Reviews by Ziggy1978
MPC Video Renderer 0.4.9
The MPC Video Renderer is born from the old EVR Custom Presenter; IMHO this new renderer need to be polished, improved.
The scalers for example are just standard and text book Bcubic, Lanczos and Catmull Rom; on an Intel based system with HD4400U IGPU the visual quality is not comparable to the vanilla EVR with Intel DXVA Context Adaptive Scaler (Lanczos4 based, with edge detector filter, antiringing filter in upscaling only, sharp without obvious ringing).
Also, the video jitter is higher respect to vanilla EVR or madVR.
The scalers for example are just standard and text book Bcubic, Lanczos and Catmull Rom; on an Intel based system with HD4400U IGPU the visual quality is not comparable to the vanilla EVR with Intel DXVA Context Adaptive Scaler (Lanczos4 based, with edge detector filter, antiringing filter in upscaling only, sharp without obvious ringing).
Also, the video jitter is higher respect to vanilla EVR or madVR.
K-Lite Codec Pack 15.7.5
The K-Lite Codec Pack is THE perfect choice for dealing with audio and video codecs on Windows enviroment (both DirectShow and Microsoft Media Foundation); I use it from a lot of years, never had a problem, never a conflict.
The Pack is based on the solid MPC-HC as default player and LAV filters as the core for the codec part.
The Codec Tweak Tool and GraphStudioNext are also great tools for changing all the intricacies of the filters, also for WMP.
Great user support too, and this is very remarkable for a free software.
The Pack is based on the solid MPC-HC as default player and LAV filters as the core for the codec part.
The Codec Tweak Tool and GraphStudioNext are also great tools for changing all the intricacies of the filters, also for WMP.
Great user support too, and this is very remarkable for a free software.
LAV Filters 0.74.1-75
The LAV filters are the de facto standard for Windows users when dealing with audio and video codecs; the developer is talented and its filters (FFMPEG based) are focused on high quality direct playback from hard disk, less on video streaming content.
The D3D11 interface, together with madVR, are a solid video rendering path for the new 10 bit videos.
The D3D11 interface, together with madVR, are a solid video rendering path for the new 10 bit videos.
Media Player Classic - BE 1.5.6 beta
MPC-BE 1.5.5 x64 is surely (together with the great MPC-HC) the perfect choice on a Windows enviroment for users in search of a reliable, fast, mature video player.
The support from the russian developers is excellent, they fix bugs just in some hours, very fast and competent.
The internal decoders and splitter are very well integrated, there's no need of LAV filters.
The new MPC video renderer is yet a young project but we must support it as an alternative to EVR vanilla and madVR.
The support from the russian developers is excellent, they fix bugs just in some hours, very fast and competent.
The internal decoders and splitter are very well integrated, there's no need of LAV filters.
The new MPC video renderer is yet a young project but we must support it as an alternative to EVR vanilla and madVR.
PotPlayer 1.7.21190 beta
For new users: PotPlayer is an excellent multimedia player for Windows, DirectShow based.
The player was originally made with the code of the great MPC player by a very good korean developer, but as now (2020) PotPlayer has a stable development while MPC-HC is in maintenance mode, with just some small bug fixes.
Respect to MPC-HC or MPC-BE the korean player has much more settings and functions, faster and more precise seeking, timeline preview like YouTube that works very well, much better than MPC-BE.
The streaming of Internet videos is more reliable than MPC-HC or MPC-BE because PotPlayer by default use its own splitter and audio-video decoders. They're FFMPEG based like LAV Filters. But LAV filters are more optimized for disk content, not streaming.
Attention: as for April 2020 PotPlayer try to install unwanted PUP program during the set-up, but You can (and should) just click on ''Refuse' and everything is fine.
The player was originally made with the code of the great MPC player by a very good korean developer, but as now (2020) PotPlayer has a stable development while MPC-HC is in maintenance mode, with just some small bug fixes.
Respect to MPC-HC or MPC-BE the korean player has much more settings and functions, faster and more precise seeking, timeline preview like YouTube that works very well, much better than MPC-BE.
The streaming of Internet videos is more reliable than MPC-HC or MPC-BE because PotPlayer by default use its own splitter and audio-video decoders. They're FFMPEG based like LAV Filters. But LAV filters are more optimized for disk content, not streaming.
Attention: as for April 2020 PotPlayer try to install unwanted PUP program during the set-up, but You can (and should) just click on ''Refuse' and everything is fine.
Zoom Player 15.0 rc2
Zoom Player is a DirectShow 32 bit only (no 64 bit version yet..) Windows player; it's reliable, quite fast, with really few bugs, works perfectly with madVR (high quality video renderer) and MPC Wasapi Audio renderer.
The menu is rich of options (in a positive way), in advanced mode it's probably one of the players with more possibilities of real custom settings (ex. Zoom Player can change the Pixel Aspect Ratio of the display in a very precise way, not many players have this function as for 2019).
IMHO the GUI (graphic user interface) could be a bit improved, but it's really a minor point. All in all a very good video player.
The menu is rich of options (in a positive way), in advanced mode it's probably one of the players with more possibilities of real custom settings (ex. Zoom Player can change the Pixel Aspect Ratio of the display in a very precise way, not many players have this function as for 2019).
IMHO the GUI (graphic user interface) could be a bit improved, but it's really a minor point. All in all a very good video player.
KMPlayer 4.2.2.34
For new users: KMPlayer was made originally with the code of MPC and FFDSHOW, but when the developer sold the software to Pandora TV, slowly it became a useless video player.
It's full of big and small bugs, the interface and settings refer to Windows 2000 in a bad way, old filters, old plugins no more used, stutter and jitter, audio and video out of sync, a mess. madVR is not well integrated.
Also, the 32 bit version is no more recommended from the KMPlayer team itself on their forum 'cause is full of unwanted ads, also while playing video in windowed mode!
They advice to use the 64 bit version, which is a clone of MPC-HC, with the same options and very similar GUI.
So, my advice is: please don't use this software, please prefer capable video players like MPC-HC or MPC-BE or Zoom Player or JRiver, made by honest and competent developers.
It's full of big and small bugs, the interface and settings refer to Windows 2000 in a bad way, old filters, old plugins no more used, stutter and jitter, audio and video out of sync, a mess. madVR is not well integrated.
Also, the 32 bit version is no more recommended from the KMPlayer team itself on their forum 'cause is full of unwanted ads, also while playing video in windowed mode!
They advice to use the 64 bit version, which is a clone of MPC-HC, with the same options and very similar GUI.
So, my advice is: please don't use this software, please prefer capable video players like MPC-HC or MPC-BE or Zoom Player or JRiver, made by honest and competent developers.
