Friday 14 November 2014

VLC Media Player Versus Media Player Classic

We here at vlcmediaplayer.org are of course huge VLC-junkies. But that doesnt mean that we havent tried some of the other media players out there. Probably the best available free alternative to VLC is Media Player Classic.

In one respect, MPC does have an advantage over VLC. But in all others, VLC Media Player comes out the clear winner. Overall, choosing either of these for your media-playing needs would be a good choice and choosing both is even better. However, if you have to choose just one, get the free VLC download, because its the better media player overall.

Battleof the Media Titans

Comparing VLC and MPC is like comparing Coca Cola and Pepsi. Theres no doubt that these are the two best players out there (at least, on the windows platform), but some will prefer the former and others will prefer the latter. Before describing some relative advantages and disadvantages of the two, lets take some time to discuss how they are similar in their greatness.


Both are free and open source.
Both are slender and lightweight players.
Both are minimalistic in outlook, but have very powerful features.
Both are user-friendly and offer a great viewing experience.

As you can see, both of these media players have a lot going for them. The differences between the two are in the details.

Graphic Rendering and Computer Usage

Both players are lightweight and wont hog up your pcs resources, but it has to be said: Media Player Classic runs a little bit smoother than VLC. The difference is entirely unnoticeable on any machine that dates from 2005 or later, but on older machines, it cannot be denied that uses resources slightly more effectively, translating into a less choppy image.

Related to this is MPCs superior High Definition rendering. VLC is much better than Windows Media Player or Quicktime when rendering HD, but will still deliver choppier picture quality than Media Player Classic on less powerful machines.

So if your computer is old, MPC does have some things going for it.

Codecs and Formats

On the other hand, VLC Media Player is one single file download which contains everything you need to play all the audio and video files you would ever want to play. MPC, on the other hand, will require you to download codecs or codec packs to be able to play certain formats, and will refuse to play others entirely (like Blu-Rays, for which VLC has experimental support and incomplete or broken files).

Streaming Video and Playlist Functionality

Another advantage over MPC is VLCs streaming functionality. VLC allows you to play YouTube videos, convert and save them into different formats, watch podcasts, internet TV and much more. MPC does nothing like this.

The Playlist is also much better in VLC. More advanced users wont care much about this, but people who just want to enjoy their media player will greatly benefit from the great integrated playlist.

Final Verdict

VLC takes the cake because it has a lot more options and doesnt require any other codecs or other downloads. However, MPC is a great alternative and may even win out if you have a very old computer.

But, at the end, why to choose if you can have both?

No comments:

Post a Comment