Summary: Video playback is a confusing mess. For most people the player to be used is defined not by personal preference, but by the type of file.
What is the best media player to download to view attachments with videos, Real? Quicktime? Windows media?
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How about all of the above?
The problem is that as the recipient you don't have a whole lot of choice. It's the sender that determines the format that they send you, and you'll just have to have a player that understands it.
And not all players understand all formats.
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Sadly, the world of video in particular is a confusing mess of formats and options. If all you're trying to do is view a video that someone else has provided, it's complex enough. Heaven help you if you want to try and produce a video.
For playback, to keep things the simplest:
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Like I said, that's the simple path. While it results in three different media players on your machine, it usually works.
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But recall that I said it's a complicated mess.
What's really happening for most media players is that they don't understand anything at all, in and of themselves. They rely on "codecs" (coder/decoders) that are installed on the system to actually understand the various media formats.
So naturally when you install the Real player, it also installs codecs that understand Real formatted files. Similarly when you install QuickTime, it installs codecs for QuickTime formatted files.
It's even possible that, after installing various media players you may find that some can actually play the formats of another.
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There are some alternatives.
One of the classic alternatives is Media Player Classic. Designed to look like an older version of Windows Media player, you can set it up to play all three. That, of course, is best done by installing the separate applications anyway, after which their codecs become available to Media Player Classic.
But at least you can use a simple and consistent user interface regardless of which format you're viewing.
For codecs there are both Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative which provide codecs that can add Real media and QuickTime support to other players without having to download the "official" versions of those applications. This is a common way to add Real and Quicktime support to Media Player Classic, for example.
There are two issues with Real and Quicktime Alternatives: typically they're not quite as full featured as the originals and it's not clear whether they're actually legal.
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My recommendation for the average user is the simple one: install each player as you need it. (My personal preference is to then immediately disable the start-up programs that each of these programs adds. Those add no value, in my opinion.)
If you'd like a single user interface to handle all formats once the various official players are installed, then download Media Player Classic to act as a front-end.
Related:
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Wikipedia - Comparison of Media Players in some, often geeky, detail.
Article C3015 - May 6, 2007
For the sheer amount of things it can do, VLC is great; especially for playing video over networks. I don't use it personally because the interface sucks and it has some nasty latency issues (especially with anime encoded in MKVs for me). K-Lite is alright...if you don't mind installing the 9/10s worth of bloatware that comes with it. I suppose if you're a developer it's a goldmine of codecs, but I'm just a guy wanting to watch movies and anime on his computer. CCCP works just fine and I'm finding it's simpler to correlate it with MPC without issue than K-Lite and it's barrage of weak players.
Posted by: Sean at July 13, 2009 7:15 AMAfter reading this review i have to say that i personaly believe that Moovida is the best media player i have come across an still use ttoday.
It is worth downloading for free to give it a good.
www.moovida.com
Posted by: Chris clap at July 17, 2009 2:24 AMYes I have read this article and all tha users except the above one are really average.They don't know anything.I know that VLC is the best but you can also use Power DVD or Super DVD player.SuPER DVD player supports all the formats except AVI and FLV.VLC just closes while playing FLV.And some rare formats are not suppoted by VLC Too.So a combination of real,quicktime,VLC and Power DVD will enable us to play any format onn our computer.I don't know about moovida.I have all the four players so there is no format that my computer cannot play.But if moovida really supports all the formats and codecs I recommend to use that midia player only.
Posted by: Suraj at August 2, 2009 8:33 AMThanks for reading.
vlc the best
Posted by: lily at August 10, 2009 3:43 PMI tried moovida, and I really hated it, it's not following the usual logic of softwares, and is not intuitive at all. For example, almost every player goes and leaves full screen with a double click, not moovida. I was able to leave full screen only with ESC, and then I wasn't able to turn back to full screen. No right click menu, etc.
Why to do that ? Every developper knows that it's a bad idea not to follow the standard rules, unless your program is totally intuitive. Almost nobody will lose time trying to understand your logic if he's not forced. Human beeings are lazy.
Personally, I only use smplayer and VLC, and no codec pack. There is nothing I can't play.
The one I prefer is smplayer, when I play a movie, it's usually using less than 1% CPU !
And for the music I use AIMP 2, which has an excellent tag editor and a beautiful sound.
Posted by: Pindurs at August 29, 2009 7:24 PMIf you want a media player, VLC is the best. You might need to complement VLC with a proprietary player for DRM content though.
If you want a media center check out XBMC and Moovida (I actually work for the company that makes Moovida, thus I might be a bit biased, but you can try it for free ;).
Johan
Posted by: johan at August 31, 2009 10:34 PMI'd prefer Zoom player combined with K-lite codec package. Its really cool. You should try it.
Posted by: saravanan at September 20, 2009 5:39 AMAn average user will download VLC media player generally and would be happy with it. But for sure its interface is not so energetic and compelling. K-lite is also a good option with many codecs involved.
Posted by: jacob smith at October 31, 2009 5:31 PMi think the vlc is a little not user friendly, because when i want to move the subtitles to outside of a movie, to the black area that you have in a widescreen lcd i just cant move them with my mouse. i need to go to options preferences and give it a number and get my feedback if its ok with that number or should i give a lower or higher one.
and i cant just drag and drop a subtitle on vlc while im watching a movie, it ruins it out. im turkish so i watch with turkish subtitles and if i see they translated it wrong i just switch to english subtitles. but i need to reopen the video in vlc player for that.
if vlc was more user friendly it would be the best video player that i came across but it makes me mad that i need to struggle with little things that i can make with my mouse drag and drops at my other player.
and i only use vlc player when i play my online game as my normal video player has an issue when im on game it doesnt show anything, so i have to use vlc those times. as i mentioned vlc is good but not the best.
im using mv2player with k lite codec pack and i disabled its matroska, real time and quick time alternatives as i download their latest version manually.
Posted by: SmokeKing at November 20, 2009 3:32 AMI prefer the KM player...Though VLC is great, the user interface and the controls are not that easy to use and the fast forward really gives me a pain, with the video occasionally stopping or showing funny colours...and the Real player is horrible!!!! no proper controls and an even more stupid GUI.KM player has a really cool interface and absurdly simple keyboard controls and it can play almost all formats, except the real media files....I would suggest trying it out.....
Posted by: Anirudh DSP at November 20, 2009 1:33 PM