Looking For A Lightweight Media Player? Try Media Player Classic – Home Cinema [Windows]

Looking For A Lightweight Media Player? Try Media Player Classic – Home Cinema [Windows]

As of 2012, there are a ton of media players available on the market, and many of them are free. With such a large selection, sometimes it can be hard to pick which software will suit you best.

For media players, I’ve tried a bunch of them but ultimately settled on Media Player Classic – Home Cinema, which will be known as MPC-HC from here on out. Pay special attention to the fact that I’m talking about the Home Cinema version–NOT the original version that was released way back in 2003.

The Home Cinema fork of Media Player Classic began in 2006 after deviating from the original codebase. At the time of this article, this new branch continues to run strong in terms of development and perpetually adapts to the ever-changing world of video codecs and file formats.

MPC-HC is both free and open source but, sadly, only available on Windows. For other operating systems, check out some of these other media players for Linux or Mac.

Interface

If you are someone who loves clean, sleek, or minimalist designs, then you’ll love MPC-HC. In its windowed form, there is little to no clutter. Everything is neatly arranged in an intuitive manner. Nothing is extraneous.

Other media players may have unique skin designs that try to emulate the look of a DVD player or something along those lines. MPC-HC does not. Instead, it follows the traditional Windows layout consisting of a menu bar, a status bar, a control bar, and the main playback area.

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In addition, when a special control or toggle is invoked (such as when you change the volume or enable subtitles), a tight overlay appears in the corner. It’s both informative and unobtrusive.

Built-In Codecs

One of the great things about MPC-HC is that it supports a number of different codecs straight out of the box. From MPEG to Xvid, from VCD to DVD, you’ll be able to watch nearly any video encoding format without having to install third-party codec packs.

Straight from the MPC-HC website itself, they say:

MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 playback. Media Player Classic is capable ofVCD, SVCD and DVD playback, without the need to install any additional software or codecs.

And also:

MPC Home Cinema also has H.264 and VC-1 with DXVA support, DivX, Xvid, and Flash Video formats available. MPC can also use the QuickTime and the RealPlayer architectures. Media Player Classic supports native playback ofOGM and Matroska container formats.

Supported File Formats

As a media player, MPC-HC does more than just video playback. If you ever need to listen to a single audio track or view a single image, MPC-HC has got you covered.

MPC-HC supports these video formats out of the box:

MPEG, MPG, MP2, VOB, ASX, ASF, WM, WMV, AVI, D2V, MP4, SWF, MOV, QT, FLV, MKV

MPC-HC supports these audio formats out of the box:

AC3, DTS, WAV, WMA, MP3, M3U, PLS, WAX, OGG, SND, AU, AIF, AIFC, AIFF, MIDI, CDA

MPC-HC supports these image formats out of the box:

JPEG, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP

Other Features

But there’s more! Some other great features included in MPC-HC:

• Option to enable anti-tearing. Tearing can be a jarring experience when you’re watching a video on your computer. MPC-HC can utilize a graphic mode that is often used for video games in order to solve tearing.
• Remote control access for Androids. By installing the MPC – Remote Lite app on your Android device, you can interact with MPC-HC from a distance. This is great for those times when you’re watching a movie on your computer from a distance and want to pause, rewind, or skip without getting up.
• Better support for 64-bit versions of Windows. The 64-bit version of MPC-HC willonly use the 64-bit codecs installed on your machine.

Final Verdict

There are some big name giants in the realm of free media players, including VLC, Windows Media Player, KMPlayer, and others. In steps MPC-HC with its resource-efficient and minimalist design.

It may or may not fit your personal preferences, but there’s no denying that this media player is one of the best available.

UMPlayer – Another Feature Packed Cross-Platform Media Player

UMPlayer – Another Feature Packed Cross-Platform Media Player

There’s no shortage of quality free media players to entertain your eyes and ears, regardless of your computer or operating system. With cracking cost-free solutions like VLC (often considered the king of media players) and iTunes alternative JetAudio, you really shouldn’t be paying for this sort of software.

Universal Media Player, or UMPlayer for short, is yet another addition to the media player category which uses the MPlayer backend to chew through any media you give it. The app promises to play everything and integrates various web services into one desktop solution.

There are versions available for Windows (XP, Vista and 7) and Linux (Ubuntu and Debian binaries and an RPM) with a Mac OS X version currently in development and destined for release any day now. The version I’m testing here is 0.9 (Linux) on Ubuntu 10.10.

Features & Playback

Thanks to the fantastic MPlayer backend, UMPlayer is able to play a healthy number of digital formats without the need for extra codecs. This includes your bog standard SD content, disc-based media (but no BluRay) and HD files (even in containers, like Matroska video). To quote the UMPlayer team:

“It plays most MPEG/VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska, NUT, NuppelVideo, FLI, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, PVA files, supported by many native, XAnim, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5, WMV and even H.264 movies.”

Another benefit to using MPlayer is the vast number of output options offered, including X11, OpenGL and VESA (amongst a ton of others). There’s also support for older, outdated graphics cards which should make UMPlayer a decent app to stick on an old PC.

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For an easy-on-the-eyes viewing experience, MPlayer also features shadowed anti-aliased subtitles with support for 12 different subtitle formats (and DVD subtitles too) and various different fonts and scripts. So far, so VLC; and that even goes for the interface (though it does for most media players).

The program is completely skinnable, and there are five to choose from after installation. Despite the Get More Skins link under Options, there’s little to choose from in the official skins gallery so (once again) it’s up to the community to provide the real choice.

Under the hood you’ll find plenty to tweak and adjust in UMPlayer’s options. From custom command line parameters to forcing frame drop to maintain sync, this is a heavily customizable program. Saying that, you won’t find yourself changing an awful lot (if anything) unless you’ve got some specific demands from the software.

Convinced? Well there’s still a couple of extra features that might just persuade you to ditch your current media player yet!

Online Integration

You may have noticed the small search box in the top right of the UMPlayer window in a number of screenshots. This can be used to search both YouTube and Winamp’s Shoutcastservice for streaming video and radio stations. Despite YouTube being a bit flaky on my Ubuntu laptop, Shoutcast worked flawlessly.

When you search either service your results are displayed in a separate window. Double click a result of your choosing and UMPlayer will do its utmost to launch your chosen video or radio station. It’s a nice, fast way of browsing for media – with a couple of extra services to choose from (Hulu, Vimeo and so on) it would be a killer feature.

UMPlayer can also fetch free subtitles for you. Simply open up your chosen media, clickSubtitles and then Find Subtitles on OpenSubtitles.org. A new window will open displaying all available subtitles for the film or program you happen to be watching. Click Download to download the file and never have to worry about subtitles again.

Conclusion

Is UMPlayer a VLC-beating media solution? Possibly. That totally depends whether you’re hankering for a dekstop YouTube solution, love internet radio or regularly rely on subtitles. Apart from those few features there’s very little to separate the two.

Both are light on system resources. Both can play pretty much everything you throw at them. Both are free! Give it a go for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments below.

KMPlayer – The Best Media Player Ever?

KMPlayer – The Best Media Player Ever?

KMPlayer, also known as K-Multimedia Player or KMP, is a free media player for Windows. It natively supports a myriad of audio and video formats, meaning the regular user will never have to worry about codecs. In addition, it offers many advanced features, is extremely customizable, and is available in multiple languages. If you are looking for a versatile multimedia player for Windows, KMPlayer may be just the one.

Do not confuse this KMPlayer with KMPlayer from KDE.org, which was developed for Konqueror / Linux and first released in 2010. The original KMplayer was first released in 2002.

Despite being a powerful tool, KMPlayer has long been an insider among geeks and never gained widespread attention. This may in part be due to its Korean origin and a lack of a professional web representation and English user manual or help files. On the other hand, KMPlayer does have a very strong user base and an active forum. Yet it is notorious for its bad documentation, which is especially discouraging for novice users. However, using KMPlayer is not as challenging as it sounds and this article will shed some light.

First Impressions

KMPlayer has a functional and unpretentious interface.

The basic player controls are located in the bottom left. To its right you can view information about the file and filters, set the audio streams (left, right or both channels), and control playback sections (from point A to point B). The elapsed time (or system time if no file is loaded) is displayed on the far right and you can also set repeat and shuffle options. The volume control is situated in the bottom right.

