Question / Help Alternative to VLC for watching RTMP streams?

[Toshiko]

Having gone to the trouble of setting up an RTMP server, I've found that VLC is wrought with inexplicable errors. Every 3 out of 4 viewings, VLC will decide that the format is undecipherable and require a close and restart. When viewing IS successful, it will randomly stumble over keyframes and decide the image needs to be grey for ten seconds. The same settings for any streaming website I have an account with (which are many and varied) produce no such errors, though I will concede they are more sophisticated than our particular server.

I've spent several days searching on Google for an alternative player, and only ever get results that say 'VLC'. Is there really no alternative?

 

[Jack0r]

Mplayer, but it often crashed for me. Less buffering and lost keyframes though.
For my nginx server if I want to check my stream I normally used jwplayer in a browser window. That about always worked.

 

[Toshiko]

Fortunately, Mplayer hasn't given me any crash issues yet in the short amount of time I tested it, nor had any dropped keyframes. Once instance of buffering, though that was likely my own fault. This may well be a very good alternative. Thank you!

 

[Toshiko]

Not to double post, but after having jwplayer properly installed on the RTMP server, that has definitely become the preferred option. Only 2 seconds of latency to Mplayer's 8 (which I was never able to shrink with any amount of tinkering), and never an issue of any sort over several days of stress testing. More CPU usage, but that's only close to being an issue on my 7 year old laptop, leaving it not all that problematic in the end.

Mplayer hasn't failed me in any way other than latency, and is still worlds better than VLC in every regard. Still better than, say, Twitch.tv, but definitely on the slow side. Out of every possible configuration, jwplayer's latency is absolutely unmatched, with no drawbacks.

Thanks again!