The Best Video Player / Codec Package?

What in your experience is teh best?

In my opinion, I used to swear by K-Lite Mega Codec Pack all my life, until today, when I discovered it was not compatible with XP (64-Bit), the codecs would not install successfully, thus I wasn't able to play any of my videos.

So I installed Kantaris Media Player, it does not require any codecs to play videos, it has them all built in. Then I install Real Alternative and Quicktime alternative since I don't use teh k-lite mega codec pack anymore..

Kantaris is cool......I like the key shortcuts / layout.....

 

Are you sure you had the 64-bit version of K-Lite (Here)?

As for me I swap and change all the time, I originally used K-Lite because it had xVid and MP3 (lame) included, which I use to encode my videos; then I switched to CCCP and now im back to K-Lite...the only sticking thing for me is Media Player Classic

 

I like GOM Player , it`s free and plays everything.

http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_download.html

 

For me, CCCP with Media Player Classic + Quicktime Alt and Real Alt + CoreAVC.

 

Oh, I never knew there was a 64 bit K-Lite :S
stupid meh

 

VLC, really. It's not beautiful but it gets the job done really well.

 

Where's windows media player?
WMP12 is currently the best on my netbook followed by KMplayer + coreavc codec. I also have halli mkv splitter which splits the mkv files into video and audio streams.

WMP12 and KMplayer plays everything, even 1080P blueray move rip on my netbook.

 

VLC has been nothing been great to me. most of the times, the volume is higher when usin VLC also.

 

I see that is just the K-Lite Codec Pack, but not the mega codec pack, does that mean I will need to install teh real alternative and quicktime alternatime seperately?

 

For me, it is VLC Media Player all the way, it has many features, is versatile, and it is free.

 

hmmm,,,,,,,many votes for VLC. i've never tried it.........

does it come built in with all teh codec like Kantaris Media Player does? or do I need to install codecs seperately?

With kantaris, you don't even need to install any codecs, it just plays anything.

 

According to their site:

Seems like a amped up version of VLC.

 

VLC runs pretty much anything out of the box, do not worry, it is updated constantly, too.

 

Nice find, Kdawgca, I did not know that Kantaris was based on VLC!...

 

hmm, me neither, maybe I will try VLC

does VLC play Real Media and Quicktime? or shall I keep my Real Alternative and QT Lite installed ?

 

VLC can play .mov out of the box, but RealMedia is a lost cause, due to the networking stuff involved in Real Player's files.

 

+1 for teh GOM Player

It's either this or VLC when I need to raise the sound above 100% (low audio)

May try Kantaris though

 

right, ill try it out now and see if I like it or Kantaris more....

 

Ok guys, i've switched to VLC as per your advice. thanks.

I like how the volume bar goes up and down while you increase/decrease teh volume in full screen, first neat feature I discovered.

 

CCCP (Beta).

+ Has everything I need, nothing I don't
+ Renders subs perfectly (a necessity for anime)
+ It works in MPHC and Windows Media Player
+ Clean, no-nonsense installation
(doesn't install excess files, flash ads, call home, embed logos, etc.)

 

And it increases the volume past its actual maximum, where other players stop.

So if a file sounds a little low, you can crank it to 300%

 

I think they'd need to be installed separately, yes. I've just been looking at the site and I found this

So from that i'm assuming that the 32-bit K-Lite is supposed to be compatible/usable on a 64-bit system?

 

On Vista x64 bit it was compatible, due to the increased compatibility that Vista introduces for non 63 bit applications.

But with XP 64-Bit, after installation, it gave me alot of messages saying codec xxx caused and error , do u want to remove, so i clicked yes on all the errneous codecs, as that is what I usually do if I get an erroneous codec even on a 32 bit OS.

Then I tried to play my () collection but with no luck, not one single movie played.

I'm using VLC player FTW at the moment, I like the fact that it is very responsive, when I double click on a movie, it instantly plays!

XP Pro 64 Bit + NOD32 64 Bit + VLC Player FTW

 

LOL at that ^^^

Anything else you wanna add

 

LOL, sure, my default programs list,

+ MS Office 2007 Pro + PerfectDisk 10 + Malwarebytes Anti-Malware + Real Alternative + QT Lite (quicktime alternative) + Regscrub VistaXP + Quicksys Regdefrag.

then you're get a superfast system that plays anything out there

 

Im hoping one of you knowledgeable people can explain this to me, but why would you use VLC over Media Player Classic? I've not used VLC for a while but MPC can play any video i've thrown at it (except videos that use that SILLY Ideo codec) and all without the need for extra codecs. It's also only about 6MB in size and gives thumbnail icons.

