If you ask any tech enthusiast which video player they use on their computer, chances are you’ll hear just one name: VLC. This is true across devices and platforms because VLC is a solid media player that nails the basics. It’s simple, lightweight, supports pretty much any format under the sun, and most importantly, it just works. Owing to this, VLC has also been my media player of choice for close to two decades now. While it still works well, I thought of venturing out and trying other alternatives to see if I could find something better. Let’s just say I was bored with the orange cone and wanted some change.

Needless to say, I wanted something open-source — thanks to my recent obsession with replacing paid apps with free and open-source alternatives. After some digging around, I found MPV. I remember a fellow writer here at XDA raving about it a few months back — especially since it even has the ability to play YouTube videos when paired with yt-dlp. So, I decided to give it a shot on my Mac. After using it for a bit, it seems like I’ve found my new favorite media player to replace VLC. Here are some reasons that may also push you to make the switch.

Offers only what you need

Less of a Swiss Army knife

Unlike VLC, which throws the kitchen sink when it comes to features, MPV has more of a modular approach. By default, it's a bare-bones media player that's essentially a fork of MPlayer and mplayer2. As a result, it's fast, lightweight, and flexible. Does that mean there are no useful features on MPV? Well, that's not true. Essentially, all the different features can be added via scripts. You can automate subtitle downloads, create dynamic playlists, or, as mentioned earlier, even view YouTube videos directly inside the player. The idea is that the player only offers what you need to begin with. This ensures there's no bloatware — thus enhancing performance.

This comes in handy when viewing high-resolution or high-bitrate content. It uses hardware acceleration via OpenGL, Vulkan, or Direct3D. As a result, you can expect smooth playback even on devices that aren't equipped with powerful hardware. While you can use MPV as is, I decided to use a GUI-based client, IINA, on my Mac. This is because I prefer an interactive interface that MPV doesn't offer by default. If you have a Mac, I would highly suggest taking the same route.

Customize it to your requirements

Extract optimum performance

IINA is also extremely lightweight and snappy on my M1 Pro MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM. Once you launch the app, you will see two options: Open and Open from URL. Pick the relevant option for your requirements. After using IINA for a bit, I realized that MPV is quite far ahead of VLC in certain respects. For starters, it supports high-quality video scaling algorithms, like Spline36 and Lanczos, producing sharper and cleaner images. The subtitle support is also more advanced, thanks to ASS/SSA support. You can customize the styling and animations of the subtitles on MPV. All of this is easier to do on IINA compared to barebones MPV, since the latter doesn't have a GUI.

If you're switching from VLC, I recommend starting with IINA first. If you directly use MPV, you get a distraction-free on-screen controller that can be customized via scripts or config files. Essentially, you can alter every single bit of MPV from keyboard shortcuts to the speed at which subtitles show up. Just like VLC, MPV can also play pretty much any file format. Additionally, it has no issues playing modern formats like HEVC, VP9, and AV1. While VLC can also handle most files, it may struggle with newer codecs. All things considered, setting up and using MPV may not be as intuitive as VLC. However, if you still want all the perks mentioned above without the headaches of compiling it from source and playing around with terminal commands, IINA is the perfect alternative.

Are you going to ditch good 'ol VLC?

To be fair, the major reason why I’ve stuck to VLC all these years is its “it just works” approach. After all, why fix something that ain’t broke? However, I recently started consuming media in 4K on an older laptop — and that’s when I started experiencing some stutters when using VLC. I realized that VLC’s software decoding isn’t as optimized as MPV’s — leading to occasional frame drops. MPV, on the other hand, doesn’t exhibit such issues. In fact, it can even handle some newer codecs like AV1 efficiently — an area where VLC may struggle.