Splash Lite 1.60

[MilesAhead]

http://mirillis.com/...products/splash.html

I would really love this player if they would include PGS subtitle support.

The main thing distinguishing it from many other players is the ability to seek in .mkv video with impunity.  I don't know how many players just go away when I move the slider while watching an .mkv file.

It would really put this on top if they supported more than text subtitles.
I harass them periodically on their forum, along with a few other users, but to no apparent effect.

[MerleOne]

I do like splash a lot, because on my 5-years old PC it plays HD content without hiccups but I miss one simple feature : the ability to close a file !  When I sort some video file in order to delete the already seen, I open them with Splash, then decide to keep it or not.  If I want to delete the current file, I have either to close Splash or to open another file, but then I lose the file selection in explorer.

[MilesAhead]

I would post that on their forum. That type of stuff they seem willing to fix. otoh any time I or other users bitch about the lousy subtitle support it's just ignored.  Not even "it's on the to do list" .. just null response.

[MilesAhead]

Looks like the free version will never have PGS subs support:

http://www.mirillis....c.php?f=16&t=338

[superboyac]

I like the Splash line of players.  It's a good design, elegant, with great picture quality, and for some reason it has an easier time playing full HD files than any other player.  My complaint with the program is with what I see the business strategy is looking like.  First, they have WAAAY too many versions of the program planned to come out.  See here:
http://mirillis.com/...ashpro_features.html

Why does that bother me?  Well...it's just a freaking video player.  Most of the time, companies who do this kind of thing do it as a gimmick to make more money somehow.  i don't quite understand the strategy, but it's very common for those enterprise type software that nobody knows what they do, but they have like 15 versions all distinguished with vague jargon and other nonsense.  Oracle products are the best example of this.

What kind of scientific research do they think a customer is going to do when buying a video player??  "Hmm, I'm interested in playing videos.  This Splash player seems good.  Whoa!  Wait!  Do I need the HD-CAm version or the Pro?  What the hell is avchd?"

So, that makes me suspicious of the direction this program is going.  My suspicion is that they're going to draw people in with the program's eye-candy and speed, and then a few years down the line the expected improvements to the program won't be all that impressive.  Meaning, the things we like right now about the program...well, that's it.  I don't think the program will develop into what users would like it to develop.

not only that, but as miles mentioned, they don't respond to mildly controversial topics, rather than responding and just saying clearly what their intentions are.  So those are all signs of a company trying to bank in on a gimmick rather than pleasing users.

Now, the makemkv forum is a different story, just to compare two programs in similar stages.  They have a very active forum, they answer all questions, and it's clear their goal is to satisfy as many of the user requests as they can handle.

So, that's my prediction.

[MilesAhead]

I got an "official" reply in the forum they have no intention of ever supporting PGS subs in the free version.  For spot checking subs I now use VLC 1.1.6 portable.  It displays both PGS subs and divx XSubs.  Seems to be more crash prone than prior to this subtitle support but I'm hoping it stabilizes soon.

Also I've found SPlayer very good on Windows7.  It gives me hw acceleration on the same video card Splash Lite doesn't think is good enough for gpu acceleration.  Seems fine for playing .mkv and .m2ts. I heard there was an issue with file type associations. I'm not sure if it's fixed or not. I launch using the SendTo menu just to be on the safe side.

There's a Splash Lite 1.61 but I haven't updated as I heard some of the features working in 1.6 are disabled. They are definitely pushing to the paid.

I did the paid version trial just to see if the PGS subs support worked.  Videos with PGS subs that displayed fine in VLC I saw no hint of in Splash.  So looks like I'm giving up on it unless they change direction.

Edit: another stumbling block to using Splash Lite on videos with PGS subs... it only supports text based subs.. .srt.  Many other players that don't support PGS will at least pick up idx/sub external files when named the same as the video or allow you to manually load them.  It's not difficult to export PGS sub streams and use BDSup2Sub to export idx/subs.  But it can be a real pain to OCR them into .srt.  The player should at least support idx/sub files.

