59 replies to this topic

[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]

greyowl2, on Oct 27 2009, 02:47 AM, said:

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]

JDPower, on Oct 28 2009, 05:14 AM, said:

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]

fireryone, on Oct 28 2009, 02:49 PM, said:

> 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]

M0NKEY, on Nov 27 2009, 08:29 AM, said:

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]

M0NKEY, on Nov 27 2009, 10:15 PM, said:

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....dio_file_format, http://en.wikipedia....ata_compression.