Sounds like your problem was that while KDE supports SMB, your player does not.
While Gnome will use fuse to mount SMB into the actual file system, KDE built supports for protocol like SMB natively into their libraries.
The KDE approach has the advantage that you get native permissions and don't have to mount them into the filesystem, while the gnome approach has better backwards compatibility for third party apps.
That said, KDEs players as well as VLC should have worked. I'm using KDE with SMB daily.
While Gnome will use fuse to mount SMB into the actual file system, KDE built supports for protocol like SMB natively into their libraries.
The KDE approach has the advantage that you get native permissions and don't have to mount them into the filesystem, while the gnome approach has better backwards compatibility for third party apps.
That said, KDEs players as well as VLC should have worked. I'm using KDE with SMB daily.