Best Media Player

[greyowl2]

I need a media player for my computer, but I have had no experience with any of them. I am wondering what is recommended by others who have more experience.

[Eli]

I need a media player for my computer, but I have had no experience with any of them. I am wondering what is recommended by others who have more experience.

I would personally recommend winnamp 5.56:

http://www.winamp.com/

 

I`m using this video/audio player for quite a long time with no problems here.

[mps69_1999]

I'd recommend VLC for video and Foobar 2000 for music, it can be a bit complicated to start with but it's pretty versatile, but you may want to look at Lifehacker, they done a people survey of the best media players and this is what they recommend Top Five

[hello2007]

yes vlc is the best imo

[JDPower]

Personally I love KMPlayer, plays every format I throw at it

[login123]

Thanks, JDPower, got it, will try it. Had an old ver, never tried it.

[fireryone]

I'm gonna give KM a go as well, I've always been a fan of VLC, so a change may be nice.

[fireryone]

> Ahh crappy "Pandora TV 4HD" ask.com toolbar came down with it, and no I didn't miss unchecking the tickbox (i always keep an eye out for it).

1. it adds the toolbar

2. it sets the serchbox default as ask.com. (even after uninstall it leaves ask.com in the search provider list, thankfully not set as default anymore)

 

It seems to be randomly installing anyway... so be prepared to uninstall a toolbar if you try this.

http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread....4989&page=2

 

 

note: I'm all happy with optional toolbars even if pre-checked, as long as i Always get an option to uncheck it "before" its installed!

[Andavari]

Audio - Foobar2000

Plays most audio formats, and it's a feather weight without any bloat, plus can be portable put onto CD's and DVD's as a player directly from those discs.

 

Video 1 - MPUI with MPlayer

Plays a literal ton of stuff, plus can be portable put onto CD's and DVD's as a player directly from those discs.

 

Video 2 - Media Player Classic Homecinema

Good if you already have the necessary codecs pre-installed, and good for "almost gapless" video playback of split videos.

 

That's what I use, and haven't had the need for anything else, and all three are free as well.

[ident]

Personally I love KMPlayer, plays every format I throw at it

 

jd knows

 

 

yes vlc does contain all its own codecs and does not require any system libraries. So whoopie doo it can play mostly anything. Which means all the codecs are older versions.

 

it cannot support subtitles for avi (and .rst, .psb, .usf, .ssf) though this might of changed now. as that was a older version ???????????

 

The only props i will give it is the ability to play incomplete downloads.

 

I prefer KMP it can do every thing VLC can do only better, and is lower in cpu then VLC,

 

i also suggest MPC-HC with ffdshow

[Icedrake]

I agree with Ident. I switched from VLC to KMP a few weeks ago after hearing about it, and I've never looked back. Is there anything this player can't play lol?

[Talldog9]

I mostly use SMPlayer exclusively now but keep others as well.

[greyowl2]

Thanks for all the great suggestions.

 

If others want to comment, I will appreciate all advise.

[razz]

For video I use MPlayer & for audio I use Spider

 

Have a look and see what you think - I'm very happy with both.

[JDPower]

> Ahh crappy "Pandora TV 4HD" ask.com toolbar came down with it, and no I didn't miss unchecking the tickbox (i always keep an eye out for it).

1. it adds the toolbar

2. it sets the serchbox default as ask.com. (even after uninstall it leaves ask.com in the search provider list, thankfully not set as default anymore)

 

It seems to be randomly installing anyway... so be prepared to uninstall a toolbar if you try this.

http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread....4989&page=2

Well that's a bit of a PITA, have never had a problem with it doing that before so will be extra vigilant when its next updated (though will hopefully be fixed by then)

[ishan_rulz]

I use VLC Media Player..

[M0NKEY]

I have tried Win Amp a number of times and I like it for the short time it works but my PC does not like it for some reason ???

 

Now I just use Windows Media Player (11? I forget sorry) and rip all my CDs in lossless format (1 or 2 down from RAW but only your dog would hear the difference) to the external hard drive that deals with all my movies and music.

 

I still use Power DVD from around 2000 - 2002, it works well so no need to replace it with modern versions.

 

They both run well in 5.1 sound and to date I have had no problems, but it is early yet

 

I still don’t know what problem my PC has with Win Amp ?????

The PC must be a fussy eater or it has an allergy

[Andavari]

I still don?t know what problem my PC has with Win Amp ?????

The PC must be a fussy eater or it has an allergy

Mine is also allergic to Winamp since Winamp crashes so much on it, but only in the Winamp v5 line.

 

Like you I also use lossless, FLAC in particular when archiving, and for playback on my system I use Ogg Vorbis auTov build, I used to use LAME but the sometimes gapless encoding/playback issues were enough for me to ditch it and go back to Ogg Vorbis which has no gapless issues. I also have an older version of PowerDVD and have no need to ever update it..

[M0NKEY]

Just a thought in passing regarding file format :

 

Regarding picture formats such as BMP, Jpeg, png, gif etc.

I have always hated Jpeg because it loses quality (erodes) over a short space of time in drive storage.

Therefore I always use RAW or BMP formats to keep good resolutions when stored on the PC. They are larger files, not such a big issue with modern HD space, so maybe it would suggest that sound files are the same as picture files?

