What constitutes a great media player is relative. Some users opt for an oversimplified interface, while others crave for rich customization. All of them look for a free app, though.
However, the baseline should consist of program stability, extensive file support, and reduced footprint on system resources.
A media player that has always managed to keep a balance between usability and comprehensive configuration, in addition to the previously mentioned conditions, is VLC Media Player.
Initially released 13 years ago, VLC remains free and open-source, available to anyone who doesn't want an over-the-top player to enjoy music and movies.
Over the years, it has built an impressive database for compatible media file formats, and it exempts the user from installing audio and video codecs for playback.
Its clean interface is approachable even by novices, while the numerous tweaking preferences should meet the requirements of even picky users.
The program's installation is not complicated or time-consuming. The full pack contains web plugins for Mozilla and ActiveX, support for disc playback, automatic file type associations, context menu integration for playing media, as well as automatic deletion for preferences and cache in previous VLC setups. Any these components can be excluded from the installer.
VLC supports a huge list of file formats when it comes to video (e.g. 3GP, AVI, ISO, M2TS, M4V, MKV, MOV, MPEG), audio (e.g. AAC, AMR, FLAC, MID, MP3, OGG) and playlists (e.g. CUE, ISO, M3U8, PLS). It is able to play files from a local or removable location, disc (DVD, Blu-ray, audio CD, SVCD/VCD), network URLs (HTTP, RTP, MMS and RTSP), or capture device (e.g. webcam, TV, desktop).
As far as standard media controls are concerned, it is possible to create and save playlists, build a media library, switch to full screen mode, toggle between loop all, loop one and no loop mode, as well as shuffle all tracks in the playlist. Opting for minimal interface modes hide all menus and toolbars, letting the viewer fully enjoy a movie without visual interference.
Advanced controls include a video recorder and snapshot grabber (to JPG, PNG or TIFF). Moreover, a movie can be set to continuously loop between two points defined by the user. Navigating the clip frame-by-frame leaves room for pinpointing an exact moment (useful when cutting movies, for example).
Media information is editable when it comes to title, artist, album, genre, artwork and other details. Bookmarks may be created through any point of the playback, in order to quickly jump to them from the “Playback” menu.
Seeking a position in the stream can be done by moving the slider or going to a specific time. In case of DVDs and Blu-rays, part of movies can be skipped by jumping to a particular title or chapter. Meanwhile, the video's speed can be increased or reduced.
The audio track can be handpicked if the movie has multiple streams, while the sound device can be changed to another source. Other audio settings focus on the channel mode (stereo, left, right, reverse stereo) and visualizations.
A minor, yet important aspect that sets VLC apart from other video players is that it is capable of increasing the volume level past 100% (up to 200%), which comes in handy when playing videos with very low volume integrated.
VLC's main window can be set to stay on top of other frames. An alternative is to play the video embedded into the desktop wallpaper. It is possible to modify the aspect ratio, zoom in and out, crop the image, as well as enable deinterlacing and select the mode (e.g. blend, mean, linear) from the “Video” menu.
Post processing options are available in case of particular streams (such as MPEG4), meaning that image filtering is applicable to improve quality. This feature comprises preset values that range from 1 (lowest filtering) to 6 (highest filtering). The superior value can be increased from the preferences panel, while keeping in mind that additional CPU power is required for boosting image quality.
Video clips may be accompanied by subtitle files with the CDG, IDX, SRT, SUB, UTF, SSA, SMI, TXT and other formats. Out-of-sync subtitles can be easily adjusted to match the video by increasing or decreasing their speed and duration factor, all while playing the clip. The same rule applies to desynchronized audio too.
The media player bundles a few features for making audio/video adjustments and applying effects. For example, a one-pass or two-pass graphic equalizer can be enabled with a user-defined or preset profile (e.g. flat, classical, rock, techno), in addition to activating a compressor and spatializer with custom settings.
Image filters revolve around hue, brightness, contrast, saturation, gamma, sharpening, banding removal and film grain. The video may also be cropped if it contains black borders, for instance.
A color can be extracted from the video by pointing out its hex code, as well as tweaked in terms of saturation and similarity. Applicable color effects include negation, posterization, gradient and sepia.
“Interactive zoom” enables users to define a rectangular selection and move it to any part of the video to zoom into it. Rotated clips can be easily fixed by changing their orientation to 90, 180 or 270 degrees, flipping or transposing them, or applying anti-transpose effect.
Additionally, the video can be split into multiple frames by specifying the total rows and columns (“Wall” option), as well as turned into a puzzle game by setting the same parameters. Puzzle pieces may be arranged in any order, even while playing the video.
Proprietary video targeted for online publishing or other sharing methods should be signed by the owner. VLC offers the possibility of applying a text or image watermark (PNG or JPG), adjusting its transparency, and placing it anywhere on the screen. Alternatively, previously set watermarks can be removed from the movie, as long as the original image file is identifiable.
If support exists for AtmoLight devices, users may tweak several properties via VLC, such as brightness, darkest limit and filter threshold. Other video effects focus on anti-flickering, motion and spatial blur, cloning, motion detection, water effect, psychedelic, mirror, waves, and 3D anaglyph.
VLC supports a video converter for a lengthy list of output profiles such as MP4 (H.264 + MP3), OGG (Theora + Vorbis or Flac), video for MPEG4 1080p TV/device, iPod, Android or YouTube HD.
As far as program preferences go, VLC can start in minimal view mode, show a system tray icon, resize the interface to video size, and automatically pause playback when minimized. It is possible to reset file associations, establish the default audio level at startup, set the video to always start on top or enter full screen mode by default, as well as enable on-screen display (OSD) for subtitles and edit subtitle settings (e.g. font size, text and outline color).
A few advanced options are available for power users. For example, they may pick audio filters (e.g. simple stereo widening effect, parametric equalizer, sound delay), edit settings for input, demultiplexing, encoding and decoding, log all VLC messages to a text file, and activate control interfaces (e.g. mouse gestures, submission of played songs to Last.fm), to name but a few.
The Good
The program is free and open-source, multilingual, cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS, Android) and compatible with all popular Windows versions (32 bit and 64 bit), including 8. Extensive help documentation is available, and command lines are supported.
It plays media files without requiring codec packs, does not contain advertisements, and generally uses low CPU and RAM. The app supports various plug-ins and external extensions.
The interface is completely customizable when it comes to the skin, toolbar elements and position, next widget style, and full screen controller buttons. VLC includes preset profiles and allows the creation of new ones. Keyboard shortcuts are supported, and they can be remapped for all major options of the media player.
Those who want to skip the installer and run VLC directly from a pen drive may use a portable counterpart, Portable VLC Media Player.
The Bad
VLC
crashed out of the blue on multiple occasions during our evaluation, while we were exploring its menus, on Windows 8.1 (it worked fine on Windows 7).
The Truth
In a nutshell, VLC Media Player has all the necessary features that make up an excellent media player accessible to beginners and advanced users alike. A Windows 8.1 tailor-made VLC edition has been in the works for quite some time now and it should be released soon.
14 DAY TRIAL // 
