Which software can play the majority of video formats?

Question

I've used winamp forever now, and have been entirely happy with it over the years. However, with the advent of windows 7 (which now uses WDDM instead of direct draw) it seems winamp has finally become too old school to play videos.

My video playback is choppy in winamp (fullscreen), and it's because of aero, i've turned it off and winamp performs great again. But I dont want to disable aero. I'd really love a solution to get Winamp to work again, i've already posted on SU and seems there is no fix for winamp.

Other video players I've used:

• VLC Media Player I have been using VLC but it seems as the video looks grainy for most video types (especially fullscreen) and the player just isn't as elegant as winamp is. What i mean is fullscreen mode doesn't work (taskbar sits on top of the window), and there's no controls to fast forward the video like in winamp (using the arrow keys). I like that it plays ISO files, so that's cool.

• Windows Media Player I don't want to use WMP either. I just don't like the DRM features.

• Media Player Classic doesn't have a goo user interface. So, what am i stuck with?

Answer 1

GOM Player

Apart from the often recommended VLC Media player, I strongly suggest you give GOM Player a look. It has the excellent codec support, just like VLC, but where it really shines is it's UI.

I have never seen a media player with a UI more functional and practical than GOM Player. Still, to this day, I miss it from my Mac.

Answer 2

People have had this problem with VLC on Vista too,
Here is a HowToGeek article for Vista.
Maybe it will help you for your VLC on Windows 7.

Here is a Winamp forum thread on the same topic.

Meanwhile, I have found the SMPlayer to have good controls.
^{but, that choice is up to you.}

Answer 3

You could try Media Player Classic

Answer 4

If you don't use a skillful software like VLC or GOM you need codecs, like Windows 7 Codecs, then you can use any software you want.

Answer 5

As for me, I've been very happy with Windows Media Player in Windows 7. It does exactly what I want (play videos), doesn't get in my way, has no more UI than needed, so it's actually a near-perfect fit. At least for me.

Throw in CCCP and configure the included stuff to be less nagging and it plays nearly everything you want.

<rant>

Your reasoning is a little weird here, though. "I don't want to use WMP because of the DRM features". What point do you want to make exactly? "I don't want to play restricted media files because I won't use a player that could play them"? Or maybe "I don't want to use a player that could play restricted media files but wouldn't ever go down those code paths for the media files I am using"?

DRM isn't some black magic that suddenly makes your videos look like they came from hell. It's simply a way of trying to restrict what you can do with content that is specially enabled to use those features. For that matter you could as well uninstall your video driver because, hey, it has DRM in it (for HDMI output or restricting the use of it). One might wonder why you are bothering with Windows at all, given its DRM-affine history (yes it goes back at least to Windows 98) :-)

</rant>

Answer 6

You should try The KMPlayer.

Some details in this thread

Answer 7

have you tried Kantaris ? it should be worth a try :-)

"Kantaris is a new media player based on code from Videolan client (VLC) and Bass audio library. Kantaris has a graphical user interface similar to that of Windows Media Player."

Answer 8

UMPlayer can play just about anything that you throw at it. In addition, its web installer will download and install different versions based on your PC architecture in order to maximize all available accelerations.