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The Menus

A left-click on the KMPlayer logo in the top left corner opens the basic file menu.

From there you can open the file navigator, as well as individual files, DVDs or Video CDs from your CD/DVD drive, and load subtitles or external audio.

A right-click anywhere onto the player opens the Main Control window.

This menu grants access to KMplayer’s extensive features. Almost every item in the list is a major menu of its own. For example while the basic file menu allows to load subtitles, the subtitle item in the Main Control menu lets the user define every little subtitle characteristic, including its alignment, font size or rotation. It takes a while to grasp the full depth and potential of these sub-menus and gain an overview.

Feature Overview

The endless list of features is what KMPlayer is famous for. It really is a shame that the developers have not released a proper manual for this advanced media player as many features are not self explanatory. Below is a summary of some of the most prominent features, which should give you a taste:

• Screen Controls: extensive control of player screen size, ratios, window transparency, and window on top features
• Pan & Scan: control window and frame position and size
• Playback: move between frames, jump back and forth, set repeat section, control repeat mode, re-sync audio, time shutdown
• Subtitles: search and find subtitles online, add multiple subtitles, control position and orientation of subtitles, re-sync subtitles, modify and merge subtitles
• Bookmarks / Chapter: bookmark positions within a file

Experienced users of KMPlayer will notice that this list only touches the surface. There are far more features and options available than mentioned above. The preferences window alone (>Main Control > Options > Preferences) hosts a myriad of settings, for example filter control, audio, video, and subtitle processing, color controls, and much more. Users can save their settings in presets and launch them as required or exchange them with other users for common projects.

If you are craving immediate access to even more features, you should launch the advanced menu to have many more options available at your fingertips, including audio and video effects, filters, capture options, and skins. To enable the advanced menu, open the > Main Control (right-click on player), go to > Options and check > Advanced Menu.

The Superficial Verdict

The KMPlayer interface is simple enough for the average person to use it as a basic media player. This, however, would be a waste because one thing KMPlayer doesn’t do is save system resources. Playing the same video file requires about 80% more system resources than VLC Player and even a little more than Windows Media Player. But if you are eager to play with your media files and get the best out of them and if you are willing to go through trial and error, then KMPlayer is a dream come true.

If KMPlayer did not convince you, I recommend you give VLC media player a spin. Get started with these articles:

• The VLC Media Player – Does it Really Play Everything?
• 6 Cool VLC Tips & Tricks You Might Not Know About

Although KMPlayer has been mentioned many times over on MakeUseOf, we haven’t written a lot about it. If you’re going to make the switch to KMPlayer or are already using it, however, you might want to know How to Bookmark Movies To Resume Where You Left Off. What other features should we highlight or where do you think documentation is lacking badly?

Do you think KMPlayer may be the best media player, or could become your favorite? If it already is, what do you love about it? If you don’t think it could replace your current favorite, why not?

The Superficial Verdict

The KMPlayer interface is simple enough for the average person to use it as a basic media player. This, however, would be a waste because one thing KMPlayer doesn’t do is save system resources. Playing the same video file requires about 80% more system resources than VLC Player and even a little more than Windows Media Player. But if you are eager to play with your media files and get the best out of them and if you are willing to go through trial and error, then KMPlayer is a dream come true.

If KMPlayer did not convince you, I recommend you give VLC media player a spin. Get started with these articles:

• The VLC Media Player – Does it Really Play Everything?
• 6 Cool VLC Tips & Tricks You Might Not Know About

Although KMPlayer has been mentioned many times over on MakeUseOf, we haven’t written a lot about it. If you’re going to make the switch to KMPlayer or are already using it, however, you might want to know How to Bookmark Movies To Resume Where You Left Off. What other features should we highlight or where do you think documentation is lacking badly?

Do you think KMPlayer may be the best media player, or could become your favorite? If it already is, what do you love about it? If you don’t think it could replace your current favorite, why not?

                                                  

The VLC Media Player – Does it Really Play Everything?

The VLC Media Player – Does it Really Play Everything?

The VLC media player is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia program, developed by the VideoLAN project. It’s available for all common operating systems, plus a few more. The website boldly states that “It plays everything!” and suggests you don’t need additional codecs. Well, is that so?

