I used GOM Player for a decade to play videos, it was the fastest, it had the most customization options, it looked nice (used one of the default skins) and it was portable, just copy anywhere and run it (see security advice below as well please!).
Then I found Pot Player, it has the same genetic heritage, I think it is from the same team or people who did the GOM Player, but Pot Player is so much more advanced. From a 360 / 3D video to a YouTube playlist or simple MP3 file, it does it all. It even can stream TV and render scene previews with thumbnails, it is kind of ridiculous actually, but we like the overkill I guess.. o)
It's still quit fast and responsive though, so..
If you like Directory Opus and the endless options and features, you will love Pot Player.
I don't get into much details here, just take a look and dive into what it can do, it is amazing. o)
You can spend hours in the settings dialog if you want.. I did not find an option to save / rip files to disk yet (if you play a YouTube playlist e.g.), but maybe there is, I saw some scripting in there as well at some place, I'm not sure yet.. o).
Update: Security advice: This is still not open source, but it is from South Korea not China I was told, but for closed source software, you never know anyway.
Hello, Pot player is also my favorite player and I set it as default player for all video and audio files. As for security, it is not at all a Chinese software, but South Korean, so it can be considered "western", I guess.
Ok, it's from South Korea you say? Ok, not every asian looking characters means things are from China, I will take this into account in the future. Thank you for clarifying! o)
Now that I know another Pot Player user.. o)
Do you know, is it able to save files to disk? If I play a YouTube playlist e.g., is there a way to "rip" these files to disk? I know AIMP can do (another player), and I use JDownloader2 for YT downloads most of the time, but since this player is so functional, I kind of missed that feature somewhere in there, maybe I just did not find it yet.
I also tinkered with the ACS and DTS re-encoding over SPDIF pass-through, but did not get it to work, so many coding and decoding options in there, puh! o) Nothing of emergency though, I was just curious.
I too am a Pot Player user. I go frameless and hide the touch theme interface until hover for a nice clean video-only look. I started using it because it was one of the only players out there that gives thumbnails-on-scrubbing. I've been very happy with it for many years.
Never tried using Pot Player to download. I use youtube-dl in a nice handy right-click context menu entry that'll download direct to the folder I right-clicked in.
I modified mine slightly to add the upload date to the beginning of the filename:
Hu? I know youtube-dl, but how is an Explorer context menu entry helpful, to download YouTube videos? Since when are there YouTube videos listed in Explorer? o) I would think, anything listed in Explorer, is something I probably don't need to download anymore? o)
To my knowledge Pot Player is just a player. In addition to classic viewing, I particularly like the ability to advance frame by frame very finely to check my video exports.
To save web videos, I use a paid extension for Firefox "Video Downloadhelper". It's really very user friendly: videos recognized on a web page (Youtube, Vimeo, and every page with a video flux) are displayed in a panel with an option to download them, or even keep only the sound rather than the full video. I use it a lot to do some private video editing as part of my work.
As I work mostly with Prores/MP4/AAC flux with analog out on audio monitors, I don't deal with DTS or any digital output.
Ok, thank you for clarifying.. so Pot Player probably can't do the "saving" part.. well, this is quite surprising since it can do the dishes already, but ok.. o)
I am actually quite happy with JDownloader2 for YT downloading, it also does the choice of formats thing, audio only, thumbnail and subtitles separately. It also remembers what I already downloaded (not out of the box though), but this is very useful to not lose track and end up in circles downloading and sorting the same things again and again.
I still miss something for downloading the YT comments section though, maybe youtube-dl can do this? I will take another look, it's the only thing I miss for now. Some YT videos are worthless if you don't have the comments. Very weird or very funny, but also quite important corrections and details can be read in there from time to time. o)
Can confirm this take about player, it's great.
Just wanted to ask how its doing now in 2026 (mine build is from 2019), I do remember there was this thing where it was bought by some company and they slapped ads there.
Its still a thing, or those can be patched out?
I started using DO as a movie player, because I needed 175% playback option.
No other player provided such option.
Opus provides 150% and 200% out of the box, but it was easy to add missing options:
Thanks.
Yes, what I wanted to achieve is constant increments up to 200%, which required adding two menu items in Opus (easy via customize > copy > paste > edit).
Such kind of gradation is also one of JPEGs substantial features.
Adobe Reader has the same number (14) of fixed scale values as my customized Opus, and the same number (8) of items up to 200%:
I used KMPlayer and this happened there.
The solution was to add a redirection to localhost in the file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts:
# KMPlayer Ads
127.0.0.1 player.kmpmedia.net
# KMPlayer End
The good thing is that the current version still runs on Windows XP and 7, so I leave it there on the old devices which can function perfectly well as media players.
I don't use it on newer devices.
