First steps with SMPlayer

Play on Chromecast

To play a video on Chromecast just select the option "Play on Chromecast" from the Play menu. That will open the SMPlayer Chromecast control page in your web browser with the URL of the video. This web page can communicate with your Chromecast device. You'll find options to connect/disconnect, start playback and controls for play, pause, volume, seek... You can also control playback with a smartphone or tablet by scanning the QR code in the page. More info about this feature here.

Send video to an external screen

You can send the video to a second screen connected to the computer while controlling the application in the computer's screen. Just select the option "Send video to screen" from the Video menu and choose the screen.

Play a movie file

To open a file, just click on the first button in the toolbar or select the option File... in the Open menu. You can select any file from the formats supported by SMPlayer, like avi, mp4, mkv, ts, mpg... The movie will begin to play. You can use the control at the bottom of the player to pause it, rewind, seek...

To switch to fullscreen mode, click on the fullscreen button () in the control bar or press F. In fullscreen mode, when you move the mouse to the bottom of the screen a floating control will appear. To return to window mode, click on the fullscreen button in the floating control or press F or ESC. You can also right click at any moment on the video to get a context menu.

It's very easy to change the audio track, select subtitles, enable a video filter, change the playback speed... just explore the menus of the player.

Play Youtube videos

To play a Youtube video, just select Youtube browser in the View menu. That will open the Youtube browser window.

Download subtitles

SMPlayer can find and download subtitles for you. Just open a video and the select Find subtitles on opensubtitles.org in the Subtitles menu. A new window will appear with a list of available subtitles. Just select the subtitle you want to download and click on the Download button. The subtitle file will be automatically downloaded and displayed in the video.

Change the skin

You can change the skin very easily. Click on the screwdriver button () in the toolbar or select the option Preferences under the Options menu. That will open the preferences dialog. Now click on the Interface section on the left. Now select Skinnable GUI in the GUI option. Finally select the skin you want to use under the Skin option.

Thumbnail generator

SMPlayer includes a thumbnail generator, which allows you to see a preview of the video. It's very easy to use: open a video and then select Thumbnail Generator in the Video menu.

Improve performance

If you have trouble to play HD videos you can improve performance by following these advices:

• If you have a multicore processor: select Preferences in the Options menu. That will open the preferences dialog. Go to the Performance section. Now increase the "threads for decoding" according to the number of cores of your processor (If you have 2 cores, select 2 threads. If you have 4 cores, you can select up to 4 threads, and so on).
• If you don't have a multicore processor: select Preferences in the Options menu. That will open the preferences dialog. Go to the Performance section. Check the option "Allow frame drop". This will help to keep A/V sync, although with some video formats it can cause video corruption. You can also experiment with the H.264 "loop filter" option.