Media Player Classic

Platforms: All Windows Versions
Media Player Classic is not any normal Media Player bundled with the Windows but an Open Source Product for sure.
Features:
MPC comes with a stand alone executable. The interface unlike most other players is much simple. MPC’s menus are modular, so unwanted components can be hidden. The full screen mode can be configured to include or exclude aids like the control bar and seek bar. You can easily change different properties of the video such as contrast, brightness, colour saturation, etc., provided the video codec allows it. Playback rate can be altered (fast forward or rewind) and audio is supported upto 2x speed.

Playing a video source (file or disk) is easy. Just go to File > Quick Open and browse for the video file. If it is a DVD or VCD that you intend to play, choose File > Open DVD/VCD. The control bar allows you to increase or decrease the play rate. To capture images of the movie, use the File > Save Image option. The image will only be saved in the resolution of the movie and not the window. The File > Save Thumbnail option will give you a single file containing many screen grabs the size and lay out of which can be configured. To customize the interface, play around in the View menu. Enable or disable toolbars according to your choice. You can also use the preset styles under View > Presets. If the video appears too dim, increase its brightness using Play > Filters > MPEG 1 (or corresponding Video Codec) Video Renderer option. You can also increase contrast, colour and hue similarly.

Capturing Video

First select the device, by the File > Open Device option. Next use the View > Capture menu (it will remain greyed till the device is selected) to choose the location and the name of the resulting video file. You can also set the compression options here. When all is set then just click on “Record” and then stop it when you are done.

Streaming Video

MPC allows you to create a streaming video site, since it bundles an HTTP server.
Enable the Web interface under View > Options > Web interface. Here enable the “listen to port” option and add a port number. If you want to prevent others from seeing the results let the “Allow Access from Local host only” option remain enabled. This will only accept requests from the PC you are on. Once you are satisfied with the results you can disable this option, so that others from the network can also watch it.

Now you can play a video or view your webcam in MPC and any person can watch it by connecting on to

http://yourip:<portno>

to watch it.

Converting to DSM (Direct Show Media) Format

You can convert any file that MPC can play into DSM format. For this access the File > Utils menu. Right-click on the DSM converter window and add the file you want to convert. Then click on save as to provide a location and name to the converted file. To start encoding, click on start.

Advantages: An excellent video player which can play anything as long as the relevant codec is installed. Being able to hear audio while altering the movie play rate is also a nice thing. Having add-ons like built in capturing capability and HTTP server set it apart from other free media players.

Disadvantages: In the attempt to reduce the size consumption MPC did away with a very important thing- The help file. Though still for routine use the intuitive interface is easy to handle. If in need the user manual can easily be downloaded from their home page.

Even with all that its still a must have and it automatically gets installed while installing the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

The Basics

First things first so just get these basics in….

FPS: for Frames per second. The number of movie frames displayed per second.
Resolution: The number of horizontal and vertical dots that make up the display.
Codec: Algorithm that is used to compress and decompress a video/audio stream. Needless to say, a stream compressed using a codec needs the same codec to decompress it. Open source codec examples: Mpeg1, Xvid, X264, etc. Other popular codecs include MOV, DivX, WMV, WMA, QT, RM.
Container Format: The file used to pack data. Data (Audio, Video, Text) can be compressed using any codec but should be packed in one of the many container formats. This would explain why it is possible to hear the audio even when the video codec is unavailable. Some containers are not compatible with certain codecs. Open source container formats: Matroska, Ogg, etc.
Aspect Ratio: The ratio of the width and height of a display. Most monitors use a 4:3 aspect ratio, whereas widescreen displays use the 16:9 aspect ratio.
AVI: Stands for Audio Video Interleave. So called because Audio and Video data are alternately arranged in the data stream. AVI is a container format.
DVD: Digital Versatile Disk. For the purpose of this article all DVD refers to Video DVD only. By default uses MPEG2 for video compression and offers resolution of 720x576 (PAL) and 720x480 (NTSC). Audio can be compressed using other codecs.
MPEG: Motion Picture Expert Group. Default compression format for VCD. Resolution of 352x288 (PAL), 352x240 (NTSC)
MPEG2: Motion Picture Expert Group 2. Default compression for Video DVD. Allows significantly more features than MPEG1 in the form of menus, customizable angles, customizable audio output, customizable subtitles and languages.
PAL: Phase Alternation Line, a format of Video display used in India. This is made up of 600 lines refreshed at 25fps.
NTSC: National Televisions Standards Committee, a format of video display mostly used in US. This is made up of 525 lines refreshed at 29.97fps. Since most DVD player available at present can play PAL and NTSC DVDs the distinction between these formats is not significant.
VOB: Files used to store data on DVD movies. VOB files use MPEG2 compression.
DAT: Video CDs use DAT files store data. These are normal MPEG1 files with additional information.
Interlaced VS Progressive: These relate to how information is displayed on a screen. Progressive display shows the entire screen in one o. Interlaced display causes data to be divided into two fields- odd and even, each one consisting of the alternate lines on the display.

Open Video

Nothing consumes as much space on you hard disk as videos. While there are many free proprietary tools available for viewing videos, there are hardly any free proprietary video converters and editors. The most capable of these tools are from the Open Source domain.

Before I start with the review all those players, editors etc. I suggest you guys to install all the codecs from any of the codec packs like K-Lite Mega codec pack etc.