VLC media player

VLC media player (also known as VLC) is a highly portable free and open-source media player and streaming media server written by the VideoLAN project.

VLC media player supports many audio and video compression methods and file formats, including DVD-video, video CD and streaming protocols.

VLC used to stand for VideoLAN Client, but since VLC is no longer simply a client, that initialism no longer applies.

VLC was the client for the VideoLAN project, with VLC standing for VideoLan Client.

After 13 years of development, version 1.0.0 of VLC media player was released on July 7, 2009.


The version 2.0.0. of VLC media player was released on February 18, 2012 VLC is third in the sourceforge.net

In VLC, interfaces are modules, which means that VLC's core can launch one, many, or no interfaces.

Because VLC is a packet-based media player, it can play the video content of some damaged, incomplete, or unfinished videos.

VLC supports all audio and video formats and all file formats supported by libavcodec and libavformat.

This means that VLC can play back H.264 or MPEG-4 video as well as support FLV or MXF file formats "out of the box" using FFmpeg's libraries.


VLC media player has some filters that can distort, rotate, split, deinterlace, mirror videos, create display walls, or add a logo overlay.

VLC media player can play high definition recordings of D-VHS tapes duplicated to a computer using .

VLC media player can display the playing video as the desktop wallpaper, like Windows DreamScene, by using DirectX, only available on Windows operating systems.

Several APIs can connect to VLC and use its functionality: On Windows, Linux, Mac, and some other Unix-like platforms, VLC provides an NPAPI plugin, which enables users to view QuickTime, Windows Media, MP3, and Ogg files embedded in websites without using additional products.


Starting with version 0.8.2, VLC also provides an ActiveX plugin, which lets people view QuickTime (MOV), Windows Media, MP3, and Ogg files embedded in websites when using Internet Explorer.

VLC can read several formats, depending on the operating system VLC is running on.

As of December, 2011, the VLC team states that a version of VLC for Android "is in development".

The VLC media player software installers for the Mac OS X platform and the Windows platform include the libdvdcss DVD decryption library, even though this library may be legally restricted in certain jurisdictions.

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (abbreviated WMP) is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices.

In addition to being a media player, Windows Media Player includes the ability to rip music from and copy music to compact discs, burn recordable discs in Audio CD format or as data discs with playlists such as an MP3 CD, synchronize content with a digital audio player (MP3 player) or other mobile devices, and enable users to purchase or rent music from a number of online music stores.

Windows Media Player replaced an earlier application called Media Player, adding features beyond simple video or audio playback.


The default file formats are Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Advanced Systems Format (ASF), and its own XML based playlist format called Windows Playlist (WPL).

Windows Media Player 12 is the most recent version of Windows Media Player.

All versions branded Windows Media Player (instead of simply Media Player) support DirectShow codecs.

Beginning with Windows Vista, Windows Media Player supports the Media Foundation framework besides DirectShow; as such it plays certain types of media using Media Foundation as well as some types of media using DirectShow.


Windows Media Player supports playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, file markers (if present) and variable playback speed (seek & time compression/dilation introduced in WMP 9 Series).

Windows Media Player supports full media management, via the integrated media library introduced first in version 7, which offers cataloguing and searching of media and viewing media metadata.

Media can be arranged according to album, artist, genre, date et al.. Windows Media Player 9 Series introduced Quick Access Panel to browse and navigate the entire library through a menu.

However, the feature was removed in Windows Media Player 12. Since WMP 9 Series, the player features dynamically updated Auto Playlists based on criteria.


Pre-populated auto playlists are included in Windows Media Player 9 Series.

"Musical Colors" was removed starting with version 9, but is retained if Windows Media Player was upgraded from version 7 or 8. Version 11 and above refrains from having the former "Ambience", "Particle", "Plenoptic", and "Spikes" visualizations.

On Windows XP and above with WMP 9 Series and later, the Windows Media Audio Professional codec is included which supports multichannel audio at up to 24-bit 192 kHz resolution.

