Light Alloy

Description

Light Alloy is a free, highly customizable multimedia player for Windows. It's compact and designed to be fast and easy to use.

Light Alloy Features

Besides its support for all popular multimedia formats, it also has advanced settings such as:

• fast video rewind, load subtitles, bookmarks in the list or timeline, preview window on the timeline
• selection of audio tracks and subtitles in multilingual films, minimize to tray, infrared remote control
• adjust the brightness/contrast/saturation of the image, supports multimedia keyboards, plays DVD and Blu-ray discs, and handles MKV/OGM/MP4 files

It has an extensive list of features; these are just a few of them:

• built-in video/audio codecs (although you can choose to use other system codecs and you can configure audio and video filters)
• custom codecs, support for subtitles
• WinLIRC support (remote control), configurable playback speed, aspect ratio alignment, make and save screenshots
• independent video settings for each file (brightness, contrast, saturation, subtitle, volume), keep current playing position and resume later, etc.

You can read more about its features in the Light Alloy guide.

Light Alloy Review

I can't remember the first multimedia player that I used, because it happened more than a decade ago. Ever since, I've been testing all kinds of popular media players, and most likely I won't stop soon. If you ever get disappointed by your current media player, I have another suggestion: Light Alloy player. It was developed initially by a Russian company named Softella, and it wasn't free. You had to buy it. Starting with version 4.2, the project continued as a freeware application under a new development team, Vortex Team.

I tested both versions, installer and portable, under Windows 10, and the program worked for me exactly as it was advertised on its homepage. Compact, easy to use and with an uncluttered interface are not just a few words that I use, that's what I found in the version I reviewed.

This player has its built-in codecs that allow you to view any popular video format as soon as you finish the setup process (it's the same thing with the portable version). It has plenty of features, and you can customize it a lot. It is a highly customizable player in many ways, without being limited to its collection of skins.

There are plenty of features such as a timeline (view how much time is left or has passed in the video file you are watching), WinLIRC (remotely control the player from your couch), live preview, watching online videos directly in Light Alloy (press Ctrl+U, enter the URL and hit OK), internet radio (listen, record, add stations to favorites), and tracker music support for XM, IT, S3M, MOD, etc.

The latest release is version 4.11.2, from April 30, 2021. To jump to my conclusion: uncluttered, comfortable and intuitive. It's a complete application for anyone interested in a reliable multimedia player. Like I said, it worked flawlessly for me, and I might keep it for an indefinite period, so go ahead and try it for yourself.