Review

GOM Player is a free multimedia player specialized in playing videos with subtitles.

The playback of video and audio is something that can be easily done on any Windows PC, thanks to the media player that comes built into this Operating System. Even so, it's good to have a more complete media player that offers more possibilities.

GOM Player play a lot of audio and video formats, so we will be able to play practically all of multimedia files we download from the Internet. In addition, it is not necessary to install any kind of codec or additional program, because this player installs and includes all codecs needed to play videos and music.

It is convenient to associate the multimedia files with this player, in such a way that when we double-click on them, the player will be launched automatically. We can also use the typical “open file” menu, or directly drag the files to the player window. There is also the possibility to open and play DVD discs (movies, series, etc).

It is important to highlight the possibility of manage the player using the keyboard, because we can manipulate the playback of the multimedia file, enable/disable subtitles, control the volume, etc. This allows us to have a more rapid and efficient control in comparison with the use of the mouse.

When we are playing a video, we will be able to move forward or backward in the playback by steps of 10/60/300 seconds. This allows us to position the video at the moment we want. There is also the possibility of fast forward/backward. That is to say, the picture and sound will accelerate or will slow down without skipping any image per second.Also we will be able to select a starting and end point, and play indefinitely the video sequence between both points (loop).

As for the subtitles, we will be able to move them at any position on the screen, which is very useful to avoid the subtitles overlap important parts of the video. In addition we will be able to configure certain characteristics of the subtitles as they are: horizontal and vertical spacing, font size, speed playback, and display in 3D format.

At the time of playing videos, we have the option of turning the image in vertical and horizontal, zooming in and out the image, reduce the noise of the image, and to control the brightness, contrast and saturation. We can also create a screenshot of the image that is in the screen, and if we want, we can put the screenshot as a desktop background.

We can also manipulate the audio from the videos using the built-in equalization, or we can use audio effects such as: reverb, 3D stereo, or remove/isolate the voice of the audio. With this program we can also extract the audio from the video, and save them in ogg or wav format.

The program supports playlists, in such a way that we can create a list with our favorites videos or songs, and play them one after another. The program allows to select an option that close the player, or turn off the computer, once it has finished playing all the multimedia files on the list.

We are able to customize the look of the player thanks to the Skins. By default the software comes with 3 available Skins, but we will be able to download many more from the official website of the program.

The program uses an installer that by default, install a number of additional programs, so we will have to pay attention and choose “Custom Installation (advanced)”, and deselect those programs that we do not want to install. We can see an example in the screenshots of the program.

As we can see, the program is a perfect substitute of the Windows media player, since it plays easily all kind of files, and is free.

by Rubén Hernández