The best PC Media Player

(First off-This not an AD - Just wanted to share a very good software that I thought is the best PC media player, and you'd like it too)

How many media players do you have installed in your PC? Let me guess ... a couple of them. Right? Well, it's hardly surprising. I used to have them too. I have Windows Media Player that plays Windows media(wmv,wma), AVI files, CD, DVD, MP3 etc. Then I have RealPlayer for playing Real Media(rm,rmbv) file. Then I also have QuickTime Player to play my QuickTime(.mov) movies. Then yet another one, Flv Player to play my flash video(flv) files. The list goes on. But that's not all!. I also found out that to play some of the newer formats viz. mp4, divx, xvid, h.264, mkv etc. I need to download their respective Codecs or find some Codec Packages that includes my playlist. In the end I have all of these multitude of PC media player and Codecs, which in the end begins to feel frustrating. It just clogs up my PC.

        That is until I stumble upon a free software called Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. It is originally called Media Player Classic, a simple, lightweight media player for PC originally made by Gabest which plays 'almost' every video and audio format, decodes DVD, SVCD, VCD made in MPEG-1,MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. (I say 'almost' in the chance I might find some format that it does not play. I haven't found one yet!). This media player software is a free PC media player for Windows including XP/Vista and Windows 7(both 32 & 64 bits) . It requires no additional software or codec installation. With this player installed, I can now uninstall all my assorted players & codecs, which frees up my system resources and unclogs my desktop icons, quick launch bar and Start menu.

Why rate Media Player Classic the best PC Media Player?

        • Plays All video/audio formats.

        • Exceptional Video and Audio Quality

        • Requires no additional codec installation

        • Multilingual support(18 International Languages)

        The current updated version Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, is an improved version of the original created by Gabest, contributed by a group of developers at Sourceforge.net(thanks to them), and includes many additional features and added support for other International languages.

Exceptional Quality PC media player/ DVD Windows decoder

        For such a lightweight media player(Installer size 3mb only!) it sure packs a lot of punches. The good thing about this free media player is that apart from supporting most of the media formats on offer today, the quality of playback of both audio and video is just amazing!. Being a bit of a movie/audiophile myself, I can assure you that the quality of the audio/video playback beats most of the bundled and paid media players in the market today. And it's totally Free!.

        For a freeware this software equals or beats most of the free or paid media players even in its advanced functionality. For the video enthusiasts, there are individual settings for video renderer, subtitles etc. Audio enthusiasts' would find the settings for audio codecs like AC3 etc. and 8 channel support unlimiting.

Here are some of the more detailed features of Media Player Classic - Home Cinema:

• Decoding of the following formats supported:MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, VCD, SVCD and DVD without the need to install any additional software or codecs.
• Built-in codecs for MPEG-2 video and codecs for LPCM, MP2, AC3 and DTS audio, and also contains an improved MPEG splitter that supports playback of VCDs and SVCDs using its VCD/SVCD/XCD Reader.
• *.mp4 and MPEG-4 Timed Text support added. An AAC decoding filter makes MPC suitable for AAC playback in MP4.
H.264 and VC-1 with DXVA support, DivX, Xvid, and Flash Video formats is available in MPC HC.
• MPC can also use QuickTime and RealPlayer architectures.
• Media Player Classic supports native playback of OGM and Matroska container formats.
• Supported Video, Audio and Image File Formats:
• WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, SND, AU, AIF, AIFC, AIFF, MIDI, MPEG, MPG, MP2, VOB, AC3, DTS, ASX, M3U, PLS, WAX, ASF, WM, WMA, WMV, AVI, CDA, JPEG, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, D2V, MP4, SWF, MOV, QT, FLV

Additional Features of the PC Media Player/ DVD decoder

• Option to remove Tearing.
• Better support for Windows Vista/Windows7, including a release for 64 bits platform.
• Support for EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer)
• Supports Subtitles.
• Playback and recording of television if a supported TV tuner is installed.
• Creation of minidump when MPC HC crashes.
• OSD (On Screen Display)
• Shuttle PN31 remote control support
• Support Multi-Monitor configuration
• Pixel shader to convert BT601 - BT701
• YV12 Chroma Upsampling pixel shader

Languages supported:

English, Belarussian, Brazilian, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified & Traditional Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema supports the following Windows OS versions:

• Windows NT
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP x32 and x64
• Windows Vista x32 and x64
• Windows 7 x32 and x64

Download: Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (32bit & 64bit)