Hi
I work as a software developer for one software company. Last few weeks I was trying to find the best media player. I think your Splash player has a great engine with great possibilities but it lacks some usability features and contains few bugs:
1) If you download a "the.big.bang.theory.s04e02.720p.hdtv.x264-ctu.mkv" file, you will find that the Motion2 feature ruins the quality of the movie in some cases. Look at the file bug1.zip to see an example from the 11th second of the movie:
This movie can be downloaded from oneddl.com.
2) Sometimes the Motion2 feature produces wrong deinterlacing. Please look at the file bug2.zip to see what I mean:
The video has been downloaded from this URL:
http://www.aktiv-verlag.com/~webvideos/ ... _P_50i.MTS
3) The feature to jump automatically to a nearest keyframe is mostly useful way to speed up time-jumps. But sometimes it is very uncomfortable. For example I prefer to jump using left and right arrow keys by a very small time interval - around 3 s. In case there is one keyframe every e.g. 10s, when I press the left arrow, the movie jumps always to the same keyframe even if I press the left arrow more times. To jump before the keyframe I have to press the left arrow very quickly. This makes me crazy. The best solution for time-jumps is to decide whether to jump to the nearest keyframe or to the exact frame by a simple rule in any case:
If there are more than e.g. 3 keyframes between my current position and the destination, then jump to the keyframe. Otherwise jump to the exact frame.
4) It would be nice to allow users to specify the exact time (in seconds) for time-jumps using arrow keys, Shift+arrow keys and Ctrl+arrow keys.
5) In case the movie is paused, it should not start playing when I press the left/right arrow or click to the timeline.
6) It would be nice to allow users to control the subtitle time-shift from keyboard (I suggest "," and "." keys from GOM player).
7) Every good media player refreshes the movie while dragging the mouse over the timeline with pressed mouse button. Why the Splash PRO updates the movie only after releasing the mouse button?
8) In case I disable the Loop feature, the movie should be paused at the last frame at the end of the playback.
9) The feature Automatically load subtitles should be enabled by default.
10) Click to the movie screen should work as a pause/play while the double click should still work as enable/disable fullscreen. The best implementation is in MPC: If you double-click to the movie which plays, the first click pauses the movie and the second click starts the movie in a fraction of the second while enabling/disabling the fullscreen mode.
11) It would be nice to allow users to drag the player window while dragging by the movie screen.
12) In case there is a CPU/GPU stressing movie, enabling the Motion2 feature may lead to frame drops which means very choppy playback. Therefore the Motion2 should be temporarily disabled every time there is a risk of frame drops. This bug has been observed at this movie:
http://download.tvfreak.cz/clanky/2010_ ... erier2.mts
13) The key "F" jumps to the next frame. But is there a key to jump to the previous frame?
14) Sometimes it is useful to be able to stretch and/or expand the movie. The best implementation is in MPC:
Numpad 1 = shrink
Numpad 9 = expand
Numpad 2 = shrink vertically
Numpad 8 = expand vertically
Numpad 4 = shrink horizontally
Numpad 6 = expand horizontally
Numpad 5 = reset zoom
15) You should improve handling with corrupted files. Some corrupted WMF files can crash the Splash PRO while loading.
16) If you open a movie in the movie player, its window size should be automatically resized to display the movie in 100% (1:1).
17) It would be nice to have more options to customize the rendering of subtitles. Shadow, outline, exact font size, position, spacing, margins, etc.
18) Subtitles rendered by MPC or GOM has better quality (higher resolution).
19) Pressing the ESC key in window mode should pause the playback and minimize the player (like in GOM).
20) There is no audio features like equalizer, pitch shifter etc.
21) There is no time-speed shifting feature. Sometimes it's useful to watch movies slower or faster than normal while retaining the audio pitch. IMHO there is a great possibility for your Motion2 feature in a slow-speed mode.
22) In GOM player, I often press space and enter keys simultaneously to enable fullscreen and start playback OR to disable fullscreen and pause playback. Both keys works in Splash PRO player but for an unknown reason, pressing both keys at once will only accept the first key.
23) The Splash PRO is unable to play the MPEG2 stream in a MXF file from the Canon XF 305 camcorder:
http://www.aktiv-verlag.com/~webvideos/ ... XF_305.MXF
24) Often, if I drop a new movie into the SplashPRO player, the movie is played smoothly but for the first seconds without audio and the player is unresponsive. After few seconds the players will start responding normally.
I hope you will find the list useful.
Vladax
My configuration:
Splash PRO 1.2.4.0 Pro (trial), Windows 7 x64, Intel Core2 DUO E8650, 2 GB RAM, nVidia GTX 275 with latest drivers, Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum