The Friendliest Computer Club in Ventura County Since 1986
Media Player Classic
This is a reprint from the October 2006 issue of TOE (The Outer Edge)
By Jim Thornton
I love to listen to music and old time radio programs over the Internet. These programs come in many different file formats - MP3, Real Player, QuickTime, wma, etc.
Some of these formats can't be played using Microsoft's Windows Media Player, the player that is included in Windows, and require special players like RealMedia's Real Player, etc. The problem with these special players is that they are memory hogs and load your computer up with unwanted icons on your desktop and in the system tray.
As I like a relativity clean system tray containing only those icons that I frequently use, I don't like Real Player, for that example, and QuickTime's annoying ads to upgrade to the Pro version are a real pain!
So what I needed was a player that plays the major audio formats, including QuickTime and Real Player. I found one - Media Player Classic. It plays AVI, CD audio, MP3, QuickTime, Real Player, etc., and looks like Windows Media Player. Its appearance is similar because it's a rewrite of Windows Media Player version 6, except it's open sourced and released under the GNU General Public License and doesn't have the limitations of the Microsoft version. The interface is similar but more up-to-date and XP friendly, and it comes with more advanced features.
The program is feature-rich as it opens and plays 14 audio file formats - AIFF (wma), AU (au and snd), Audio (wav), CD audio (cda), DVD (ac3 and dts), Matroska (mka), MIDI (mid, midi, and rmi), MP3 (mp3), MPEG (mpa, mp2, m1a, and m2a), MPEG4 (aac and m4a), Musepack (mpc), Ogg Vorbis (ogg), Real Audio (ra), and Windows Media Audio (wma). In addition, it plays 23 video file formats - Dirac (drc), Direct Show (dsa, dsm, dss, and dsv), DSM (dsa, dsm, dss, and dsv), DVD (ifo and vob), DVD2AVI (d2v), Flash (flv), FLIC (flc, fli, and flic), Indeo (Intel ivf), Matroska (mkv), MPEC (dat, mpe, mpeg, mpeg1, mpeg2, mpg, mpv, mpv2, mp2v, m1v, m2v, pss, pva, tp, tpr, and ts), MPEG4 (mp4, m4b, m4p, m4v, 3gp, 3gpp, 3gp2, and 3g2), Ogg (ogm), Other (divx and vp6), Playlist (asx, mpcp1, m3u, pls, wax, wmx, and wvx), QuickTime (amr, mov, and qt), RATDVD (ratdvd), Real Media (ram, rm, rpm, and rmvb), Real Script (rp, rt, smi, and smil), RoQ (Quake 3 roq), Shockwave Flash (Macromedia swf), Smacker/Bink (bik and smk), Video (avi), and Windows Media (asf, wm, wmp, and wmv). You may need to initially install QuickTime and Real
Alternative (Real Media) programs in order to obtain their current codecs so Media Player Classic can play those special formatted files. Many of these file types may seem strange to you because they are used in Europe. The program developer lives in Hungary, and his program is available in the English, French, Hungarian, and Russian languages. It was first released in July 2002.
Some of the features of the program are that it plays DVD videos and supports all the DVD navigational commands with a real-time zoom and supports AVI subtitles. You can play the video frame by frame if you like and/or speed up or slow down its playing rate. You can play the video in letterbox format or full screen, etc. In addition to playing videos, it can capture the video from your computer's DVD player, TV tuner, or VIVO (Video In Video Out) video card.
The current version of Media Player Classic is 6.4.9.0, released March 21, 2006, and this little freeware program is easily found on the Internet by going to the Web site http://www.divx-digest.com/software/media_player_classic.html and selecting your current operating system as this program comes in two versions -one for Windows 95, 98, and Me and the other for Windows XP, NT, and 2000.
In summary, the features of Media Player Classic include all of the current features of Windows Media Player, and its features are at least one generation ahead of Windows Media Player. However, one weakness of Media Player Classic is its inability to capture streaming audio live off the Internet. A better choice to do this would be Total Recorder, a good audio recorder that I reviewed in our club's January 2003 newsletter, on pages 10 and 11. The newsletter is available from the club's Web site.
