How to customize Air Media Player
A great feature of Air Media Player is its flexibility. From its physical appearance, to its functionality, everything about the media player is customizable. To tweak Air Media Player to your own preferences, the first thing to do is to open the Settings Window by clicking on the settings button labelled below.
Once you open the Settings Window, you will notice that there is quite a few options. Don't worry! Air Media Player aims to keep things super simple and self-explanatory, and our settings window is no exception.
Changing the general settings of Air Media Player
The general settings of Air Media Player allow you to modify the generic functionality of the media player. Such settings include:
Automatically check for updates: Turning this setting on will cause Air Media Player to quietly and transparently check for newer versions from time to time, and notify you when they are available.
Automatically check for updates: Turning this setting on will cause Air Media Player to quietly and transparently check for newer versions from time to time, and notify you when they are available.
Allow multiple Air Media Player windows:
Remember player window size and position: This setting tells Air Media Player if it should remember the last position and size of Air Media Player's window, and restore it to those coordinates when Air Media Player is reopened.
Show tip of the day: When enabled, the media player will show a quick tip under the main buttons.
- When enabled, Air Media Player will open a new window of itself whenever a new video is opened with Air Media Player.
- When disabled, whenever a new video is opened, Air Media Player will stop playing the current video, and play the new video instead.
Remember player window size and position: This setting tells Air Media Player if it should remember the last position and size of Air Media Player's window, and restore it to those coordinates when Air Media Player is reopened.
Show tip of the day: When enabled, the media player will show a quick tip under the main buttons.
Changing the skin of Air Media Player
This option lets you customise the visual appearance of Air Media Player over thirty different visual themes: make Air Media Player look like Windows XP, 8, 10, Mac OSX, Ubuntu and more by selecting a theme on the list next to 'Air Media Player Skin'.
Some visual styles include:
Some visual styles include:
Configuring the Air Media Player Interface
The interface settings tab in the Settings Window allows users to modify the video player's controls and behaviour.
Automatically center player window: Tells Air Media Player to center the video player window on your screen whenever a new video plays.
Show loading wheel: This setting, when enabled, will cause Air Media Player to show a spinning loading wheel when a video is loading or buffering.
Minimize to System Tray: When this setting is turned on, Air Media Player will automatically minimize the main window to the system tray instead of the taskbar whenever the main window is minimized by the user.
Show loading wheel: This setting, when enabled, will cause Air Media Player to show a spinning loading wheel when a video is loading or buffering.
Minimize to System Tray: When this setting is turned on, Air Media Player will automatically minimize the main window to the system tray instead of the taskbar whenever the main window is minimized by the user.
Hide System Tray notifications: When enabled, Air Media Player will not display any messages from the system tray, such as the one above.
Player always on top: Makes Air Media Player always be on top of other windows, even when it does not have focus. This setting is useful when you need to watch a video while doing something else.
Language setting: Customise the language of Air Media Player's controls and messages. English is the default language.
Controls transparency: Sets the transparency, in percentage, of the controls box (shown below).
Player always on top: Makes Air Media Player always be on top of other windows, even when it does not have focus. This setting is useful when you need to watch a video while doing something else.
Language setting: Customise the language of Air Media Player's controls and messages. English is the default language.
Controls transparency: Sets the transparency, in percentage, of the controls box (shown below).
Hide controls: When enabled, the controls box will never be displayed.
Always show controls: When enabled, the controls box will always be displayed.
Always show controls: When enabled, the controls box will always be displayed.
Configuring the Video Playback Settings
The video playback settings give users basic control over the rendering of videos and the behaviour of Air Media Player when playing them.
Video driver: The video driver setting determines which video output method Air Media Player will use to draw the video on to your screen. Several options are available here, however, Direct3D and GL are the recommended video output drivers, as both are stable and work across a variety of computers.
Threads: The number of threads determines the maximum amount of parallel processing that can be done by Air Media Player at the same time. Usually the higher, the better, but 8 is considered optimal, as it does not slow down your system, nor trade off any performance while playing the video.
Use double buffering: Double buffering is a process where the next frame is loaded and stored while the current frame is being displayed. This ensures that there will be no irritating delays or flicking, and is recommended to be enabled at all times.
Use direct rendering: Direct rendering allows Air Media Player to utilize the machine's native video driver, and play your videos with hardware acceleration, if supported. Disabling direct rendering may lead to a laggy or slow video playback experience.
Start videos in full screen mode: When enabled, videos will start in full screen mode rather than in a window.
Keep video aspect ratio on resize: Allows the video to maintain its height to width pixel ratio when the player window is resized. This prevents visually distorted and uncoordinated playback.
Resize player window to video resolution: When enabled, Air Media Player will initially resize itself to match the dimensions (in pixels) of videos that it plays.
Pause video when minimized: When enabled, playing videos will pause whenever Air Media Player is minimized.
Threads: The number of threads determines the maximum amount of parallel processing that can be done by Air Media Player at the same time. Usually the higher, the better, but 8 is considered optimal, as it does not slow down your system, nor trade off any performance while playing the video.
Use double buffering: Double buffering is a process where the next frame is loaded and stored while the current frame is being displayed. This ensures that there will be no irritating delays or flicking, and is recommended to be enabled at all times.
Use direct rendering: Direct rendering allows Air Media Player to utilize the machine's native video driver, and play your videos with hardware acceleration, if supported. Disabling direct rendering may lead to a laggy or slow video playback experience.
