New
#31
Windows Media Player;
Media Player Classic;
VLC Media Player
Windows Media Player;
Media Player Classic;
VLC Media Player
I'm with Arc and others on WMP. A Windows purist. :)
VLC - plays a lot of videos with different codecs! and of course Itunes! Been using that on my Mac and Windows PCs and it works for what i need it for.
I used to love Winamp but then it sold out became an expensive piece of junk with bloatware :P
Foobar2000 for me. Its free and it sounds way better than Media Player.
Being I don't like to use 3rd party software when it comes with Windows, when I have my PC fired-up and I'm using Windows, I use WMP. I don't really have any use for extras like tagging and such, I just want to play a genre set to shuffle. When I'm using Ubuntu(unity) I use Audacious(great sound and tweaks). I tried Audacious for Windows but it wasn't stable enough for me.
When I have guests, I use Kodi(formally XBMC) for the great visualizations and sound, through my LG Home Cinema.
Hi there
VLC works fine for audio as well as video -- however I still like the old venerable WINAMP. It didn't work properly on W8.1 but works perfectly again now --glad I kept the original install files.
Windows media player has a problem with FLAC which is the format I store around 99% of my music files in. If I want lower quality compressed mp3 files for example for storing on the external micro sd card on a phone I'll simply convert a few from the library and copy to the phone. FLAC is good as it is 100% LOSSLESS.
@ghostdog Winamp version 564_pro is fine -- I can't see any bloat or anything - all I did was just unclick the free 50 mp3 downloads offer and install. I doubt whether that offer would still be valid any more as the program is a few years old.
I like playing in FOLDERS and FLAC -- winamp does that perfectly instead of having to mess about with wretched playlists etc.
VLC is also good with FLAC and folders. WINAMP is good at ripping CD's etc to FLAC and tagging the tracks from GRACENOTE DB which IMO is better than the other music DB's for tagging.
Another Free goody is Logitech Media server (Both Windows AND Linux are supported). You can then play RADIO and your Music on local / remote devices including smart TV's / phones etc. It also supports FLAC files.
For Video (and some audio) you can also use PLEX MEDIA SERVER (Free) or MEZZMO - good but not free. PLEX works on Windows and Linux, Mezzmo is windows only.
Here's a screenshot of VRT (Belgian Flemish classical music station from Brussels) using Logitech media server for the audio server to the client (another remote Windows box in this case).
The OP's question is a bit too simplistic as you need to know if you want a player that just plays locally or some type of server so you can access your multi-media files remotely. Note also with a bit of a tweak in the settings VLC can also act as a media server but it's not so convenient as the other servers I've mentioned here.
Cheers
jimbo