There are all kinds of different ways for you to play videos and music on your computer for free, but the problem is finding the right one for you. We’ve reviewed GOM which is definitely near the top of my list, and then there is VLC which has definitely won the hearts of people around the world. And now thanks to “leland” over in the forum I have a new favorite: KMPlayer (download).
The thing that really attracted me to the player is the stunning appearance, but after using it for a short while I’ve found that the entire interface seems a lot more user friendly. And you won’t be compromising compatibility when using the player because it supports dozens of different video and audio formats out-of-the-box:
- Video: DivX, XviD, Theora, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VP3, VP5, VP6, H263(+), H.264(AVC1), CYUY, ASV1/2, SVQ1/3, MSVIDC, Cinepak, MS MPEG4 V1/2/3, FFV1, VCR1, FLV1, MSRLE, QTRLE Huffyuv, Digital Video, Indeo3, MJPEG, MPNG SNOW, TSCC, Dirac, VC-1, RealVideo, SMC
- Audio: AC3, DTS, LPCM, MP2, MP3, Vorbis, AAC, WMA, ALAC, AMR, QDM2, FLAC, TTA, IMA ADPCM, QCELP, EVRC, RealAudio
Don’t let the simple interface fool you into thinking that it is lacking in customizability. The amount of things that you can configure is enough to make even the biggest power users drop their jaw down to the floor:
When it comes to playing audio this isn’t going to be my first choice, but I’ve been using this quite a bit lately for watching videos. Let us know what you think of KMPlayer!
Download KMPlayer for Free (Windows only)
@Ryan:
Great find! I just downloaded it and can’t wait to install it and start viewing my favorite videos. Where do you find all these jewels?
Regards,
Omar.-
Good find, I haven’t heard of this one at all. So is this based on MPlayer ([mplayerhq.hu])?
can it stream real audio from websites, it would be nice if it played .mov files
I use foobar for audio and KMPlayer for EVERY video file – it plays EVERYTHING I have ever thrown at it with no need to install any codecs on your machine. I tried GOM but found it trying to take me to websites to download codecs to play what KMplayer could already.
I was pleasently surprised when i saw that you posted
about The KMPlayer,this piece of software is simply amasing
i’m using it for about a year and i’m loving it,this gem will
play your cat if you throw it in and press play,perfect solution
for playing all kinds of videos,for audio i’m using quintessential
player (another cool alternative for “almighty” winamp)
and one more thing,all my friends are using km now after i show
them what this thing can do,instal this and you don’t need
anything else.Cheers
I have been using the KMPlayer for so long now I cannot remember. I have never had any problems with it. Like all things Korean, they are beautiful and they work. Love you Jenny.
Don’t forget about Songbird;)
I have to give this app a test run…reading the comments and review it looks really good.
I’ll stick to VLC player, it’s fairly light weight. All I need for a video player is for it to “just work”.
If it’s support real media format, then it’s great news!
Thanks!
Like for Fedorov, it’s been my mainstay video player (Foobar2000 for audio) for the last several months – plays every video file I throw at it and I love the fact that you can change play speed, pan, zoom or make adjustments to brightness, etc in realtime. It even lets me correct AV synch for files that are out of synch. I’m sure GOMPlayer is nice but once you have something like KMP you stop looking for substitutes.
I am using it for more than a year and I can’t even remember that where I heard it for the first time. I can tell you that after all this experience with it(and many other players) that its head & shoulders above any other media player currently available for ANY platform either shareware or freeware. BTW for the Real media support you may need to install Real Alternative codec otherwise it supports all the major(even minor) formats out of the box. Skinning capabilities are amazing as well and you can find some great skins at the forum(such as WMP11 skin that is my favorite).
Can it play everything? For example if I want to watch Movietrailers on Apple.com I just need KMPlayer and not additionally Quicktime? And whatabout streams? Would be nice to have a soulution for all video files. Right now I´m using K-Lite Mega Codec Pack + Quicktime Light for video. For audio: foobar2000.
I tried this some time ago and I will be sticking with VLC. Never had an issue with it and it has never failed to play whatever file I have either.
I read in the forum that the developer is missing. that´s sad. good program. If it would support gapless playback it would be a real allroundchoice for many i believe. very nice interface!
I definitely can’t take credit for this find. As I mentioned in the article “leland” over in our forum is the one who scrounged this bad boy up.
Part of me feels the same way that you do, but this thing looks pretty remarkable. The one thing that I like about VLC is that there is a portable version available, and I still use that from time to time.
That is pretty sad. Hopefully the developer is just preparing for a big release.
I’m the one who mentioned it on the forums. I found it about one and a half years ago, I think on [majorgeeks.com.] I was not too sure at first, but it truly is a great looking program. BTW, you can download a ZIP file of the program (just extract it where you want it) that works as a portable version and then you can copy it to a memory stick and take it with you just like VLC. It will be dependent on some of the codecs installed, I think just for Real Player, but other than that it is totally portable. So have fun and enjoy.
One and only. Before i used BSPlayer + MPlayerClassic + WinDVD … now all went to recycle …
I just deinstalled it because it could not play .mp4 video files I downloaded as podcast. Media Player Classic and VLC had no problems.
KM player stands for korean movie player. I prefer it over gom and vlc. no it is not based on mplayer.
You’re doing kmplayer a huge injustice by using it only for video files – Try this test; open kmplayer plus iTunes, VLC, GOM or whatever – open the same music file in each program then play each one in turn and listen to the difference in quality. KMplayer is hugely better at Audio output! If ONLY I didn’t have to use iTunes for my iPod i would have no other media program on my comp – it’s that outstanding.
If you’re just listening to the music out of laptop speakers like me then it is hard to hear a difference.
They have changed hands in an announcement early in March. Check out [kmplayer.com] for more information.
I wonder what Pandora.tv plans on using it for since they are an online streaming site.