I Wanted YouTube's Simplicity in VLC — So I Built My Own Media Player

The author of "Simple YT Style Player" wanted a more straightforward media player that felt as easy to use as YouTube but still had the flexibility of VLC. They built a lightweight media player inspired by YouTube's simplicity and VLC's versatility, now available for both Windows and Android. The player aims to simplify the process of opening a file, selecting audio or subtitles, and playing the media, with advanced controls still accessible when needed.

The player supports a wide range of video formats, including MKV, MP4, WebM, AVI, and MOV, and offers features like multiple audio-track selection, embedded subtitle support, adjustable playback speed, and looping. It also includes picture and sound adjustments, video rotation, brightness control, and a reactive audio visualizer. On mobile devices, the player supports picture-in-picture mode, allowing playback to continue in a smaller floating window while using other applications.

The project uses Tauri 2 as the native shell and Rust for core media operations, while the interface is built using Vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This architecture enables the player to function as a native application on both desktop and mobile platforms. For Android playback, the application serves the selected file through a local HTTP connection to ensure smooth playback using video engine byte-range requests.

To avoid cluttering the screen with controls, the player features an auto-hiding control interface that disappears during playback and adapts to portrait and landscape orientations on mobile devices. Additionally, the player supports advanced features like picture-in-picture mode, keyboard shortcuts, and no account, ads, or telemetry requirements. The project is open source and can be built from source, with Windows and Android builds available on the GitHub Releases page.