Windows Media Player 11 includes the Windows Media Format 11 runtime which adds low bitrate support (below 128 kbit/s for WMA Pro), support for ripping music to WMA Pro 10 and updates the original WMA to version 9.2.


MP3 playback support was built-in beginning with version 6.1 and audio CD playback was natively supported with version 7. DVD playback features minus the necessary decoders were integrated into Windows Media Player 8 for Windows XP.

MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital (AC-3) decoders were included beginning with Windows Media Player 11 on Windows Vista (Home Premium and Ultimate editions only).

Windows Media Player 12 adds native support for H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 2 video formats, AAC audio and 3GP, MP4 and MOV container formats.

Windows Media Player features integrated Audio CD-burning support since version 7 as well as data CD burning support since Windows Media Player 9 Series on Windows XP and later.

Windows Media Encoder

Windows Media Encoder is a freely downloadable media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for live and on-demand delivery.

The latest version, Windows Media Encoder 9 Series, can encode video using Windows Media Video version 7, 8 or 9. Audio encoding uses a number of Windows Media Audio version 9.2 or version 10 (if the version 10 codecs are installed) profiles and a Windows Media Audio 9 Voice speech codec.

Windows Media Encoder 9 Series enables two-pass encoding to optimize quality for on-demand (streamed or download-and-play) content.


Bundled with the program are the applications Windows Media File Editor, Windows Media Profile Editor, and Windows Media Stream Editor.

Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition was a separate planned version of Windows Media Encoder 9 Series with support for segment encoding and multiple audio channels.

Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic (MPC) is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows.

Media Player Classic is capable of VCD, SVCD, and DVD playback without installation of additional software or codecs.

Media Player Classic is primarily based on the DirectShow architecture and therefore automatically uses installed DirectShow decoding filters.

Media Player Classic supports native playback of OGM and Matroska container formats.

The version known as Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 was meant for fixing bugs and updating outdated libraries; its branch's development is mostly inactive.


he other version, called Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), is meant for adding new features, as well as fixing bugs and updating libraries.

MPC-HC updates the original player and adds many useful functionalities including the option to remove tearing, additional video decoders (in particular H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 with DirectX Video Acceleration support), Enhanced Video Renderer support, and multiple bug fixes.

There is also a 64 bit-version of Media Player Classic Home Cinema that supports Windows XP x64, Windows Vista x64, and Windows 7 x64.

K-Multimedia Player

 

 

K-Multimedia Player (commonly known as The KMPlayer, KMPlayer or KMP) is a media player software for Microsoft Windows which can

play a large number of formats including VCD, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, RealMedia, FLV and QuickTime.

Internal filters are not registered into the system's registry to prevent the operating system from confusing system filters with

K-Multimedia Player's filters The player can set many audio and video effects, slow down or increase playback speed, select parts

of a video as favorites, do various A-B repeats, remap the keys of remote interface for HTPC including overlay screen controls, and

change a skin dynamically depending on a media type playing.

On 5 March 2008, The KMPlayer's Forum announced that the KMPlayer had been acquired by Pandora TV (a Korean streaming video

company) in August 2007.


The About page refers to it as "The KMPlayer Professional Media Player" and "The KMPlayer".

The license page says: The player is distributed on international download sites under the names "The KMPlayer" and "KMPlayer".

George.J, writing for Tech Support Alert, noted "KMPlayer definitely stands out" concluding "KMPlayer works like a charm and my

experience with the player has been excellent.

Mihai Matei, writing for FileCluster, noted "Overall this media player is very promising and manages to deliver a high-quality

experience to the user" concluding "KMPlayer is a great media player.

Winamp

Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL.

Winamp supports music playback using MP3, MIDI, MOD, MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2, AAC, M4A, FLAC, WAV and WMA.

Winamp supports playback of Windows Media Video and Nullsoft Streaming Video.

At installation, Winamp scans the user's system for media files to add to the Media Library database.

