MPlayer 1.5 Released To Advance This Open-Source Video Player

After not seeing a new release for nearly three years, MPlayer 1.5 was released this past weekend for this open-source media player.

MPlayer is no longer as popular as it was during its early days when there were a lot less viable Linux video players that worked well with a wide variety of different content. MPV has also excelled quite well as a fork of MPlayer2, VLC remains very popular, and numerous other modern Linux media players around while many these days engage with the video content via online streaming in the web browser. In any event, after nearly three years in the works, MPlayer 1.5 is now available.

The MPlayer 1.5 changes aren't too bountiful but include alterations such as:

- Ensuring the correct visual is used for OpenGL video output for the X11 driver.

- MPlayer 1.5 now ships a built-in skin so that the GUI can be used even without other extra skins installed.

- The MPlayer GUI now allows native language integration and honors the LC_MESSAGES / LANG environment variables.

- Compiling MPlayer 1.5 for Arm will now compile for the ISA and extensions of the host CPU by default.

- Fixes for retina display handling on macOS.

- The -fs command line option is now supported by the MPlayer GUI for loading full-screen in a shorter means than the other full-screen options.

Downloads and more details on this open-source media player at the mplayerhq.hu project site.