HomeThe growing popularity of YouTube and other video streaming websites over the years has led to the rise of the VLC media player. There're many merits of VLC, like its ability to play incomplete, unfinished or damaged video, the ability to access ISO files, wide support for audio and video formats, etc. However, the disadvantages should not be overlooked:
> Sometimes VLC crashes inexplicably without warning.
> VLC excels in playing unfinished or damaged video. But sometimes it tells you that the file is damaged, but actually it's just being downloaded.
> Although VLC has a wide support for video/audio codes and formats, it requires codec settings for a few formats. It isn't an easy job for many people.
Other problems with VLC are not listed in detail. No matter you have come across the problems or not, it isn't a bad thing to find a VLC alternative. We've picked out some of the best so that you don't have to.
Best VLC Alternatives for Windows
RealPlayer offers solid performance and a simple interface. It opens up to a clean, icon-based dashboard, with all of the audio controls at the center of the screen, and icons for Videos and Photos sitting at the bottom. When you first install it, the app automatically takes inventory of the media on your device and populates its menus with your content. It supports various popular formats including WMV, WMA FLV, AVI, MP3, MP4, 3GP and more. That way, you can start playing your stuff right away.
The Bad: There are no power features like photo effects, advanced sorting, or video editing.
KMPlayer the original name of which is K-Multimedia player is media player that has been exclusively developed for windows and it supports almost any format that windows can play:
> Many settings related to the playback of a video including audio syncing, repeating sections, skipping sections, and a lot more.
> A wide range of filters for when playing videos.
> 3D and VR support and settings related to that.
> Extensive subtitle management.
> Audio and video capturing, etc.
Media Player Classic Home Cinema
MPC-HC Media Player, another lightweight Player and a competitor of VLC Media Player, is also an open source Player just like VLC Media Player. Key Features:
> Latest Version available is 1.7.8
> Works only on Windows
> Can also be used as DVB Player
> Completely free to use
> Size of Media Player is around 18 MB
> Supports all common video and audio file formats available for playback
VLC Media Player Replacements for Mac
Most Apple users may be familiar with QuickTime, because it is currently the default media player for Apple running OS. There's no doubt that this VLC alternative can be fully compatible with Mac OS. The main function is similar to VLC Media Player including handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The following are the main features.
> It is a cross-platform program for both Mac and PC.
> It is capable of watching videos from hard drive and internet.
> Saves existing QuickTime movies from the web directly to a hard disk drive.
This newish player is the perfect balance between simplicity and performance. It's simple, it's pretty and it plays absolutely anything you throw at it. It has features like multitouch control via a trackpad that allows you to not only jog control — but also control volume.
> Play almost any format of file or stream.
> Multi-touch. Control the player with your fingers.
> Intelligently detecting the encoding of the subtitles. No need for encoding conversion.
> Direct pass through. Connect, play, enjoy your home theater.
Movist is an easy-to-use and powerful video player. You can choose QuickTime or FFmpeg as decoder for each video codec and reopen with other decoder instantly. Movist supports many useful features to enjoy movies including H.264 video decode acceleration, digital audio out (S/PDIF), high quality subtitles, full screen navigation, convenient & beautiful user interface and so on. Just enjoy movies with Movist.
Conclusion: Apart from the above VLC alternatives for Mac and PC, there are many other media players. The 6 best VLC alternatives we've jotted down should be enough for now. So go ahead and give them all a try, as most of them are free. If you've come across any substitute for the media player that we’ve not listed out, do drop in a word.
Most Reliable VLC Alternative to Play Any Video Smoothly
If you are searching for a VLC alternative that can free play all your media files directly including SD/HD/4K UHD videos, music files and Blu-ray/DVDs without any troubles, Pavtube Media Player is the way to go.
This reliable VLC alternative is embedded in Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate (Get Mac Version). It lets you import more than 300+ video formats to the program and play with high definition image and extremely good sound quality. You don't need to worry about the format compatibility since this media player contains virtually all video/audio codecs inside. Pavtube media player should rank as the best alternatives to VLC, which is not just because it can play videos in hundreds of formats, but also it contains the ability to convert video format and rip video from Blu-ray/DVD. In a word, this is an all-in-one multi-media solution.
A specs summary of Pavtube Media Player:
Useful Blu-ray player to play back Blu-ray discs and folders without quality loss;
Play back all the latest DVD discs without quality loss;
Free media player to enjoy SD/HD/4K/3D videos in all formats on Windows/Mac;
Allow people to adjust subtitles and audio tracks, and load external subtitles for better movie experience at will;
Support to play back audio files with DTS-HD Master audio and DTS-5.1 audio;
100% compatible with Windows 10 & macOS High Sierra.
Related:
Free Trial Video Converter Ultimate