Sure enough, testing the most common file types, you will find that VLC leaves Windows Media Player in the dust. But what about rare formats? Is it capable of playing any audio and video file format out there?

This article will shed some light on the true capabilities of the VLC media player. I will reveal which file types it really supports and highlight some interesting features that, due to its simplistic interface, you may never have discovered.

How Come VLC Media Player Needs No Codecs?

Well, it does need codecs! However, it comes with nearly every codec built in. The developers did all the work, so you don’t have to worry about it. The question is, why don’t more developers follow this brilliant strategy of making life easier for the user?

Does It Really Play Everything?

VLC does handle an impressive amount of media and input formats. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that not every codec is included and hence not every file format supported. The list of supported formats reveals, for example, that it lacks support for some Indeo Video codecs. You can check out all supported input media, input formats, video formats, audio formats,

To be fair, it should be said that the Indeo codecs are proprietary, meaning they are not freely available. Besides, Indeo has become almost meaningless since the late 90′s. Intel essentially stopped developing and marketing it a decade ago. Subsequently, the codecs still come with several security vulnerabilities that likely will never be fixed. Taken together, it’s no wonder that there is only limited support for the corresponding files.

OK, Spill The Beans, What Else Does It Not Play?

There really isn’t a lot that VLC does not play. However, there are some exceptions. Let’s have a look at the facts for the three most popular operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Input media

VLC supports all  standard input media, including audio CDs, video CDs and DVDs, even DVB. Yet, it doesn’t play everything. The limits are as follows:

DCCP / RTP Unicast: supported only in Linux

SVCD: partial support only

DVB: plugin required for EyeTV on the Mac

MPEG encoder: not supported on the Mac

Video acquisition (webcam): only partial support for iSight on the Mac

HD-DVD and BluRay: not supported (details)

Input formats

Whether you want to play mpeg, avi, ogg, wav, or flv files, VLC rules them all, with a single excpetion: Real media files are only partially supported across all operating systems.

Video formats

All popular and a lot of mediocre and rare formats are supported. As mentioned and explained above, the only exception are files requiring the Indeo Video 4/5 codec.

Audio formats

Again, all popular formats are supported. And as indicated above, the only party pooper is Real Audio. It’s listed as only partially supported because the Sipr codec playback is not supported. Also Midi files have not been tested on the Mac.

For even more information, head over to the VLC Playback Features page.

What Else Should I Know About VLC?

Ok, so it only plays almost everything, but that definitely puts it light years ahead of any other free media player currently on the market. If that isn’t enough to convince you, have a look at the all of the additional perks that come with VLC. You probably had no idea they were there. Here is a list that will make your jaw drop:

playlist support.

subtitles support.

increase or decrease playback speed.

support for screencasting (recording the desktop).

streaming of live, unencrypted content to a monitor or HDTV.

in file audio and video bookmarks.

enhanced audio and video effects.

playback of damaged, incomplete, or unfinished video files.

access media files within .iso disk images.

DirectX Wallpaper and Direct 3D Desktop modes for video playback.

playback DVD’s regardless of region coding (RPC-1 firmware drives only).

portable version available.

free and open source.

Does that sound like a deal?

Conclusion

The VLC media player undeniably is the most versatile free media player out there. Not only does it support almost any file format, it also comes with an impressive collection of useful and entertaining extra features. Nevertheless, it’s a compact little program with a very uncluttered and easy to use interface. Best of all, it’s free and open source. What else could you possibly ask for?

Are you crazy about the VLC media player now? Check out our other resources:

VLC Media Player Is Now Available On All iOS Devices by Steven

3 Free Media Players that Support GPU Acceleration [Windows] by Matt

Kantaris ““ A Great New Media Player Based On VLC by Simon

Looking for alternatives? Another player that comes with native support for popular audio and video files is KMPLayer. It is also discussed in the article  Top 5 Free Media Players For Windows. However, it is only available for Windows. For some more comments, have a look at this question on MakeUseOf Answers: Which media player is the best?

Did you ever encounter issues with VLC Media Player? If it’s not your favorite media player, then what is?

 

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