Kinda, vlc uses libavcodec, which ffmpeg also exposes via CMD line, ffplay is a very very stripped down player, and handles a much wider scope of video than vlc does, for a multitude of reasons.
No not really, and on the very very rare occasion I have one, is not so much visual more just ..is? Very hard to explain, and I fucking hate it, feel like I was robbed of sleep time. Lol
'facts'