FastPlay

FastPlay is a fast, keyboard-first video player for Windows, built for opening local files quickly, scrubbing smoothly, and staying out of your way.

No media library. No plugin maze. No feature sprawl. Just fast local playback, responsive controls, and a focused Windows-native experience.

Download FastPlay v0.4.6 for Windows x64 (MSI) • Portable ZIP • All releases • Report an issue

Current status: FastPlay is stable for everyday local playback on Windows x64. Development is now focused on maintenance, bug fixes, and useful feature requests.

fastcast_20260816_234519.720p30.mp4

Get started

1. Install FastPlay using the MSI above, or download the portable ZIP.
2. Open a video directly, drag a file onto FastPlay, or set FastPlay as your default Windows media app.
3. Drop multiple files or a folder onto the window to create a temporary play queue.
4. Use the keyboard for fast seeking, playback control, zoom, rotation, screenshots, and more.

FastPlay is designed for local playback. No account, migration, or internet connection is required.

Why FastPlay exists

Most of the time, opening a video player is simple: you have a local file and you want to watch it.

FastPlay is built around making that moment as frictionless as possible:

• open the file quickly
• show the first frame quickly
• scrub and seek without fighting the player
• remember where you stopped
• fit the video cleanly to the screen
• stay responsive
• get out of the way

Mainstream players such as VLC and MPC-HC are excellent and support far more features.

FastPlay deliberately does less.

It is a focused Windows player for people who want a snappy, no-friction window for the local file in front of them.

Features

Fast local playback

• quick open and first-frame path
• responsive keyboard seeking
• accelerated seek while holding the arrow keys
• timeline scrubbing
• automatic per-file resume positions
• replay at end of playback
• in/out points with range playback and looping
• lightweight multi-file and folder play queues
• automatic advance to the next queued file
• playback metrics including open-to-frame latency, seek latency, and dropped frames

Video

• FFmpeg-based demux and decode
• D3D11 hardware video decode on the preferred path
• software decoding fallback with D3D11 upload and presentation
• high-frame-rate playback, including 120 fps at full cadence on high-refresh displays
• automatic rotation from stream display-matrix metadata
• manual 90-degree rotation
• portrait-aware window sizing for phone videos
• cursor-centered zoom
• drag-to-pan while zoomed
• fit-to-screen sizing without black padding
• half-native-resolution window sizing

HDR

• native HDR output on HDR displays
• HDR10 PQ support
• HLG support
• iPhone HDR recording support
• 10-bit PQ swapchain output
• HDR10 static metadata passed to the display
• GPU tone mapping to SDR when the active display is not using HDR

Audio

• WASAPI shared-mode audio output
• audio-master playback timing when audio exists
• audio-only file playback
• .mp3, .flac, .wav, .m4a, and .opus playback
• idle background while playing audio-only files

Window behavior

• normal framed windowed mode
• remembered frameless windowed mode
• move and resize frameless windows normally
• maximize frameless windows
• borderless fullscreen
• per-monitor DPI awareness
• minimum window size enforcement
• device-loss and resize recovery

Press Ctrl+Shift+S to switch between framed and frameless windowed modes. FastPlay remembers your preference for future instances.

Subtitles

FastPlay currently supports external .srt sidecar subtitles.

Features include:

• runtime subtitle toggle
• comma or period millisecond separators
• UTF-8 with BOM
• Windows-1252 fallback
• stripping of common formatting tags such as <b>, <i>, <u>, and <font>

Compared to VLC and MPC-HC

FastPlay is not trying to beat mature media players on feature breadth.

	FastPlay	VLC	MPC-HC
Primary focus	Fast local Windows playback	Broad media playback	Lightweight Windows playback
Platforms	Windows x64	Cross-platform	Windows
Streaming / network	No	Yes	Limited
Media library	No	Yes	Basic
Per-file resume	Built in	Configuration/plugin dependent	Limited
Render path	D3D11-first	Multiple backends	DirectShow / optional renderers
Philosophy	Focused and minimal	Broad and configurable	Lightweight and configurable

Use VLC or MPC-HC when you need extensive format coverage, streaming, playlists, deep configuration, or broader platform support.

Use FastPlay when you want to double-click a local file and start watching it with as little friction as possible.

Controls

Key	Action
Space	Pause / resume / replay at end
Left	Seek backward 5s, hold for 15s steps
Right	Seek forward 5s, hold for 15s steps
Ctrl+F	Move one frame forward
Ctrl+B	Move one frame backward
Ctrl+O	Open media file
Ctrl+Shift+O	Recent files overlay
PageUp / PageDown	Previous / next queued file
Ctrl+S	Save screenshot
Ctrl+Shift+S	Toggle framed / frameless windowed mode
S	Toggle subtitles
I	Set in-point
Shift+I	Clear in-point
O	Set out-point
Shift+O	Clear out-point
R	Loop active range or toggle auto-replay
MouseWheel	Adjust volume
Esc	Exit borderless fullscreen
Ctrl+H	Toggle borderless fullscreen
Ctrl+W	Fill screen height without black padding
Ctrl+Q	Half-native-resolution window size
Ctrl+R	Rotate clockwise 90°
Ctrl+E	Rotate counter-clockwise 90°
Ctrl+MouseWheel	Zoom at cursor
Ctrl+Drag	Pan while zoomed
Drag	Move window in frameless mode
Ctrl+0	Reset zoom, pan, and rotation
H (hold)	Show controls overlay
[ / ]	Decrease / increase playback speed
\	Reset playback speed to 1×
Backspace	Cancel scrub and return to original position
`	Toggle HW / SW decode mode in title bar

The recent-files overlay supports:

• ↑ / ↓ to select
• Enter to open
• Del to remove an entry
• Esc to close

Timeline scrubbing is available by hovering near the bottom of the window and clicking or dragging.

