F-Droid

I recommend lower expectations.

I highly recommend VLC

What do you recommend?

VLC

It still is, but it used to be too

VLC has shown its age for like, the last 9 years now. There are a lot of minor inconveniences with the program that add up and have made me seek out better options. However, I haven't managed to completely get away from it since it still plays everything and mostly does what I want it to do.

The next best option I've found in the last year is KMPlayer. Lots of customization, mostly plays all files (AV1 stuff still crashes my KMP despite me having the codecs installed, whatever), and the video image doesn't artifact if you seek back and forth a lot like it does in VLC.

Edit: just realized which community I was in. There is a free Android version, though I have never used it. FWIW, I use KMP on desktop with strict firewall filters to block it from doing anything sus.

mpv

Looks like you have a project for yourself. I look forwards to the Sabre VLC Android fork

Next player

The only problem I have with VLC is audio sync for stuff on my SD card 😭

i personally run my own jellyfin server. the interface isn't quite there yet, but it's overall more usable. not sure it'd fit your use case though.

Thank you for asking, I've been thinking about this lately. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you

I'm not sure what all is going on with it, but mine will randomly start playing the last song I was listening to when I disconnect from a Bluetooth device or turn off Bluetooth. Not always, just sometimes. Even if I haven't used it for a month 😐

I'd be in to something new, also.

VLC is still my favorite all around player, and I would recommend supporting them with some funding to fix the bugs. You can try Auxio for local music and MPV for videos. There are many clients for streaming from your own server or others. It just depends on the protocol or platform you want to scrape.

Nova player

I use PotPlayer extracted and run in portable mode.

MPC-BE 64 or something like that. It’s one of the only apps I’ve found that can handle HDR really well, plus any file type I throw at it, and easily changes audio/subtitle tracks like in VLC by right clicking. It took me a while to set up though, I don’t even remember how I did it now. When I get back to my PC I’ll double check the name, there’s a few with similar names and not all we’re equal in my experience.

SVPlayer or VLC.