Media Player Software

Although it is almost taken for granted that if you double-click on that media file, it sure is going to start playing, the file doesn’t play itself. It is the media player operating the playback. Indeed, it becomes unimaginable to lead our daily lives without some media player software.    

Media player for playing audio and video

At the heart of any media player lays its capability to play an audio or video file. Operating systems are mostly equipped with their default built-in media players, for instance, Windows Media Player for Windows, Quick Time Player for macOS. While their performance is excellent for your regular media files, they may not be fully equipped to play several file formats. You download it, and it doesn’t play when you double click, showing that the computer applications don’t support it. So, when you upgrade your media player, it needs to have the container formats and codecs to handle any select audio/video file. Most of the advanced players help to streamline the media loading, the listening, and the watching procedure. Some can transform 2D videos to 3D and are able enough to upscale your videos, sharpen quality, and do lighting corrections and even some stabilizations. Basic play features include buttons for play, stop, pause, backward, and forward and the list becomes longer with better players.   

Playing files from CDs and DVDs with library management

Of course, your computer will have some downloaded media files. But quite often, you’d also want to play files from your CD or DVD. Media players allow you to import and sometimes burn files into your disks. For the latter, you create a backup where you need not be connected to the internet while playing the files. So, now you can insert your disc and enjoy your favorite songs or watch the latest release you just got a DVD for, from the market. Besides, most media players would also let you create your own playlist. You can label them and keep them organized. So, next time you are reading something, and you’d want to listen to light music, you don’t have to continuously skip through songs to listen to the ones that you want to at the point of time. Other instances of library management also include editing song details like adding singer name, year of release, etc. and sometimes even lyrics.

Paid v/s free media player software

There are, of course, great free media players that don’t even require you to download additional codecs and plugins for extra features. The loading and streaming process is smooth, and they can even play 8D audio (for music players) and 360-degree videos (for video players). But they may not be capable of playing across multiple platforms and files of various formats. They may even fall short of advanced controls that are otherwise possible in a paid application. A couple of paid media players also come with their own library of videos, community attributes, ratings, and reviews area. Some may even allow you to download videos directly from Facebook and play them on your device. So, at the end of the day, whether you want a free application or paid one will depend on which platforms you use, what types of files you play, and how advanced you want your video watching or audio listening experience to be.