Tips and Tricks

T. Reduce buffering when playing YouTube videos

For users with slow internet connection it’s not uncommon to experience ‘slow’ playing videos that sometimes gets ‘stuck’ while playing. Fortunately there is a technical solution for this problem, simply open the preferences dialog [Options -> Preferences] choose the Performance -> Cache tab where you will find the caching settings for YouTube videos (by default set to 2000Kb). Here you can increase the caching size, which especially will pre-buffer the videos before playing them, thus reducing the buffer time when playing the videos.

Alternatively, you can also choose to download the video directly, even without playing it, by right-clicking a video in the YouTube search dialog and selecting Record Video, and then play the video after it has been downloaded.

T. Changing file association

During the install process UMPlayer may ask you to choose the file types to be associated with UMPlayer, making it the default player for those file types you chose. If at any time you would like to associate another file type with UMPlayer, or even revert back to the previous file associating, simply open up the Preferences dialog, select the File Types option and check the file types you would like to associate with UMPlayer. To revert back to the previously associated media player, simply uncheck a file type(s).

Note: Due to User Account Control restrictions in Windows Vista / Windows 7 users might need to run UMPlayer with administrative privileges (right-click the UMPlayer shortcut and select ‘Run as administrator’) to make changes to the file types association.

T. Optimize performance per CPU type

Audio / Video processing is very CPU intensive, for maximum performance the installer tries to match optimized MPlayer binaries for your CPU type. If you want to experiment with other MPlayer binaries you can always change the MPlayer executable location in the Preferences -> General dialog.

For Windows users we’ve included the following build selection table (mt = based on FFmpeg multithread fork, a bit experimental):

CPU	Build (r32735)
AMD Single Core	athlon
AMD Multi Core (X2/X3/X4/Phenom)	athlon / athlon-xp mt
Intel Pentium3	p3
Intel Pentium 4 or better Single Core	p4
Intel Pentium 4 or better Multi Core (core2/xeon/etc)	p4 / p4 mt
Generic 486 or better	rtm

T. Reduce buffering when playing SHOUTcast streams

Slow playing SHOUTcast streams can be caused by either slow internet connection or a station’s own bandwidth limitation. Unfortunately there is no technical solution for this; unlike with YouTube videos, increasing the amount of cache will not result in better performance. So if you experience this problem the only available solutions are:

• Choose another station with lower bitrate: the stations’ bitrate is denominated in kbps in the SHOUTcast search dialog, and for users with slow internet connection we recommend playing stations with bitrate not exceeding 48 kbps. Hint: some stations have several streams with different bitrates, so if your favorite station is acting slow trying finding another stream with lower bitrate.
• Choose another station with lower number of listeners: a station’s performance can get hindered as more listeners tune in to it since the station can reach its bandwidth limitation, so a good tip for this problem is to simply find another station with lower number of listeners.
• Upgrade your internet connection.

T. Videos appear too dark

Many users may find videos appear too dark; if this problem only occurs when playing a certain video, simply click on the Equalizer button, select the Video tab, make sure that the ‘Use software video equalizer’ option is checked, and increase the Gamma to brighten up the picture. But if you find that all the videos appear too dark try to check your video card settings and turn off 'hardware video overlay', if the problem still persists, try reinstalling your video card drivers or consult with your video card’s manual for further assistance.

T. Finding and customizing subtitles

UMPlayer comes equipped with a built-in subtitle search. To search for subtitles, while the movie is being played, simply select the Subtitles -> Find subtitles on Opensubtitles.org option, which will display the subtitle search dialog with all available subtitles found on Opensubtitles.org, after which all you have to do is double click on the desired subtitle and UMPlayer will automatically download and use it.

Hint: some subtitles may not be a perfect match and might be out of sync with the movie, to remedy this simply click the equalizer button, select the Synchronization tab, and add / reduce the subtitles delay.

UMPlayer also comes equipped with configurable subtitles. To customize the subtitles open the Preferences dialog and select the Subtitles option where you can change the subtitle’s encoding, font, size, color, alignment and even margins.