[superboyac]

Yeah, I've soured on Splash because of all the indicators I mentioned.  I'm all for paying for this stuff even though 99% of people are perfectly satisfied with the free version.  I definitely will pay for a video player if it is done really nicely.  I paid for Light Allow, which is very underrated in my opinion.

Splayer is ok, nothing special in my book.  it needs more options, for me.  Of all the players, I still find KMP to be the best all around.  KMP plays back my HD files better than Splayer currently, but I don't have a lot of really big, full disc rips of dvd's at the moment.  I just have a couple of 1-2 GB mp4 HD files.  I'm trying to avoid using a player just because it does one thing better than another.  I'm really hoping for a player to come along that is the clear cut winner.  For me, it's KMP right now, with Light Alloy in the mix as well.  But neither of them are perfect I guess.  Daum was promising, but it's pretty buggy right now.  We'll see.  It really doesn't seem like the full HD support on most players hasn't matured yet.  It feels like we're in the infancy stages and working out the kinks.  Which is weird in my opinion, because HD has now been around for a fairly long time.

But I do notice a surge in the interest of HD playback on the computer lately.  I can't be sure if I'm noticing it only because I've begun thinking about my HTPC project, or if it's actually true.  But it feels as if 2011 will see a large increase in the HTPC related stuff, as well as playing back HD with files.  Currently, players "support" all this stuff, but it's not really elegant anywhere.  There are still NO players with buttons for previous/next chapter in mkv files.  or for enabling/disabling subtitiles, or changing audio.  They are all context-menu driven type stuff.  We're seeing more HTPC specialized hardware coming out into mainstream circles: things like those mini htpc boxes that you can setup in your living room instead of a full tower setup, players like Splash and stuff are coming out bragging specifically about their HD playback.  This wasn't the case even two years ago.

By the way, the reason why HD is not mainstream is because it makes the "man" nervous.  Full HD files represent the worst things to them.  It makes any kind of discs obsolete, so the whole bluray thing would go out the window if mainstream users caught onto things like mkv files and 50gb bluray files.  And once mainstream users learned that they can connect little htpc's to their tv's that play EVERYTHING under the sun without the need for 10 remotes, dvr, bluray player, etc., well, that would be bad for a lot of companies.  Standalone dvd and bluray players would suffer.  Even things like the PS3 would take a hit because a lot of people buy that simply to playback bluray movies.

So I feel like 2011 will be the year for HD files.

[MilesAhead]

One pleasant surprise with SPlayer is how good it is at automatically downloading subs for Asian videos. This could take a lot of the frustration out of watching Asian dramas. Often by the time the last episode is finally subbed I don't care anymore.

From now on if I can get the vid SPlayer is my first search tool for the soft subs. So far I haven't been able to figure out where it's searching. I thought there was a config to add sub sites to a search list but I can't seem to find it anymore.  Anything that makes subs easier is good with me though.

[Bionic71]

I've asked them as well for subtitle support, I've paid for Splash Pro at early stage,
I'm no longer using the player due to lack of support for both formats and subtitles.

They claimed lifetime licenses but when reading their forum it turned out to be a subscription model
They've now changed the information after many complaints and misunderstandings.

I'm sure they are holding back on these important features for version 2.

Splash Pro - huge dissapointment. 

[JavaJones]

Funny, I have virtually no problems with HD playback on multiple players, e.g. KMP, SPlayer, SMPlayer, etc. What issues are you referring to SBAC?

KMP has buttons for changing audio (well, it pops up a menu to choose a stream, but how else would you suggest, it just cycles through available streams?). If you open the Tools pop-out control panel you also get buttons for subtitle control; the panel can be docked under the playlist if desired.

I believe Daum has next/previous chapter buttons. By the way, I find very little use for chapters. Do you actually need them on a regular basis?

Splayer's automatic sub downloading is probably its best feature. Would be nice for KMP to add this.

By the way, I have a thread for discussing video players over here:
https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=25205
My thoughts on Splash and other players are there.


- Oshyan