 

A Raw file should outlive a MP3 file for instance.

I don?t have MP3 files but I have been told you can sometimes hear a change in the time signature and it loses solidity.

Unlike text files some types of data just don?t like to be crunched.

[marmite]

I have always hated Jpeg because it loses quality (erodes) over a short space of time in drive storage.

 

A Raw file should outlive a MP3 file for instance.

I don?t have MP3 files but I have been told you can sometimes hear a change in the time signature and it loses solidity.

No file 'loses' image or audio quality sitting on your drive.

 

You are correct to say that certain file types, those that exhibit what is known as lossless compression, are best as a 'reference copy' of a file ... they will always have optimum quality. If you save a (lossless) BMP as a (lossy) JPEG, you will lose some quality. That's why it's always better to have your original copy of (e.g. photo) files in something like RAW, BMP or lossless TIFF. If you want to publish a copy of your photo online, take an appropriate resolution JPEG because it's much smaller ... but always hang on to your original lossless copy.

 

Similarly, if you're editing a photo, work in lossless format. Don't keep saving as a JPEG ... you'll lose quality each time you save, even on 'maximum' quality.

 

A couple of articles ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression.

[M0NKEY]

I have seen pictures erode in jpeg format. When I first noticed it many years ago I ran tests on Jpegs. I have been using the PC for picture creation, movie creation, and editing for years.

BMP or RAW are the most common large format files for pictures but there are larger studio quality formats available for pictures and video files. Every picture I use is a large format unless it is a disposable picture say for an avatar or something like that.

Hard storage is on DVD and CD.

 

Sound files must be the same because surely it can’t only happen to Jpeg pictures exclusively.

Some musicians I know say they can tell if a track is warped or deteriorates with lower formats.

I only use Windows Media Player lossless for music because CDs seldom use anything higher in quality themselves. It is common to see CD tracks that don’t even go above 10,000 Kbs. A CD is only as good as its master. It is the same with any copy of audio, video or ink printed media.

 

Have never had a problem once with wmp but I would still like Win Amp to work.

[marmite]

I have seen pictures erode in jpeg format. When I first noticed it many years ago I ran tests on Jpegs.

If you keep saving the same JPEG file the quality will deteriorate - and yes you can see that when viewing each subsequent generation of the file.

 

If you open file A (a JPEG) and save, then save it again, and again, the quality will gradually deteriorate because the compression algorithm reduces the quality of the image each time.

 

If you open file A, save that as file B, save that as file C, the quality of file C will be less than that of B which will be less than that of file A. But the quality of the file A image will remain the same and will not erode over time on its own.

 

Any lossy file format will behave in the same manner.

[Andavari]

No file 'loses' image or audio quality sitting on your drive.

True, and one can always MD5 verify files for a proof of concept, or place SFV files in the directory with albums which is important if moving data around between disks, or burning them to discs.

[M0NKEY]

So what you are saying is rather than saving files one should always create new files regardless of the file type i.e. music, movie or picture ?

 

So why is there never a problem like this with text files or is that a font related thing ?

 

I only have a problem with Jpegs no other files do this to me, but then the other files get a lot less work done to them because they are better resolution to start with. Jpegs are just disposable files for my works.

[marmite]

Not quite . What I am saying is that if you save a file that uses a lossy compression file format, like a jpeg, you will lose quality compared to the original. Basically the loss of quality actually takes place at the time at which you save the file because that's when the lossy algorithm is applied.

 

So for example, if you are editing a photograph, it's always better to work with a lossless format. So I might decide to do all my edits in say lossless TIFF, so each time I edit the actual picture quality will be the same as the last. As you pointed out earlier, these files get very big. So I might keep the first one, in case I want to start all over again. I will definitely keep the last one ... that becomes the 'master' copy at maximum quality.

 

But TIFFs can be huge, so chances are I'll want to work with a jpeg if say, I want to send a high quality copy to a friend. so I will save that TIFF (create a new file) as a high quality jpeg. However, if I want to do a low-res and/or low quality copy to put on the web, I won't take it from the jpeg, I'll do a different copy from the TIFF - because that will have better quality than if I'd taken it from the first jpeg. Not a huge difference (because the first jpeg was high quality) ... but that's where quality starts to go once we keep taking jpegs from jpegs.

 

Doing a Windows or system file copy of a jpeg (or any other file) is fine ... that's just a byte for byte copy. You can copy those around to your heart's content and you won't lose quality.

 

So text files aren't normally compressed, and even when we use zip compression it uses a lossless format so that when we unzip we get exactly the same data back out.

 

In fact most data we work with on PCs is lossless - some will be compressed, like zip archives, but most isn't. Raw audio or pictures or video takes up a huge amount of space - so we use file formats with some form of compression in order to make them smaller ... and that's when you have to be careful if you do a lot of editing.

 

This doesn't mean jpegs are bad - far from it. Jpegs and other lossy formats all have a time and a place ... it's just being aware of the pitfalls Look at mp3s, which are also lossy ... everyone has 'em, but if you were producing music you wouldn't work with those as master copies.

 

Here's a better link re pics ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossy_compression