VLC Media Player 1.1.11

Description

Update: The below review pertains to a previous version of the VLC player.

For several years, the free, third-party media player of choice for many video connoisseurs was the open-source VLC media player. It worked on multiple operating systems, it worked on a bare install of Windows without any special codecs, and it was light and fast.

The latest version comes with the ability to easily record all media on the fly. Yes, that means CSS-protected content as well. VLC can also act as both a streaming server and client. You can set up VLC to stream media from a file or from a DVD as a server, and then another client can stream that media, without having to encode the file first.

No additional installs or codecs are required, VLC is entirely self contained.

Other great features are the ability to play back a single frame at a time, the ability to pause instantly(whereas before you always lost a couple of frames that way); and Blu-Ray and HD audio support. The developer also claims that VLC can also record live TV from a decoder card and act as a sort of mini-DVR in that respect.

And the nicest thing is that VLC is small, at about 20.1MB, and is entirely self contained after installation. No additional installs or codecs are required. VLC is a good choice if you format your machine and still want DVD playback (as DVD codecs are normally proprietary and difficult to come by). It's also a great choice for streaming media of any kind.