Introduction

MoViPlayer is a video player for macOS that can play multiple videos simultaneously. The video layout is handled automatically to provide the best viewing experience. It plays video files from your computer, files from web servers and online streams. All common video formats are supported, and it supports a number of convenient keyboard shortcuts to control playback.

Loading and playing videos

MoViPlayer can play videos from a number of different sources, and in this section we describe how to open them. MoViPlayer Free can open up to four videos at once, and is limited to one window. The full version can open up to eight videos per window, and there is no limit on the number of windows.

Below the opening screen of MoViPlayer is shown. From here videos can be opened and added to the player.

Videos from your local computer

There are a number of different options for opening videos from your local computer:

1. Click "Open Files" on the main screen, and choose the videos you want to add. This option is only available when there are no videos currently playing.
2. Click "Add video" in the top right corner, and choose "Open Files" and pick the files you want to add.
3. Use the "File" menu and choose "Open Files".
4. Drag and drop the video files from Finder onto the MoViPlayer window, and those videos wll be added and start playing.
5. Use keyboard shortcut ⌘-O and pick videos to add.

Files from web serverss

MoviPlayer can play files from HTTP(S) servers.

1. Click "Open URL" on the main screen, enter the URL to the video, and optionally add authentication information if needed. Then click "Open". This option is only available when there are no videos currently playing.
2. Click "Add video" in the top right corner, and choose "Open URL" and enter the URL as above.
3. Use the "File" menu and choose "Open URL".
4. Drag and drop the URL onto the MoViPlayer window.
5. Use keyboard shortcut ⌘-⌥-O to open the Open URL dialog.

Opening a streaming video

MoviPlayer supports open videos from many video streaming sites. We cannot provide a comprehensive list as this changes continually, but the way to open these videos will be the same for all sites. Browse to the video with your browser, then copy the URL from the browser's location bar and use the same procedure as for opening any other URL. If everything goes ok, the video will start playing after a brief loading time.

Closing a video

When hovering over a video, the playback controls will become visible. It will also show the video title and a close button ("x" button). Clicking the close button will remove the video from the player.

Playback controls

Each video has its own controls (shown below). Here you can play and pause the video, jump back and forward 15 seconds, jump in the video, change the audio volume, and enable loop playback. It also has controls for cropping (explained in the next section). You can also open a new video to replace the current one with the rightmost ("eject") button.

Global controls

There are controls available to control all videos at once. Pressing the space bar will toggle between play/pause for all videos. The "Playback" menu also has options for toggling mute and loop for all videos.

Layout configuration

MoViPlayer will try to find the most efficient layout for the videos. It has two parameters that it tries to optimize: minimizing waste of available screen space, and keeping the different videos of as uniform size as possible. The default behavior is to strike a balance between these two parameters. By using the "Layout" menu and clicking "Settings", you can change the default behavior to optimize more for screen space, or to optimize more for uniform video sizes.

Rearranging videos in layout

It is possible to switch the position of two videos in the layout by simply dragging and dropping a video on top of another. Please note that this only works if the two videos have the same aspect ratios. The reson for this limitation is that the layout is calculated with a specific arrangement of the available aspect ratios, so switching positions of two videos with different aspect ratios would break the layout.

Shuffling the layout

There is another option for rearranging the videos if the chosen layout was not satisfactory: shuffling. This is done by using the "Layout" menu and clicking "Shuffle layout". This will calculate a new layout for your videos. Note that this process is random, so there is a chance that the same layout will be chosen again, but if you keep shuffling, you should get a new layout eventually.

Cropping a video

Sometimes, a video may have a widescreen aspect ratio, when it's actually a portrait video, so there will be lots of wasted space on each side of the video. In these cases, you can crop out the wasted space. You do this by clicking on the crop symbol (shown in the image below) and choosing which cropping you wish to use.

Keyboard shortcuts

In the table below, the available keyboard shortcuts are listed.

Contact

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