Almost all of us enjoy listening music and watching videos, movies in our computer systems. If you are using Windows and didn't install any 3rd party software, you must be using default "Windows Media Player" to listen MP3 or watching videos.
Although Windows Media Player is a good multimedia player and works great but some people don't like it because of some limitations and heaviness on resources.
Today in this topic we are going to share some free and popular multimedia players which can be used as an alternative to Windows Media Player (WMP).
So without wasting time, lets list the best and most popular audio and video players available for Windows:
- VLC Media Player
- Media Player Classic
- Media Player Classic - Home Cinema
- ALLPlayer
- GOM Player
- KMPlayer (Thanks Ravi)
- DivX Plus Player
- Kantaris
- MediaPortal
- SMPlayer
- SPlayer
- UMPlayer
- Songbird
- foobar2000
- Winamp
- AIMP (Thanks Hackerpunk1)
- Daum PotPlayer (64-bit version) (Thanks NZero, ATX, Levar and Fauzie)
Please give them a try and let us know which one do you like the most and why?
This article was posted by VG in following section: Software.
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darkprop
VLC Media Player... simple and powerful... 100% customizable :D
Ivan
AIMP for music and KMPlayer for video!
sandeep sharma
all player are good. I want a plyer who integrated with explorer. Like window mediaplaye. And have all codec to play all media files in explorer without lounch.
Hackerpunk1
VG, you forgot to add another free, awesome audio player. Aimp
Best Regards,
Hackerpunk1
ravi
want some best and animated skins for my vlc. . . . Suiting wid rainmeter. . . .0where do i find it
Levar
Daum PotPlayer (Made my the same developer that made KMPlayer) native x64 compatible & GPU support
tvpot.daum.net/application/PotPlayer.do
Updates in English can be found here: dvbsupport.net/
Awesome player
Eric
VLC all the way
Rhor
VLC for video.
Simple and effective, minimal configuration, and since I get it on the portable version, I dont have to reinstall it everytime I wipe out my Windows 7 installation.
AIMP for music.
Tons of configuration options, attractive skin plus many others, WinAMP plugins compatibility, it reads music tags correctly, you can have it to display as only one small bar with some basic functions without blocking anything else on the screen, and as VLC, it has a portable version wich keeps user settings even after Windows reinstallations.
r0lZ
Foobar2000 for audio. Extremely powerful and highly customizable. Supports many playlists, drag and drops from Explorer/between playlists, seamless playback, replay gain, and everything needed to handle a large collection of audio files. Has many plugins to suit your needs.
Con: it comes with a very basic configuration, and is not really easy to customize.
The KMPlayer for video. (Not to be confused with KMPlayer, a relatively good multimedia player. The link in the article, despite its name, points as it should to The KMPlayer.) It is powerful, and it can play almost every video file, it displays subtitles and DVD buttons highlights correctly in all circumstances, unlike MPC or VLC.
Con: somewhat confusing interface, too complex and not always well organised. No DVD navigation buttons (such as the Root Menu button) in the GUI when playing a DVD (but it's a problem with almost all media players).
NZero
MediaMonkey
mediamonkey.com/
Available in a freeware version as well as a paid version ("Gold" license). Both editions can be extensively enhanced with skins, third-party plugins, and user-generated extension scripts. It uses SQLite to manage its database.
The freeware version of MediaMonkey can be upgraded to the GOLD version which allows you to access to a variety of cool features:
· File Monitor (automatically updates library)
· Integrated CD/DVD Burner (Audio & Data) Up to 48x
· Support for Multiple Collections (e.g. Rock & Classical)
· On-the-fly Audio Conversion and Leveling for Syncs and Burns
· Advanced Searches and AutoPlaylists
· Unlimited MP3 encoding
· Virtual CD / Previews & Sleep Timer
· Automatic library organizer (as a background process)
· High-speed conversion / leveling on multi-core systems
XBMC
xbmc.org/download/
An award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. Available for Linux, OSX, and Windows.
rulesPlayer
rulesplayer.altervista.org/
A clean and easy-to-use GUI for MPlayer under Windows, written in D and DWT.
· Offers to download or install software or components that the program does not require to fully function: Norton Security Scan
· Offers to create desktop or start menu shortcuts for items unrelated to the program's functionality
· Displays ad banners or other types of advertising material during its runtime
RealPlayer
A well known media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.
· Offers to download or install software or components that the program does not require to fully function: Norton Security Scan
· Offers to create desktop or start menu shortcuts for items unrelated to the program's functionality
· Displays ad banners or other types of advertising material during its runtime
My thought: Not recommend this "badware".
Read this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealPlayer#Criticism
UMPlayer | Universal Media Player
A open-source cross-platform multimedia player with dozens of advanced features and built-in codecs it can handle any media format, and can play Audio CDs, DVDs, (S)VCDs, TV / Radio cards, YouTube™ and SHOUTcast™ streams and even incomplete or damaged media files.
Online Installer: umplayer.com/download/
Offline+Portable version: sourceforge.net/projects/umplayer/files/
jetVideo
jetaudio.com/download/jetvideo.html
A useful tool that was designed in order to provide you with an easy to use and stylish means of viewing your videos and even convert them to the desired formats. It has special sound effect and subtitle features. It is able to playback most video file formats, and convert video files.
· Offers to change the default search engine for web browsers installed in the system
· Offers to install ASK Toolbar that the program does not require to fully function