Hi, maker of Rose Player here. I was growing tired of VLC and KM Player (it got infested with ads recently). My problem with VLC was the lacking of thumbnail preview. and their fix step seek, the after-seek effect felt laggy for some videos, and i generally did not like the clutter (albeit bearable for a free software).

KM Player was a very good player for me, it was fast and repeated seek felt better, but after the original author sold it, it was infested with ads. KM Player did not have the thumbnail preview as well.

Then I found MPC-HC. it's under developed and archived in 2017, but man it was so insanely well engineered, saying this as a marketshare competitor does not make me ashamed. It did right most things, but I did not like the UX, I had to hold down arrow button significant amount of time for repeated seeking. MPC has thumbnail preview, but I did not like how they did it, it has a weird debounce that makes me pull my hair when i do hovering.

I then decided to make Rose Player. I was hesitant whether I should make it cross-platform, but I thought I should focus on solving the pain points first, all the problems I faced with former video players. I made it with C++, with WinUI 3. I am proud to say Rose Player has a very refreshing UX, no-lag seeking and shows instant thumbnail preview. Its light, weighs under 3mb. Get it on Microsoft Store and see if you like it :) It has 2 weeks free trial.

If you have tried it, and have feedback, positive or negative, please share in the comments. As a token of appreciation, I will give a free coupon for Rose Player for first ten feedback :)