There’s a wonderful rule in evolution – evolve or you’ll fall by the wayside. Simple, utilitarian, effective. When I first saw a free video player for Windows and Mac called 5KPlayer, I didn’t get the joke at first. But within five minutes of starting to use the app, the issue cleared up, and I’m actually glad I was able to test it out.
Everything starts in a civilized way, in general. The official page from where you can download the HD video player says that 5KPlayer is capable of playing all possible audio and video formats – MP4, H.265/264, VP8/VP9, MTS, MKV, MP3, AAC, AC3, WMA, FLAC and ALAC formats and codecs. Resolution is supported up to 8K, even 360 degree videos playback without any problems!
The player also supports hardware acceleration with NVIDIA CUDA, Intel QSV and DXVA 2.0. There is also video quality improvement by trueTheater. For audiophiles it will be pleasant to support multichannel RStereo, Dolby and DTS. In general, it turns out quite a powerful analog of VLC, GOM and WinAmp on Windows 10.
The interface of the player is simple and clear, but immediately attracts the attention of the function called… YouTube. And this is the main, in my opinion, advantage of 5KPlayer, which distinguishes it from others. This player combines not only playing local files, but also online playback of…
…with the ability to download and save files for later viewing without an Internet connection.
It would seem that the modern Internet is always and everywhere, why offline mode? Well, firstly, interruptions with access to the World Wide Web happen even in megacities. Secondly, watching videos without ads and with hardware acceleration is noticeably more pleasant than the player in Chrome.
Third, storing videos in your personal collection makes accessing them much easier. Despite the fact that YouTube has playlists, waiting for pages to load is not always pleasant. And most importantly, you can upload videos not only from YouTube, but also from 300 other services, including Vimeo, Facebook, Dailymotion, Tumblr, Twitter, and more. The main thing is to insert the link into the right menu item.
The uploading process is quite seriously pumped up, by the way. You can save videos with subtitles, you can download several files at once, and you can restore the download process from the last point if the download was interrupted without completing the process.
That’s not all. The program also includes AirPlay and DLNA support, so you can stream files from Android and iOS smartphones to your PC via 5KPlayer. Or vice versa, from PC to Android / Smart TV / PS4 / Xbox. For streaming from iOS, however, you need to register. Which, like the player itself, is completely free.
The player supports Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP and macOS Mojave. The cherry on top is the ability to record video from the iPhone / iPad screen while streaming. If anything, 5KPlayer is an alternative to VLC, while GOM has no streaming functionality at all.