Start videos in full screen mode: When enabled, videos will start in full screen mode rather than in a window.
Keep video aspect ratio on resize: Allows the video to maintain its height to width pixel ratio when the player window is resized. This prevents visually distorted and uncoordinated playback.
Resize player window to video resolution: When enabled, Air Media Player will initially resize itself to match the dimensions (in pixels) of videos that it plays.
Pause video when minimized: When enabled, playing videos will pause whenever Air Media Player is minimized.
Configuring Audio Playback Settings
Although there are not much audio playback options, some of them may prove to be useful nevertheless.
Audio Driver: This option allows you to choose which output method will be used by Air Media Player to play audio. Like the video driver setting, there are many options, however DSound, Win32 and SDL are the recommended settings.
Equalize Audio: When enabled, Air Media Player will attempt to smooth out unnatural sounds by equalizing the audio data before it is played.
Sync audio and video: Ensures that the audio stream will always be in sync with its corresponding video stream. However, this setting may not prevent out-of-sync video playback if your computer's processor is significantly slow or outdated.
Equalize Audio: When enabled, Air Media Player will attempt to smooth out unnatural sounds by equalizing the audio data before it is played.
Sync audio and video: Ensures that the audio stream will always be in sync with its corresponding video stream. However, this setting may not prevent out-of-sync video playback if your computer's processor is significantly slow or outdated.
Configuring the Subtitle Settings
Besides audio and video, there's a third key element in watching videos: subtitles! The Subtitles Tab allows you to tweak a key settings concerning how Air Media Player selects and displays subtitles.
Subtitle Font Size: Sets the font size of subtitles when they are displayed. Minimum font size is 1, and maximum font size is 100. Recommended subtitle font size should be between 10 and 20.
Find and load subtitles automatically: When enabled, Air Media Player will search the video's folder for subtitle files that are similar in name. E.g. Before playing The Simpsons.mp4, Air Media Player will automatically check for subtitle files with similar names such as Simpsons Movie En.srt and load them along with the video if they exist.
Preferred Subtitle/Audio Language: Allows you to set a preferred subtitle/audio language such that when there are multiple subtitle or audio tracks in a video file or DVD, Air Media Player will automatically play those that are in your preferred language.
Subtitle timing adjustment: Specifies the amount in seconds of how long subtitles should be delayed by. Positive values indicate that subtitles will be delayed, while negative values mean subtitles will be displayed earlier.
Find and load subtitles automatically: When enabled, Air Media Player will search the video's folder for subtitle files that are similar in name. E.g. Before playing The Simpsons.mp4, Air Media Player will automatically check for subtitle files with similar names such as Simpsons Movie En.srt and load them along with the video if they exist.
Preferred Subtitle/Audio Language: Allows you to set a preferred subtitle/audio language such that when there are multiple subtitle or audio tracks in a video file or DVD, Air Media Player will automatically play those that are in your preferred language.
Subtitle timing adjustment: Specifies the amount in seconds of how long subtitles should be delayed by. Positive values indicate that subtitles will be delayed, while negative values mean subtitles will be displayed earlier.
- E.g. A value of 5 means subtitles will be delayed by five seconds, while a value of -5 means subtitles will be displayed five seconds earlier than they should be.
- Note: If you want to adjust the timing of subtitles while a video is playing, right click on the screen, go to the 'Subtitles' menu, and click 'Adjust Timing'. Alternatively, you can just press Control and T simultaneously instead.
Configuring Air Media Player File Associations
The file associations section of the Settings Window allows users to select which file formats will open by default with Air Media Player.
Set as default media player: Click this button to set Air Media Player as the default media player. This means that Air Media Player will automatically open any supported video formats such as mp4, mp3, avi, mov, etc whenever they are opened from Windows Explorer.
Manually choose formats to play: If you wish to only select a few specific formats to associate with Air Media Player, click this button, and a list of available formats (similar to the one below) to associate with the program will show.
Note: Under Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, additional instructions may be required to set Air Media Player as the default media player. If you use Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, please follow this file association guide.
Manually choose formats to play: If you wish to only select a few specific formats to associate with Air Media Player, click this button, and a list of available formats (similar to the one below) to associate with the program will show.
Note: Under Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, additional instructions may be required to set Air Media Player as the default media player. If you use Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, please follow this file association guide.
The list of available formats to associate with Air Media Player
Configuring the Miscelleanous Settings
More technical settings are available under the other tab in the Settings Window. These settings allow you to control the technical side of Air Media Player's engine.
Player process priority: This setting determines the priority Air Media Player will have when playing videos.
Additional Player Arguments: Allows users to specify additional arguments for the media player engine, MPlayer. Arguments for MPlayer are available for reference in MPlayer's user manual.
- A normal priority means that Air Media Player will not have any preferential treatment by your operating system, allowing other applications to have fair resource consumption; this option is recommended.
- Above normal and High settings allow Air Media Player to be allocated more resources than other applications, and is recommended only when Air Media Player is the only application that is running.
- Below normal and Low settings will cause Air Media Player to be allocated less resources relative to other applications and is recommended when you intend to watch videos and multitask on other applications.
Additional Player Arguments: Allows users to specify additional arguments for the media player engine, MPlayer. Arguments for MPlayer are available for reference in MPlayer's user manual.