Ever since Windows Vista came out, Aero Glass has been one of my favorite features in the operating system. With the advent of Windows 7 which also included the Aero Glass, I has been looking out for multimedia player that fully utilize Aero Glass. (Personally I would like software developer fully utilize Aero Glass) Not to mention the nice looking eye candy, but it does make me feel that the software is an integrated part of the Windows, which is why I always prefer software that using Aero Glass.

With some deep searching and stumble upon, I have found two nice looking players (one requires mod) suitable to my taste, Foobar2000 (Audio player with mod) and Splayer (Video player).

Foobar2000 (with Foolars2 Glass mod)

I believe most of the computer users will not find Foobar2000 a stranger. Foobar2000 is famous for their lightweight, high quality sound output, and also their highly customizable interface. By default, Foobar2000 doesn’t have the skin using the Aero Glass. But after some findings, I have found one very nice looking mod for foobar2000. Check the screenshots below:

Isn’t nice and simple? This is actually a mod compiled and done by heroshade, which you can download it from his deviantart website here, which included all the components you needed for the skin. He also included an instruction note for installing the skin, so you can’t go wrong with it. Please note that the skin will only works on Foobar2000 version 0.9.5.3 and below, and I tried to install it in the latest version of Foobar2000, but it doesn’t work at all (something to do with the PanelsUI thingy), so if you wanted to try this skin on Foobar2000, get the older version of foobar2000 here (0.9.5.2).

SPlayer

Correct me if I am wrong but Splayer is developed by a chinese. I was once a codec pack fan, which I always get my computer installed with either Klite codec pack or Shark007 codec pack, which serves me well during the XP period. However, with the changing of operating system to Windows 7 64 Bit, I started to look for alternative because I wanted a player that can play-it-all without the need of installing codec pack. I tried shark007’s codec pack on my Windows 7, but it crashes my Windows explorer whenever it generating preview for all my videos, so I decided to put it away and give SPlayer a go.

SPlayer is a very simple, yet have a very strong codec supports, with of course, very nice interface. I am aware that VLC Media Player does support multiple video format as well, but I still prefer SPlayer due to the eye candies. (Who doesn’t like beautiful stuff?) With the very simple, half transparent control panel of the player (Screenshot below), SPlayer able to play almost all sort of video format, and give you the quite a lot of options for your viewing experience. It does have some pretty new experimenting features, including the Intelligent Normalizer (which help you to increase the volume automatically when it detected the voice/sound of the video is too soft), and transparent control (which make your whole video transparent) which I haven’t found a practical usage, but they are pretty interesting features.

Why Splayer? For me, I’d go for it’s simple and nice interface, with Aero Glass support, and bunch of video enhancements made available to us during the playback. Not to mention it does provide us portable version of the SPlayer, which can be used without installation, especially good for those computers that disallow installation without administrator permission. But don’t get convinced by me, check out their official comparison, and you will know why SPlayer.

So what are you waiting for? Throw away any codec packs or outdated skinned video player, and go ahead download SPlayer and see for yourself here!

Editor’s note

Hope my introduction of these two software match your taste as well. Both software works perfectly for me and they just totally replaced my pervious multimedia software (Codec pack, GOM Player, TTPlayer) without much problem. I do hope more and more software developer are able to make use of the Aero Glass as it doesn’t only let the computer user enjoy the eye candy, but it does give a feeling that the software is integrated to the Windows. All hail to Aero Glass!