Media Playback

While TealPlay is designed as a media center, it also functions as a rather serviceable media player with a robust set of playback controls.

Since platform-standard icons and themes are used, your control area might look slightly different. However, the controls will still be in the same places:

• Top Row
• On the left side is a clock that shows the current time of day.
• In the middle is a progress slider that advances as the media plays. You can grab the handle on the slider to seek within the media file unless the media is live.
• On the right side is a second clock that shows the time at which playback will end for the current media file. In the case of live media, the word Live is displayed instead.
• Bottom Row (Left to Right)
• The playback speed setting can be adjusted from the rate control box at left.
• The rate can be reset to 1x speed by pressing the rate reset button.
• The previous item in the playlist can be played using the previous track button.
• You can seek backward (in non-live media) using the left seek button.
• Playback can be started or paused with the play/pause button.
• Playback can be stopped (and media unloaded) with the stop button.
• Seeking forward in non-live media can be done using the right seek button.
• Advancing to the next playlist item is done using the next track button.
• Fullscreen mode is toggled with the fullscreen button.
• You can mute the audio with the mute button.
• The volume can be adjusted with the volume control on the right side.

In addition to the controls available as buttons, you can move forward or backward by one frame or select another predefined playback speed from the Playback menu. On the View menu, you'll find controls for zooming in, panning a zoomed video, ignoring the aspect ratio, and changing video brightness.

As you use the playback features of TealPlay more extensively, it may be convenient to use keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking on menu items or control buttons. See the Keyboard Shortcuts document for a list.

Subtitles

TealPlay detects subtitle files automatically if they are located with their corresponding media files and share the same file stem. Subtitle languages can be selected from the View menu. Subtitles can be toggled on or off from the same menu (or by pressing the T key).

In the TealPlay Settings, you can set subtitles to default to on or off for video and audio files separately. Audio file subtitles are timed lyric files that show song lyrics as they are sung. Supported subtitle formats are documented in Supported File Formats.

Audio and Video Tracks

Some media files may have more than one audio and/or video track. Tracks can be selected from the Audio Track and Video Track submenus of the Tools menu. Note that track names are only available with certain container formats. If names are not available, numbers are used instead.

Audio Visualization

TealPlay includes support for several audio visualization displays, although this functionality is still in early stages of development. Available visualizers include a blank playback area (with customizable background color), lyrics-only (if subtitles are enabled), or song information. The Song Information visualizer is currently the default, since it has the most features, displaying the current song title, playlist position, playback position, and lyrics.

Audio Output

If you have more than one audio output device, the destination for audio output can be changed using the Playback...Audio...Output Device menu. This menu can be used, for example, to switch between speakers and a Bluetooth headset. The default audio output device can be set in TealPlay Settings under the Audio tab.

Frame Rates

It is possible to move the playback position by one frame using Playback...Next Frame, Playback...Previous Frame, or by using the keyboard shortcuts. Note that precise frame stepping is possible only for videos that have a constant frame rate. For variable frame rate videos, stepping forward and backward has to be approximated using a fixed frame rate to calculate the approximate frame display time. This fixed frame rate can be adjusted via the Variable Frame Rate Substitution value on the Video tab of the TealPlay Settings window.

Brightness

Video brightness can be adjusted using the brightness controls on the View menu or via the hotkeys. Since Qt Multimedia doesn't provide native brightness controls, the brightness adjustments are limited. In particular, contrast tends to be lost with increased brightness.