PLAYit is a free video and music player for Android, iOS and Windows from PLAYIT TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. It brings local media playback, online video search and streaming, video-to-audio conversion and a password-protected private folder into one app. Its menus are available in several Indian regional languages, including Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, Punjabi and Malayalam.
Finding media on the device
On Android, PLAYit scans the phone’s internal storage and SD card and lists the video and audio files it finds. Users therefore do not have to open these files through a file manager. The scan leaves out files kept in hidden folders unless users turn on “show hidden files” in the settings. It then covers those folders too, which makes it take longer.
The player handles common video containers such as MP4, MKV, AVI, WebM, FLV, 3GP, M4V, TS and MPG, at resolutions up to 4K, plus audio files in MP3, AAC and WAV. When a file will not play, the “…” menu on the playback screen switches from the hardware decoder to the software decoder. Smooth 4K playback depends on the phone’s own processing power.
Playback screen controls
PLAYit’s video screen relies mainly on swipe gestures, which change volume, brightness and playback speed without opening a menu. Other controls switch between portrait and landscape, change the aspect ratio and zoom the picture. They also turn on an HDR mode that holds back overexposed highlights and brings out detail in darker parts of the image. The in-app volume control can boost volume up to 200% of the phone’s normal maximum. When a video is reopened, it resumes a few seconds before the point where it stopped.
A-B Repeat, found under Play Settings in the three-dot menu, loops a chosen section. Tapping “A” marks the start, tapping “B” marks the end, and the part in between then loops automatically. Holding the progress bar fine-tunes either point, and a checkmark saves the looped section as a separate short clip.
Floating window and background play
Users can shrink a video into a floating window and drag it anywhere on screen while using another app. Background play keeps the audio going when the user switches apps or turns the screen off, so PLAYit can also play a video’s soundtrack like a music track.
Music library and sleep timer
The music side of PLAYit gathers the audio files it finds into a library showing each song’s name, size, date and quality. Users can play single tracks or build custom playlists, and the player supports lyrics. Playback pauses automatically when headphones are unplugged.
The sleep timer works with both music and video. It offers presets of 10, 15 and 30 minutes and one hour, or a custom length. When the time runs out, playback stops; a video does not move on to the next file.
Converting video to MP3
PLAYit converts MP4 videos into separate MP3 files, either from a video in the library or from the conversion tool in the “ME” tab. The MP3 is independent of the original video. Users can therefore play it offline or share it like any other audio file.
Online videos and Smart Muxer
A built-in search engine finds online videos to stream inside the app. Users can also paste in a video URL to play it directly. PLAYit saves downloaded videos with Smart Muxer, its own method of joining the video and audio streams without re-encoding them. Files saved this way often will not open in other players, though they still play in PLAYit on another device. Turning Smart Muxer off in the settings produces more widely compatible files, but downloads may then be slower or fail when storage is low.
Private folder and recycle bin
The private folder holds videos and songs behind a password that is separate from the phone’s lock screen. Importing files, one at a time or several at once, encrypts them and removes them from their original location. As a result, they no longer appear in the gallery or the main library. Users can link an email address to recover a forgotten folder password.
Users can send files deleted in PLAYit to a recycle bin and open it from the trash icon at the top right of the screen. From there, users can restore them within 30 days. After that, they are removed permanently. Users can also empty the bin by hand at any time.
PLAYit for PC
PLAYit for PC is a standalone Windows program, not an Android emulator. It finds and plays the music and video files on the computer. Like the mobile app, it offers a floating window that users can move around, gesture-style speed and volume controls, MP4-to-MP3 conversion and playlist playback. On a Mac, the Android version has to run inside an emulator.
