Thumbnails are convenient for previewing clips, but the player is larger and offers considerably more playback options. It presents clips at a width of 720 pixels, and usually at 100% JPEG quality. In addition, the player has controls for stepping through the action, looping, and playing backward.

From most areas of the user interface, double-clicking a clip opens the player and loads the clip into it. WiretapCentral automatically generates and downloads the high-resolution version from the clip on the volume, then streams the playable version to the player. For long clips, this can take a few seconds, depending on the network interface and processing power of the WiretapCentral server. If the clip has an NTSC or PAL proxy on the volume, the process is usually very close to real-time. As with thumbnails, you can begin playing as soon as the clip begins downloading.