 

Well i've been a K-Lite Codec Pack user for years (ie. media player classic), and I refused to try anything else as it simply played anything I threw at it,

Until now, I am using Win XP 64 bit and it was not compatible with it, it appeared that I had to install a diff. version of K-Lite, then install the real alternative and quicktime alternative seperately.

So I chose to try out Kantaris, and finally, with the members' recommendations here, I tried VLC, and so far I've noticed, it plays all videos as well, it is faster to load / more responsive when fast forwarding a movie than media player classic. It has a nice GUI, it increases volume way beyond other players! '
try it for yourself and be your own judge

 

K-Lite or VLC for me! (leaning more towards VLC)


Cin

 

i couldn't agree more with what this man posted. just try out diff programs and see which one fits yur bill better. they're all free anyways

i prefer VLC cuz it plays everything right out of the box. VLC's volume control is another reason why i prefer it. it is essential to some ppl, especially some of us that download stuff and the sound is not up to par.

 

People don't want to switch from VLC because they get used to the program. I recently switched from kmplayer to windows media player 12. WMP does not require any codecs to play 99% of videos that I have as well.

 

Actually, it does require codecs, but it downloads them automatically, which is why you think it is playing everything fine

I don't like it in full screen though, that bottom progress bar keeps coming up.

 

Before switching to vista 64 bit, I loved VLC. After switching to 64bit, videos no longer render correctly. Is VLC compatible with vista 64 bits?

 

in the desktop i used GOM, not good at RMVB or could be the encoder's fault, K-lite+MPclassicH works well but some problem with high vidbitrate stutter so i played back and forward for a bit.

then i got my dell 1545, i decided to used a standalone player, so VLC would be that player, no, 'cuz RMVB sucks, non instantaneous pause and 720p video stutter like hell!!!!!, i dled real alt to play rmvb and no solution for 720p mkv. then i research a lil bit more and found KMplayer and god thats a good player, rmvb mkv avc all worked fine and fast the GUI is good and it got a semi mediacenter thing going!! im loving KMplayer!!!!!!!!!!!! you ppl shoud check it out!!

 

On Windows media player 12, every codec I needed including h.264 are pre-installed, no download necessary. The only thing i had to download was zune media ussage rights.

 

Try windows media player 12. The integrated h.264 codec is about 1.5-2x faster than the ffmpeg codec included in kmplayer and about 2.5 times faster than the one in VLC player. It's even faster than coreAVC which surprised me.

1080P high bitrate (10mbps) blue ray disk rip plays flawlessly in WMP12 on my slow netbook with intel gma 950.

 

WMP 12 is only in Windows 7...

 

I personally use CCCP and WMP11 for the most part, but I'm finding that AC-3 and DTS audio tracks tend to be REALLY quiet (probably some filter woes).
So I've started to use MPC HC a lot more often, and I'm liking what I see. DXVA helps.

 

http://techblissonline.com/windows-media-player-12/

 

Dave once told me about something called "Vista Codec Pack" - works well with Media Player 11 - and that's what I have installed... (does the job as far as I can tell)

 

I use VLC.

 

On my Vista laptop, I use CCCP + MPC for videos. On my Win 7 computer, I also have the same combination but I use WMP12 most of the time because of the sleek interface and since I haven't had any problems playing pretty much anything out there (except FLAC in the audio department, and I don't feel like installing third-party plug-ins to get it to work).

 

I have always used K-Lite, but then it didn't work very well with some DVDs that I had. I tried Vista Codec Pack, and it works very well.

 

The KM Player. I just love how to use it.

 

K-Lite Codec, was never fond of VLC Player.

 

I use VLC player in Windows Vista X86 and WMP 12 in Windows 7 X64. VLC video is pixelated In Windows 7 RC 64-bit, whereas WMP 12 plays them just fine. WMP 12 has built in support for DivX, H.264 video.

 

klite for me as well i dont like having to use a different player than media player with klite i plays everything

 

I voted for Kantaris, since it bundles all the necessary codecs I need for playing music and videos. The only gripe I have is that it is not capable of playing protected video content from the Zune Marketplace.

 

I think the only media player capable of playing DRMed zune marketplace audio/video are media center/WMP/zune software.