"a quicktime alternative" - great buy!

[Mr. Clean]

i use this program myself and rather than writing a reveiw, im posting someone elses - which is very very accurate!

 

i hope you enjoy

 

QuickTime Alternative: A Lean, Mean Replacement for Apple's Multimedia Player

Adware and Bloatware Begone

Forrest Stroud and Adam Stone

 

 

Looking for a simple, low-maintenance, ad-free multimedia player, one that simply plays what you ask it to play and then leaves you alone? With many feeling that the official QuickTime Player from Apple has become overly bloated (24MB download and rising) and overloaded with iTunes and related ads, the (relatively) lean and mean QuickTime Alternative arrives at the perfect time.

 

QuickTime Alternative makes it possible to play QuickTime files without having to install Apple's QuickTime Player, allowing you to use the player of your choice for multimedia playback (the open source Media Player Classic is included in the 9MB download and is used by default).

 

 

 

QuickTime Alternative Screenshot

QuickTime Alternative is a slim and simple advertising-free application designed to easily play all QuickTime media content, including MOV, QT, and 3GP files as well as streamed multimedia content and QuickTime content embedded in Web pages. Plug-in codecs for Internet Explorer and Netscape/Mozilla are integrated as well.

 

When paired with KL's Real Alternative player, users will enjoy support for nearly every major multimedia format, including MP3s, MPEGs, AVIs, CD/DVD content, Windows Media (WMVs), RealAudio (RAs and RPMs), and RealMedia (RMs, RAMs, SMILs, and more) files.

 

We downloaded and installed QuickTime Alternative without any trouble. It did encourage us to first completely remove the existing QuickTime player, which we did without hesitation. After a quick and simple install — there's even a hands-free installation option — the application more than fulfilled its promise. We drove it hard, with each video opening virtually instantaneously and playing smoothly and efficiently.

 

Considering the application is free, QuickTime Alternative offers an impressive array of options and functions, including the ability to bookmark favorite files, adjust volume in the window, track progress of the file, and more. In short, it looks and feels like the competing players, which also are free. The big difference is that QuickTime Alternative, which plays multimedia content via the open source "Media Player Classic" by default, runs flawlessly and without the in-your-face advertisements or stealthy adware components frequently encountered in competing multimedia players.

 

That being said, it is important to mention some of the other contenders in the field.

 

UltraPlayer is a clean, competent media player with a simple interface that allows file management with just a few clicks. Rosoft Media Player supports a diverse array of audio and video formats, along with a powerful search function — and a pile of adware, too, unfortunately. Another offering, Ashampoo Media Player, delivers integrated burning support for audio, data, and MP3 CDs, plus a 10-band equalizer for maximum sound quality.

 

Among the most popular alternative media players is Winamp, a free application with a 10-band graphic equalizer, internet radio and TV support, skins support, and groovy visualizations. In other words, it is chock full of bells and whistles.

 

But do you need all those bells and whistles if all you really want to do is listen to your bells and whistles? When all is said and done, how much time do you want to spend configuring the skins and setting the bass and treble on your media player? We heartily endorse the maxim that life is too short to spend time configuring skins on a media player.

 

And that is why we like QuickTime Alternative, especially when paired together with Real Alternative. Both tools are simple and low-maintenance (not to mention, free). They play what we ask them to play — and then leave us alone. And that's exactly what a multimedia player should do.

 

 

Pros: All the same functionality as QuickTime without the added bloat and advertisements; freeware; plugins for Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, and Netscape

 

Cons: Based on QuickTime, so development will inevitably trail that of QuickTime; can be somewhat buggy and doesn't play all QuickTime content perfectly; only plays QuickTime content (although the companion Real Alternative client does an excellent job of handling RealPlayer, Windows Media, and other multimedia content)

[Andavari]

Old news, most folks on here know about QuickTime Alternative. If you have software suggestions, etc., post them in the Software sticky/pinned thread Freeware.

[Guest Mangix]

also the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack(which is made by the same company which made Quicktime alternative) has this built in along with the RealPlayer codecs. really nice

[rridgely]

VLC is the best.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

It plays anything and everything you can imagine.

[oli]

does that vlc thing let u watch online tv like winamp

[rridgely]

does that vlc thing let u watch online tv like winamp

 

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I don't think so, but thanks to that program I was able to get rid of realplayer and quicktime. It also plays DIVX and any other off the wall format that I have come across.