Greetings.

I'm fed up with free media players so I need tips for a good media player that I can buy. The only really important thing is that it plays all formats. Especially AVI. I often run into AVI files that are problematic. Yeah VLC media player can play practically everything but I hate that app.

Would be nice to finally use only ONE media player.

VLC has the best functionality but if you want something different try GOMPlayer

Did you every try KM Player? It's free and lovely, in my experience.

This looks really nice! Support for messed up AVI files is a huge bonus. :) I like easy to use lightweight apps. Have to try this too.

One thing that Windows Media Player needs, its native support for MKV containers. I'll be so happy if they announce that kind of stuff for the SP1 of Win 7 (but I guess its too late now, as its coming out in a few days / weeks).

The only reason I use VLC is the MKV container. As far as I know, its better than AVI in any way.

Download the Combined Community Codec Pack, which comes with Media Player Classic Home Cinema which has never failed me.

I'd also recommend KM Player, i use it for all media. It's especially good for video playback, but it might be a bit lacking if you want to work with a media library

I've been using media player classic for years and never complained about it.

Forgot to mention I'm on Vista 64...

Media Player Classic is what I have been using for years, Home Cinema version after that and it is a very nice app. But I run into problems with AVI files now and then even with codecs.

Hm. Haven't thought about a Media Center. Anyway that's for later. A media player is the main thing for now.

I'm going to second this. Along with Slysoft AnyDVDHD for DVD and Blu-Ray playback. It's played everything I've thrown at it.

Then probably SMplayer should work just fine

Yeah, putting those things together is like combining Triforce pieces.

You mean Ganon is going to come and start ripping my programs apart? Damn it! I just finished putting it all back together again after that whole bomberman fiasco. :/

First of all, grab the Combined Community Codec Pack. This provides full support for all common formats. Windows Media Player will automatically see these codecs, as will most other players, although depending on the player you may need to confirm a prompt about an unknown file type (since the player might not normally support such extensions).

Windows Media Player can handle everything with CCCP installed, but if you'd still prefer a third-party player I'd recommend Media Player Classic Home Cinema.