Sunday 23 August 2015
BEST MEDIA PLAYERS
Best of Three Media Players
POT PLAYER (Windows)
PotPlayer isn't perfect obviously—if you don't want all of those features and settings, it may all just be fluff to you. However, that degree of power for the low low price of absolutely free is a boon. PotPlayer is Windows only, which leaves Mac and Linux users out of the party, which is a bummer as well. Those of you who nominated it (including our own Whitson Gordon), noted that it can remember where you left off when you stop watching a video, and if you have a naming convention for TV shows, it will even pick up the next episode when one is finished.
GOM PLAYER (WINDOWS)
GOM Player (Gretech Online Movie Player) is a Windows-only, free (and ad-supported) media player that packs comprehensive file type and video format support right out of the box. One of GOM Player's claims to fame is that if for some reason the player can't figure out how to play the video file you're trying to open, it'll go searching for the required components to play it on its own, without you having to sort it out or try a different player. It's also great at playing broken media files and partial downloads without dying. It too supports a skinnable, customizable interface that lets you change the UI to suit your own needs, and it sports some other useful advanced features (built-in screen and audio capture, video effects, and more.
GOM Player's ad-supported nature has miffed some users, but others don't seem to mind. After you close a GOM Player window or exit the application, a splash screen will hit you with ads before you close it. There are ways around it (available all over the web), and some anti-malware apps have been known to flag it as a potentially unwanted program. Nothing serious, but worth keeping in mind. Those of you who praised the app however highlighted its keyboard and mouse shortcuts, and noted that the app is configured so well by default that you can fire it up and use it right away, without needing a ton of other features in the way.
You can download it hereGOM Player's ad-supported nature has miffed some users, but others don't seem to mind. After you close a GOM Player window or exit the application, a splash screen will hit you with ads before you close it. There are ways around it (available all over the web), and some anti-malware apps have been known to flag it as a potentially unwanted program. Nothing serious, but worth keeping in mind. Those of you who praised the app however highlighted its keyboard and mouse shortcuts, and noted that the app is configured so well by default that you can fire it up and use it right away, without needing a ton of other features in the way.
VLC(WINDOWS/ OS X/ LINUX)
Ah VLC. VLC is a portable, open-source (or strictly, GNU LGPL licensed), cross-platform, free media player. It earned its reputation a long time ago as being one of the first "play anything" media players to really take the web by storm. It's never been the only one, but it always had a reputation for making the process painless, being fast and flexible, and packing just enough features to make users happy while simultaneously giving advanced users the control they wanted over their videos and movies. It sports a number of optional third-party plugins to extend its features, supports skins and themes, and as its reputation implies, it really does play just about anything you try to put through it. It doesn't hurt that there's a build for it for just about every desktop OS and flavor of *nix you can think of, making it an excellent all-around player for any device or platform.
VLC isn't perfect, none of the players here are—its UI has gotten a bit cumbersome over the years, and as an application it's definitely fallen victim to its share of bloat. Some of the other players in the roundup are faster and more lightweight, while others offer more advanced features. Still, none of that matters if the player doesn't work on the platform you need to use it on, or if it has trouble with the video you want to watch. Those of you who praised VLC and nominated it pointed that out, and rallied behind it partially because it can play almost anything on almost anything. Cross platform, free, portable, it's an all around great player.
You can download it here,
also available for android.
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