#MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC HOMECINEMA UPDATE#
#MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC HOMECINEMA WINDOWS#

#MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC HOMECINEMA WINDOWS#

VLC is cross-platform, supporting just about everything, including Windows Phone and Windows RT. VLC has a very nice audio boost feature built right into the volume control, where MPC-HC has its boost buried in a dialog. I’m calling shaders/FX a tie, but more facile and feature-complete playback wins the day for VLC. There may be some, but the MPC-HC crew never responded to my queryand I got tired of hunting around. You can also load these from files, but I never located any that don’t already ship with MPC-HC. MPC-HC lets you use shaders (aka filters or FX), such as grayscale, edge sharpen, and emboss. But VLC has more granular speed control smoother slow speed playback it stretches/compresses audio to retain the original pitch, instead of simply speeding it up or down as MPC-HC does it lets you loop portions of the material, which MPC-HC does not allow and it offers a few more tweaks that you can apply to video, such as interactive magnification, although they’re hidden away in multiple dialog boxes. Both players play normal speed and allow you to skip anywhere you want in the material. VLC could use a lot of UI work.īest support for filters, shaders, and FX: VLC VLC always returns to its previous window size when it starts playback again. I also appreciate that when I resize MPC-HC, it stays that way, even when I’m looping a video. I’ve used VLC for years and still have to hunt around for options on occasion. MPC-HC’s context menus don’t change as VLC’s do when you’re in full-screen mode, and it’s easier to remember where everything is. VLC has clunky icons and its garish orange work cone (aren’t you supposed to avoid these?).īut the real difference is that MPC-HC’s menus and features are far better organized and laid out. MPC-HC was derived from the older Media Player Classic, whose interface is based on the Windows 95/XP Media Player. Neither VLC or MPC-HC are much to look at. MPC-HC’s logically laid out options dialog makes it far easier to access large feature set than VLC’s preferences. MPC-HC played both Apple Lossless and Windows Lossless just fine, and the program was more responsive when switching tracks.

#MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC HOMECINEMA UPDATE#

but it’s not unusual for a VLC update to break something else. The small difference was that VLC also misfired on Windows Lossless, starting but continuously glitching. VQF files (a very old codec), but so does everything else. Both programs played WAV files up to 96kHz/32-bits, and all the standard compressed formats, including MP3, M4A, FLAC, APE, and even Opus. MPC-HC doesn’t even try to do this.Ī squeaker for MPC-HC. Just paste a URL into the “Open Media Stream” dialog and if access is allowed, you’re streaming YouTube and what have you. It’s broad support for less-common file types is legendary. VLC’s claim to fame is the ability to play streaming media across the network and Web. LAV is based on the popular GNU-licensed FFmpeg. The release notes for version 1.7 actually stress the increased stability. MPC-HC’s new-found stability with video seems due to replacing its old internal DirectShow filters with Nevcairiel’s excellent LAV filters. It might be nice if it displayed a frown clown instead of just sitting there, but that’s being picayune. MPC-HC simply doesn’t play a file it doesn’t understand. Sometimes killing the VLC process tree using task manager is the only solution. When VLC runs into a problem, it often goes into a loop that requires several attempts to break out of.

There was another factor: The stark difference between the way the two programs react to a file they don’t understand. Both programs played VCDs and DVDs (even commercial ones), nicely handling the menus and other elements, and both played non-protected Blu-ray movies, too. On the other hand, MPC-HC did play another older MPEG-1 that choked VLC. Both also had a hard time seeking in certain WMV files, though VLC was quicker on long jumps. There was one exception: an old MPEG-1 file that VLC won’t handle either. What’s more, MPC-HC played nearly everything else I threw at it. Using the LAV filter pack, the program is more stable with bad files than VLC. The list of internal video and audio codecs employed by MPC-HC is vast. This won’t affect many users now, but it may soon. VLC skipped frames like they were going out of style. I’d expected this from VLC, whose authors are almost fetish-like in supporting everything, but VLC didn’t play the 4K files as smoothly. I’m not sure why it surprised me, but MPC-HC played HEVC (x.265) files flawlessly, including 4K with decently high bit rates.

Media player classic homecinema