Totem doesn’t get much love in the geek world, something that I think should be corrected immediately. Allow me to start right here. I use Totem as my default player for everything. Sure, I’ve installed VLC (which I have planned for a review in a week or so), but I never can leave Totem.
One of the only problems that I have with Totem is the fact that it isn’t cross-platform in the least. It’s for the Gnome desktop environment, so non-Linux people will get no love.
But, if you’re one of us, Totem is fantastic. It’s lightweight, powerful, and has a great UI that isn’t cluttered, my largest gripe with VLC. You drag a file over and it plays. It’s as simple as that. It’s very good when it comes to streaming, as well. I’ve found that it can play any and everything that VLC can play, since it’s centered around GStreamer. It has excelled playlist support, works well with my IR remote, and gives detailed information about the media you’re watching for codec-obsessed people like me.
If you want a great video (and audio) player, this is your solution. Sure, there are more advanced players, but you can’t get a better video experience than with this.
And as a final note, I’ve had no trouble playing ripped Blu-ray discs with Totem.
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