Among the great variety of players it is difficult to choose the best ones. Some stand out for their design, others for their performance, and others for their format omnivorousness.
But you can find the perfect programme for every system and task. Let’s find out how video players differ and which one to choose.
VLC Media Player
WINDOWS, MACOS, ANDROID, IOS, LINUX
Able to play most video formats – can cope with codecs unknown to standard players.
VLC is not only a player, but also a tool for working with media. It streams, transcodes, crops and can apply filters on video in almost any format.
The programme supports online streaming, TV channels, playlists, video playback with resolution up to 8K, remote control from another device via browser and external subtitles – just add an SRT file to the video folder. It can play video while it is not completely downloaded, and play archives without unpacking each separately.
VLC has a simple, minimalistic interface with many hidden settings. You can fine-tune video playback, connect additional plug-ins and customise the appearance, or launch videos with a single click and everything will work.
The main disadvantage is poor optimisation for low-performance devices. VLC can slow down even with 4 GB of RAM on your computer.
PotPlayer
WINDOWS
It is a South Korean player that supports most video formats. When installing PotPlayer, it offers to add an additional codec pack. Most videos will play without it, but the OpenCodec package includes audio and video of less common formats.
Despite its minimalistic interface, PotPlayer has a lot of advanced settings: you can bookmark videos, watch YouTube clips, record the screen, display clips on different devices, convert HDR video to normal video, download subtitles, and watch 360-degree video. There are several built-in skins – you can quickly change the player’s appearance. PotPlayer is not demanding on hardware: HD video can be played even on an old, low-performance laptop.
An interesting feature – PotPlayer remembers where you left off, even if it’s a video from the Internet. The player also makes it easy to play music: it collapses into a small equaliser with a playlist, reminiscent of Winamp.
There are so many settings that it’s hard to understand them at a glance. The installer offers additional third-party software, so you should be careful.
Media Player Classic
WINDOWS
A basic, classic and completely free video player for Windows. Many fans consider it a “pure” alternative to VLC – a lightweight player with no additional video features. For example, filters, streaming or transcoding.
Besides known formats, it plays rare types of video, but without installing additional codecs. For example, recordings from service surveillance cameras. The programme can play saved parts of corrupted files, play videos not downloaded to the end, enable TV channels and streaming video.
The interface is simple – reminiscent of Windows XP era programmes. MPC runs even on older versions of Windows and uses almost no computer resources – HD video will turn on even on an old PC.
No longer comes with the current version of Windows. The popular MPC-HC fork, a branch off from the main project that is developed by enthusiasts, ceased support in 2017. It continues to be supported by other enthusiast developers, and different builds of the programme can be found on GitHub and developer websites. But you should remember that these are unofficial versions, you will have to choose according to reviews.
KMPlayer
WINDOWS, ANDROID, IOS
“Omnivorous” and productive player that supports the main video formats. The free version has adverts on smartphones.
Supports 3D video, resolution up to 8K, streaming, playback of corrupted files. There is a built-in subtitle editor. The appearance is changed with the help of inbuilt skins. In the paid version for smartphones, you can make gifs from video.
KMPlayer is characterised by balanced performance even on budget devices.
There are a lot of settings in the context menu – you’ll have to spend time to customise it. The smartphone application does not have playlists, file manager and sorting, DivX, EAC3, DTS codec support. There’s also a non-obvious system of paying for additional features using internal cryptocurrency.
QuickTime
MACOS
A standard minimalistic player for macOS with basic features. There is a paid Pro-version that allows you to edit videos, export codecs, save videos from the Internet in your own QuickTime format.
Supports tags and playlist creation, works with streaming video. Among the differences from analogues – you can capture the screen, including from a cable-connected iPhone, as well as create your own audio and video from the camera and microphone of your computer.
The standard version plays only macOS native formats – AVI, MKV or WMV, popular on Windows, will not open without installing additional codecs. Often the player cannot play even MP4 without obvious reasons.
Does not support external subtitles. CPU overload: if you leave the player with video enabled in the background and run other programmes, QuickTime may crash.
IINA
MACOS
The completely free IINA player is not a completely independent project. It is developed based on MPV player, so it supports all major formats and codecs from the “progenitor”.
A non-commercial project focusing on functionality without unnecessary customisations. You can add external filters for video and audio, create playlists, mark up chapters, convert clips, automatically load subtitles, stream videos from YouTube – just drag and drop a clip from your browser into the player window.
IINA has a “music mode” – the player minimises into a small window with album art in the corner of the screen. An interesting function “Remove logo” erases interfering channel names or unnecessary banners from the video.
The player is developed only for macOS, so it doesn’t break out of Apple’s laconic design and supports all the features of the system: works with touchbar, recognises gestures on the touchpad, picture-in-picture function, thanks to which you can watch TV series in the background. Works on older devices.
No video editing function – you can’t crop the video or cut out a part of it. Lots of filters – you can invert, rotate or reflect colours, but they don’t work with some formats like MPEG. The “Remove logo” function sometimes doesn’t work, it just smears the pixels.
Elmedia
MACOS
Conditionally free video player for macOS. The free version supports standard video formats, track switching, playlists and bookmarks. You can adjust video colour correction, take screenshots, and download videos from the Internet only in the paid version.
Elmedia has a minimalistic design with an interface that does not display additional settings on top of the content. The free version allows you to customise the display of subtitles, supports streaming and picture-in-picture. There is a built-in browser.
A special feature of Elmedia – you can make a series in a row with unblurred screenshots. Deinterlace function gets rid of low quality defects in video – it will help when working with old DVDs and recordings from analogue cameras.
Streaming to a TV via AirPlay doesn’t always work perfectly – quality is lost and subtitles are not played back.