Many people mistake Media Player Classic for an older version Windows Media Player and simply tend to ignore it. This confusion is because the interface looks very much like Windows Media Player 6.4 . This open source media player for Windows was created by a programmer called "Gabest".
Installation of Media Player Classic is quiet simple because it does not have an installation. It is just a single EXE file and can be run without any installation. Media Player Classic can be downloaded from SourceForge.net . The only issue here is that the original product is not under active development since 2006. A separate group had been working in fixing major issue found in the Player and adding new features. This modified version can be found at a separate website Guliverkli2.
You must note that although it can read most of the popular audio formats, it is only able to read most video formats if the correct codec is present on the system. It appears to have built-in support for VCD, SVCD and DVD formats. It also has support for DVD menus and sub-titles. But apart from that, the function as a complete Media Player suite, it is recommended that you install it with some of the popular Codec Packs such as K-Lite Codec Pack and Codec Pack All.
Interface and Speed
One thing you would love about this media player is it's speed and simplicity. The startup speed is quiet quick and the interface is quiet responsive. You wouldn't have any problem to start using this media player because the interface is quiet common. The plain old seek bar and the standard player button with the standard volume control. The volume can also be controlled using the wheel of a mouse. Most other keyboard shortcuts are similar to that of Windows Media Player. For eg. Space can be Used to Play/Pause and Alt+Enter can be used to toggle the Full Screen Mode.
The palyer interface comes in 3 modes. Minimal, Compact, and Normal mode. It can be changed from the View->Presets sub-menu.
Options
Media Player Classic are extensively customizable.
- Player - This section has the basic options such as the Single/Multi Media Player window mode, Show/Hide Taskbar icon, Format association, Autoplay configuration, Keyboard configuration, Logo to be used when the player is idle, and the Web Interface (The web interface module appears to be a work in progress and wouldn't work)
- Playback - All basic playback options are available in this section. This includes the playback repeat rate, default zoom level, DVD/OGM advanced settings, Video rendering mode and Audio Output device.
- Internal Filters - Various settings related to Internal Filters are done here. The Audio Switcher sub-section can be used to filter out the audio output.
- External Filters
- Subtitles - All settings related to how sub-titles are rendered.
- Tweaks - Some basic tweaks like disabling XP-themes, Free Window Resizing etc.
Finally
Media Player Classic is a great add-on player that can be installed along with any other Media Player you might be using. For one thing, it doesn't use much space. Hope you have a great video watching experience.
Further Reading
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment