Best Video/Movie Player
There are allot of movie players applications around. Some are great because of one thing and some because of other. I will try to help you choose the best movie/video player/application.
Windows 7 promises integration of video codecs out of the box, i really hope that its going to work as advertised, but for now, there are video applications that have codec’s integrated and players that you need additional codecs installed first and as everybody knows, video codec’s is something you need to play any kind of video.
Movie Player with integrated codec’s
You wonder how to play .mkv, .rmvb … files? Movie Player with integrated codec’s can be an answer for you! There are few popular applications in this group: VLC Player, SMPlayer(when downloading, choose “Package with installer”) and KMPlayer. VLC is most popular but does it mean that it is the best?
RMVB playback is my first benchmark. It is format that is problematic for many players. If our player should play everything, this is the format to see if its true.
VLC Player and SMPlayer passed this test(both of them supports Linux).
Take a look at iterface:
VLC Player (Interface is customizable by skins) :
If you don’t care to much, simply choose what looks better for you. VLC is the one with support for skins
Both applications are great but there are few things that makes SMPlayer better.
Why?
- better playback of rmvb
- Stores information about movie to let you easily continue playback after closing application in middle of the movie.
- Subtitles looks little bit better(You might need to change character coding for your language, experiment with options in: Settings[ctrl+p] > subtitles > default subtitle encoding)
Why not?
-SMPlayer does not support skins like VLC, in fact it is skin/mod for MPlayer.
Movie Player with additional codecs
Codecs:
First you need some codec pack. K-Lite codec pack is the best one. There are few variants of this pack. I am recommending MEGA pack(during installation select playback essentials), it contains everything you will ever need.
Player:
K-Lite codec pack has modified version of windows media player classic, it is enough for some of you. Need more? Sub-Edit is the answer.
Sub-Edit (No Linux Support) Sounds like application to edit some subtitles but it is so much more than this! This application is simply the best if you don’t have any problems with codec’s, this is the way to go! You can go full screen of second screen, fix un-synced subs, change height or width of movie easily and so on. Highly recommended app
Summary – best video/movie players:
If you want to always be able to play any file, use both applications, SubEdit if everything works great and SMPlayer with integrated codecs when something is wrong with movie in subedit. VLC on the other hand supports skins that can make it look like any other application!
Additional video players:
Dziobas Rar Player- simple, play videos in rar files, without extracting it. Simple and fast way to preview uncompleted torrents or watching movies when you have got no space left for extracting.
Miro- “is a popular, free, and open internet TV application. It brings video channels from thousands of sources and has more free HD than any other platform”
Additional codecs:
CoreAVC- This codecs is for h264 videos. This format is becoming standard for HD videos online. What makes this CoreAVC special? It is fastest for decoding h264 videos, so if your pc is not fast enough for standard codecs, try this one. Problem is that its not free, you might be lucky searching it on torrents:)
