// the find
anilbeesetti/nextplayer
An Android native video player
NextPlayer is a local video player for Android built on Media3/ExoPlayer with an FFmpeg extension for software decoding. It handles the usual local media use cases — folder browsing, subtitle tracks, gesture controls — with a clean Material You UI. Target audience is anyone who wants an open-source VLC alternative that doesn't look like it was designed in 2008.
The tech stack is well-chosen: Media3 for hardware decode, FFmpeg extension for software fallback, Room for playback state persistence, and Hilt for DI — all current Android best practices. The multi-module Gradle setup (core/data, core/database, core/media, core/domain) is properly layered, not just folders with 'module' in the name. Format support is genuinely broad: HEVC, AV1, DTS-HD, TrueHD, ASS/SSA subtitles — this covers most real-world files without needing a separate app. Available on F-Droid with no ads and minimal permissions, which matters to the privacy-conscious crowd this type of app attracts.
Background playback and external audio support are listed as 'planned features' with no timeline — these are table stakes for a media player and their absence limits the app to pure video-only use. The SSA/ASS subtitle styling limitation is punted to an upstream ExoPlayer issue that has been open for years; if you watch anime with complex subtitle styling, you'll notice immediately. No Android TV support yet, which cuts off the couch use case entirely. The README warns 'expected to have bugs' — that's honest, but combined with no visible test coverage beyond a couple of database DAO tests, there's no safety net when regressions happen in the player core.