moment.

#"This is a picture, not a video or a song."

A photo or a single image was opened. The Media Player plays videos and sound only (animated GIFs play as videos). Open pictures in the Photo Editor instead.

#"There are no videos or songs in what you opened."

The folder or playlist had no files with a video or sound extension the player knows, or the playlist's entries are links (web addresses, or file:/// links such as some players write) or missing files; a playlist with plain file paths works. For a folder, check that the files are no more than four folders deep (a playlist file inside a folder is not read; open it on its own). For a single file with an unusual extension, open it with Open files and the Every file filter. The Media Player reads playlist files as UTF-8: an older M3U saved in another code page may not find files whose names have accents or non-Latin letters; save it again with the UTF-8 encoding (in Notepad: Save as, encoding UTF-8).

#The video stutters, or the PC gets loud or hot while playing

The title bar (or More > About this file, "How it plays") probably says "Made playable as it plays: H.264 on the processor" (or on Windows' encoder): the PC cannot decode this video's format itself, so it is converted while it plays, here without a graphics card encoder. This is normal for HEVC/4K files on PCs without HEVC support. Closing other heavy programs helps; the player already limits converted video to 1080p in this case. Converting the file once to MP4 with H.264 in the Converters (Converters) makes it play as it is afterwards.

#"This computer has no H.264 encoder that works."

The video needs converting while it plays, and none of the ways to make H.264 (graphics card, Windows' encoder, the processor through FFmpeg) worked on this PC. Files that play as they are (see "Which files play, and how") still play. Report it from Help and feedback with the file type and the Windows version.

#"This file's streams cannot play here (...)." or "It cannot play: ..." or "The video stopped: ..."

The web engine refused the stream the player built for this file. When a copied stream does not play, the Media Player first retries by itself, converting it instead of copying it; "It cannot play: ..." means that did not work either. "This file's streams cannot play here (...)." and "The video stopped: ..." come from the web engine directly. Try playing the file again from the playlist. If it fails again, report it from Help and feedback with the details from More > About this file.

#"FFmpeg stopped: ..." or "The file seems damaged, or is not a video or sound file."

FFmpeg stopped while reading the file. The rest of the message is FFmpeg's reason. A damaged or partly downloaded file is the usual cause; try another copy.

#"That playback has stopped."

The live playback of a file ended inside Octoolo before the player was done with it. Click the file in the playlist to start it again; for files longer than 2 minutes the player offers to continue from where it was.

#"Octoolo could not see where those files are." when dropping files

Octoolo did not get the dropped files' locations from Windows within 10 seconds. Drop them again, or use Open files instead.

#"Open the file in the player first."

Octoolo only reads files the person opened in it. This appears if a file is reached in another way (for example from an old list). Open the file with Open files or drop it on the window.

#The subtitles are out of sync

In the Media Player open Subtitles and press Earlier or Later (0.25 seconds per press) until the words match the speech. The timing is not saved: it resets for the next file. For subtitles that drift more and more, the subtitle file was made for another version of the video; find one that matches.

#The subtitles show strange characters

The subtitle file is in a code page other than UTF-8, UTF-16 or Windows-1252 (common for Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Turkish, Chinese or other subtitles). The Media Player reads a file that is not UTF-8 as Western European text. Open the .srt in Notepad, choose Save as with the encoding UTF-8, and add it again.

#"This video has no subtitles. Add a file with Add subtitles…"

The C key was pressed but the video has no subtitle files beside it and no text subtitles inside. Add a subtitle file with Subtitles > Add subtitles…. To be found by itself next time, the file must be named like the video (Film.srt or Film.en.srt beside Film.mkv), or be in a Subs, Subtitles or Sub folder beside it.

#"These subtitles are pictures, which the player cannot show yet."

The subtitle track is made of pictures (DVD, Blu-ray PGS, DVB or teletext subtitles, common in MKV files ripped from discs). The Media Player can only show text subtitles; in its Subtitles menu such tracks are greyed out ("...: pictures, not shown yet") and cannot be chosen. Use a text subtitle file (.srt, .ass, .vtt) instead.

#"Those subtitles have no lines Octoolo can show." or "<name> has no subtitle lines Octoolo can read."

The subtitle file or track is empty, or not really SRT, WebVTT, ASS or SSA (for example a MicroDVD .sub or a .idx/.sub pair, which the player does not read).

#"That subtitle file is too big." or "Reading the subtitles took too long."

A subtitle file beside the video (or one opened or dropped on the player) is over 20 MB, or reading the video's own subtitle track took more than 3 minutes. Such files are not real subtitles or are damaged; use another subtitle file.

#"Open the video first, then its subtitles."

A subtitle file was opened or dropped while nothing was playing. Open the video first, then add the subtitles.

#There is no sound, or the sound is too quiet

Check the Media Player's volume slider and the speaker button (M mutes), then Windows' own volume. The player's volume goes to 200% for quiet files. If only some files are silent, open More > About this file to see whether the file has a sound track, and check Sound track for another track.

#Picture in picture is missing from More

In the Media Player, Picture in picture appears in More only while a video (not a song) is open, and only when WebView2 allows picture in picture. Save this frame as a picture and Full screen are likewise for videos only.

#It does not continue where I stopped

The offer to continue appears only for files longer than 2 minutes, when they were left more than 15 seconds in and more than 20 seconds before the end. It closes after 15 seconds. A file that was moved or renamed counts as a new file.

#Limits and what it cannot do

• It cannot play web addresses, online streams, internet radio or videos on websites. It plays files on the PC only; web links in playlists are skipped.
• It cannot play DVD or Blu-ray discs as discs: there are no disc menus and no ISO images. Unprotected .vob, .m2ts or .mts files copied to the PC play as ordinary files.
• It cannot play DRM-protected (copy-protected) files, such as purchased or rented videos and songs from stores.
• It cannot show picture subtitles (DVD, Blu-ray PGS, DVB, teletext), nor MicroDVD .sub or VobSub .idx/.sub files. ASS/SSA styling (fonts, colors, positions, karaoke) is not shown.
• It cannot save playlists, and the playlist is not kept after leaving the player.
• It is not a default player: it does not add itself to File Explorer's "Open with" or file associations for media files.
• It has no equalizer, audio delay setting, video filters (brightness, crop, zoom, rotate), screen recording or casting to a TV. (The screen recorder is in the Video Editor.)
• It does not edit, convert or save videos. To cut a video use the Video Editor; to convert it use the Converters.
• Surround sound that must be converted plays as stereo.
• Video converted while playing is at most 1080p when no graphics card encoder works.