In / Out range

Press I to mark where playback begins and O to mark where it ends.

In	Out	Playback range	Space at end returns to
—	—	start → end	start
✓	—	in-point → end	in-point
—	✓	start → out-point	start
✓	✓	in-point → out-point	in-point

Press R while a range is active to loop it continuously.

Use Shift+I and Shift+O to clear individual points.

In/out points reset when a new file is opened.

Goals

FastPlay prioritizes:

• low open-to-first-frame latency
• responsive seeking and scrubbing
• GPU-resident presentation on the normal hardware path
• predictable playback behavior
• narrow, maintainable architecture
• Windows-specific performance
• useful controls without unnecessary product complexity

Non-goals

FastPlay does not currently aim to provide:

• media library management
• metadata scraping or collection organization
• network or streaming playback
• plugin support
• a browser or web interface
• full persistent playlist management
• advanced subtitle styling
• embedded subtitle track selection
• metadata-driven dynamic HDR tone mapping
• exposure or curve controls
• additional hardware rendering backends beyond the current D3D11-first design

FastPlay does support lightweight queue and folder playback, but those queues are temporary and intentionally much simpler than a full playlist or media-library system.

Known limitations

• Windows x64 only. There are currently no macOS, Linux, Windows ARM, or other platform builds.
• Format support is broad but not exhaustive. Playback depends on the FFmpeg build used by FastPlay. Uncommon or exotic formats may not work.
• External .srt subtitles only. Embedded subtitle tracks and other subtitle formats are not currently loaded.
• Queues are session-only. There are no persistent playlist files, shuffle mode, or in-window queue browser.
• Folder scanning is non-recursive.
• No streaming or network sources. FastPlay is intentionally focused on local files.
• WASAPI shared-mode audio only. There is currently no exclusive mode or runtime audio-track switching.
• HDR mode is selected when a file is opened. If an HDR video is opened on an HDR display and the playing window is then moved to a non-HDR display, the image may appear washed out until the file is reopened.

Requirements

For normal use:

• Windows 10 or later
• Windows x64
• D3D11 / DXGI / WASAPI-capable system

Rust and FFmpeg development files are not required when using the normal MSI or portable release.

Portable version

The portable Windows ZIP can be downloaded from the release links at the top of this page.

Portable FastPlay does not require installation, but it still stores:

• settings
• recent-file history
• resume positions
• logs

under:

%APPDATA%\FastPlay

Building from source

Requirements

• Rust toolchain
• FFmpeg development headers and libraries
• Windows development environment with D3D11, DXGI, and WASAPI support

FFmpeg setup

build.rs supports several FFmpeg discovery methods.

Preferred

Set:

FFMPEG_DIR

Or configure paths explicitly

FFMPEG_INCLUDE_DIR
FFMPEG_LIB_DIR
FFMPEG_BIN_DIR

FFMPEG_BIN_DIR is optional.

Fallback search locations

FastPlay also checks:

%VCPKG_ROOT%/installed/x64-windows
%USERPROFILE%/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows
C:\tools\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows

The build expects the standard FFmpeg development layout containing include/ and lib/.

Runtime DLL staging also works when a bin/ directory is available.

Build

cargo build --release

Create a portable ZIP

.\scripts\package-portable.ps1 -SkipBuild

The resulting archive is written to:

target\dist\

Run from source

Normal playback:

cargo run --release -- <path-to-media>

Force software decoding:

cargo run --release -- --force-sw <path-to-media>

You can also drag and drop media directly onto the FastPlay window.

External subtitles

FastPlay supports external sidecar .srt subtitles.

Place the subtitle file beside the video using the same basename:

movie.mp4
movie.srt

FastPlay automatically loads the matching subtitle file when the video is opened.

Architecture

FastPlay is intentionally Windows-focused and uses a D3D11-first playback architecture.

Preferred video path

FFmpeg
  ↓
AV_PIX_FMT_D3D11
  ↓
D3D11 video processor
  ↓
DXGI present

Software decoding fallback

FFmpeg demux
  ↓
software decode
  ↓
D3D11 upload
  ↓
D3D11 video processor
  ↓
DXGI present

Audio path

FFmpeg decode
  ↓
WASAPI shared-mode sink

Subtitle path

SRT sidecar
  ↓
CPU parsing and layout
  ↓
GPU alpha composition during present

For the full implementation charter, see ARCHITECTURE.md.

Project structure

src/
  app/        # session coordinator, commands, events, state
  audio/      # audio sink abstractions
  ffi/        # FFmpeg / D3D11 / DXGI / WASAPI interop
  media/      # source, video, audio, seek, subtitle
  platform/   # Win32 window/input
  playback/   # clock, metrics, queue policy, generations
  render/     # presenter, swapchain, surface registry, timeline overlay

Feedback and feature requests

FastPlay is now stable for my own everyday use, so active development will be more selective while I work on other projects.

If there is a bug, format issue, workflow improvement, or feature that would make FastPlay better for you, please open an issue.

Useful requests are welcome.

License

MIT