Media Player Classic - Black Edition

What initially started out in life as a closed-source project based on the Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic has long since been one of the best all-around and open-source player for Windows computers out there.

With its solid and reliable feel, support for tons of video formats, a tiny footprint, and features that made both novice and more advanced users feel right at home, it's really not difficult to see why Media Player Classic is up there next to VLC on the popularity charts.

Thanks to the wonders of open-source technologies, two new forks (iterations) have arrived over the years ready to improve upon the original player by adding many useful features, namely Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (also called MPC-HC) and the one we're going to talk about now, Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE).

Of course, there are a few important and interesting, under-the-hood changes and lots of bugfixes. For example, the app comes with multi-monitor support, it makes it easier for you to play and record when a TV tuner is present, it comes with support for almost all types of subtitles, and it provides support for EVR/EVR CP (Enhanced Video Renderer) render modes made available by Windows 8.

Compared with to the Media Player Classic - Home Cinema mentioned before, this particular version can open CUE files, and it comes with support for VSFilters. There are also a few minor changes in the way it can handle AC3 packets, and it's worth pointing out that it's also capable of moving subtitles during the playbacks.

All this is fine and dandy but, realistically speaking, there's another more "palpable" reason why you would want to make the switch from the original Media Player Classic (or the Home Cinema iteration) to this Black Edition, and that reason is improved user experience.

Ignoring the black themed interface (which looks nice, we have to say), the app moved away from the old-ish MPC's look and feel and provides a set of new features such as Seekbar Previews (a sort of YouTube-like preview) without compromising that perfect blend of between user-accessibility and advanced features that made the original player so successful.

As a conclusion, if you're looking for what may be one of the best media players for your computer, or you're a Media Player Classic fan, then you will surely love Media Player Classic - Black Edition, as it's better than the original in almost every respect while remaining robust, user-friendly and light on system resources.