BS.Player 2.68

Having crossed paths with BS.Player a couple of times in the past, I never really felt the need to explore it. Mostly because I already had what I needed, and what I needed was not a fancy graphical interface that every teenager would feel cool having it decorating his virtual desktop. Well, here I am again, facing it for the third time and I sh&% you not, BS.Player is still passable if I were to give my certified expert opinion. Still, don't turn away now, other wise I would have typed it all in vain.

Not BS-ing you

BS.Player's interface can be best described as fragmented. Videos are detached from the main body and can easily overshadow the controls and force you to drag the video window around just to find the volume controls. Speaking of controls, the main buttons are small while the others are also hard to distinguish. The advanced functions can be accessed by a right click menu and if you would need anything the be accessed quicker, BS.Player has a key shortcut manager that encompasses all functions. As a mark of inconsistency, the two other windows look and behave differently. While the main window can be dragged by clicking almost anywhere, the playlist can only be picked up by clicking on a thin bar which encompasses it. The media library looks like it belongs from another program. The colors are different shades and the controls are barely similar.

You would ask why would I care so much on how the player looks. Because having a player that plays any media type is not such a rare thing anymore, but being pleasing to the eye and ergonomic is something that should concern any user experience designer. Function wise though it's decent, but flawed in places. For one, I cannot fathom why the equalizer button does nothing. Either there's no function linked to it, or the change is so subtle that my brain fails to detect it... Oh wait, I found it. It was hiding on my other monitor, under the browser window.

The Media Library is an encouraging idea, but it only scratches the surface of what a real library should do. The BS.Player's version is a media repository with no customization options and extremely long loading times for podcasts. I literally gave up after waiting for a bout 5 minutes to load a podcast channel that only had about 50 entries. I also can't seem to get what kind of link it needs for online TV feeds but thankfully, the radio channel list is already populated.

Features

• Automatic codec downloader - checked after installation
• Playlist interface
• Aspect ratio modes
• Media library with online resources
• Automatic subtitle finder - searches for subs upon playing the video file.

Pros

• Over 800 radio channels
• DVD style chapter generation
• Saves the trouble of searching for subtitles

Cons

• Weak graphical interface
• Issues with TV and Podcast lists

Conclusion

I may not be the biggest fan of BS.Player, but it is certainly worth downloading to see if any of its features might be suited for you. Who knows, maybe you need a thumbnail grid image for your latest production or just want to repeat sections of one video.