14 DAY TRIAL // Media players and their capabilities have seen a transformative evolution, both in terms of general functionality, as well as more intricate, specific features. Now, if you’re a more casual user, wanting to “viddy the old movies” from time to time, and require nothing more than just a plain video player, whose support for subtitles is more than enough for you, then you’re in luck, as such functionality is considered to be mainstream by today’s standards.
However, let’s say you’re a discerning audiophile or cinephile, expecting only the best playback quality for your studio recordings or 4K films, then the little details and intricacies of a media player are of utmost relevancy to you.
Given its popular nature, being the default choice of many, VLC media player can cater to the aforementioned requirements easily, and might seem hard to beat in some aspects. But how does it stack up against similar solutions, and are its inherent capabilities rising up to today’s standards?
Comes sporting a relatively simple look, which can be easily adjusted to your liking through the included add-on manager
You’d expect a modern media player to feature a highly futuristic design, filled to the brim with a load of clutter, right? Wrong. VLC media player’s design (at least the default skin and corresponding interface) has its emphasis centered around functionality, which we found to be more than adequate for proper and efficient media handling and playback.
Of course, if you are more concerned about looks, there’s an easy fix for you and your expectations. The built-in add-on manager has access to a decent library of skins, extensions, interfaces, and other goodies, making for a great way to tweak things to your liking.
Addresses playback adequately, offering a simple design, whose functionality can be extended at any time, if required
As with its overall design, the playback features of this player also share a concise nature, offering the bare essentials when it comes to actual controls and elements that govern the playback process. This provides a good, generalist take, which caters to those who wish for a no-fuss approach. Add your media, press play, and you’re good to go. Easy.
What’s brilliant about this simple approach, is that, if needed, at any time you can call up and toggle a variety of features to complement the default ones, therefore attaining the preferred playback experience.
If you take playback tweaking seriously, the built-in adjustments, effects, and filters sections provide ample configuration
In addition to its multiple supported media types, another strength of VLC media player is its set of effects and filters. Those who are really keen on adjusting the image to their specific requirements are in for a treat, as the effects section offers a thorough approach, addressing image, geometry, color, overlay, and other essential parameters.
Furthermore, a very impressive filter library is bundled with the player, and this offers an additional layer of flexibility, ensuring that you will be able to attain the preferred playback characteristics.
Supports a wide range of content, allowing you a great deal of versatility when it comes to playing your favorite media
It would be unfair not to assess a media player by its list of supported files and formats, and we were happy to see that VLC media player lives up to its reputation, and will allow you to perform playback for an ample range of media types.
Anything from local audio and video data, as well as discs and, of course, network streams. Furthermore, streaming your own content is also available and easy. One little aspect that we appreciated is the fact that the player also comes equipped with a conversion module, which will allow you to easily save your media files to other formats.
Reliable playback performance, generous functionality, and configuration options, coupled with a highly expandable nature
The simple nature of VLC media player’s demeanor can be misleading at first. However, once you start using it and learn that it will be able to solve a myriad of tasks as these appear, you begin to understand its comprehensive approach to media playback.
There are little to no aspects that leave you wanting more, starting from the concise yet capable playback capabilities, the extendable functionality, which can help you address specific requirements, and all the way to the in-depth configuration, which can be attained using the built-in effects and settings sections. These, and much more, constitute the strength that gives VLC media player its reliable performance.
The Good
The Bad
The Truth
Considering that the general feature sets of media players of such caliber have become a staple by today’s standards, comparing its capabilities with that of similar software becomes at a certain point simply a matter of preference, in accordance with your particular requirements.