Winamp has extendable support for portable media players and Mass Storage Compliant devices, Microsoft PlaysForSure and ActiveSync,

and syncs unprotected music to the iPod.


Winamp Media Monitor allows web-based browsing and bookmarking music blog websites and automatically offering for streaming or

downloading all MP3 files there.

Winamp Remote allows remote playback (streaming) of unprotected media files on the user's PC via the Internet.

The Winamp software development kit (SDK) allows software developers to create seven different types of plug-ins.

Plug-in development support increased Winamp's flexibility for, for example, a plethora of specialized plug-ins for game console

music files such as NSF, USF, GBS, GSF, SID, VGM, SPC, PSF and PSF2.


Winamp published documentation on skin creation in 1998 with the release of Winamp 2, and invited Winamp users to publish skins on

Winamp.com.

The ability to use skins contributed to Winamp's popularity early in MP3 development.

Winamp 5 supports two types of skins — "classic" skins designed to Winamp 2 specifications (static collections of bitmap images),

and more flexible, freeform "modern" skins per the Winamp 3 specification.

Frankel formally founded Nullsoft Inc. in January 1998 and continued development of Winamp, which changed from freeware to $10

shareware.


Version 1.90, released March 31, 1998 was the first release as a general-purpose audio player, and documented on the Winamp website

as supporting plugins, of which it included two input plugins (MOD and MP3) and a visualization plugin.

Winamp 2.10, released March 24, 1999 included a new version of the "Llama" demo.mp3

Nullsoft relaunched the Winamp-specific winamp.com in December 1999 to provide easier access to skins, plug-ins, streaming audio,

song downloads, forums and developer resources.

The next major Winamp version, Winamp3 (so spelled to include mp3 in the name and to mark its separation from the Winamp 2

codebase), was released on August 9, 2002.


Winamp3 had no backward compatibility with Winamp 2 skins and plugins, and the SHOUTcast sourcing plugin was not supported.

In response to users reverting to Winamp 2, Nullsoft continued the development of Winamp 2 to versions 2.9 and 2.91 in 2003, even

alluding to it humorously.

The Winamp 2 and Winamp3 branches were later fused into Winamp 5. Nullsoft joked that "nobody wants to see a Winamp 4 skin" ('4

skin' being a pun on foreskin).

Winamp 5 was based on the Winamp 2 codebase, with several Winamp3 features (e.g.

Winamp 5.5: The 10th Anniversary Edition was released on October 10, 2007, ten years after the first release of Winamp (a beta

preview had been released on September 10, 2007).


Released as a beta product in October 2010, the Android version for OS 2.1 includes syncing with Winamp desktop (ver.

Its focus is on syncing the Winamp Library to Winamp for Android and the iTunes Music Library (hence the name, "Winamp Sync for

Mac").

The developer's blog states that the Winamp Sync for Mac Beta will pave the way for future Winamp-related development under Mac OS

X. Winamp has proved so popular that there have quite a few Linux music programs which function in a similar way and can also use

Winamp WSZ skins so that in effect one has a player that looks like Winamp.

One example is an image of Justin Frankel, one of Winamp's original

Flowplayer

Flowplayer is a video player for the World Wide Web.


Using Flowplayer, You can build your own looking player and place it on your site to stream your video from a global network.

Features: It’s totally free and open source You can build your player in minutes Smooth as silk — It’s optimized to oprate the

overall behaviour of the player to “hide” curvy edges and blocking behaviour.


Timeline animates fluently and there are two different autohiding modes: ”fade” and ”slide”.

Stream from anywhere — Use industry standard streaming protocols RTMP or HTTP with most common web servers lighttpd, Apache, nginx

or IIS or stream your videos from well known Content delivery networks Akamai, Amazon Cloudfront, Highwinds, HDDN, SimpleCDN and

more Extend with web starndards — Flowplayer is build with Flash technology which ensures that 98% of all Internet users can see

your