VLC Media Player

• Version: 1.1.7
• Price: Free
• Operating system: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista

 

·      VLC Media Player is a long-time open-source favorite, and the latest version is also the first to be out of beta development. It's not the only option for free video playback, but it's one of the best, and the feature updates in version 1 make it well worth the upgrade.

        Users can now get frame-by-frame advancement, granular speed controls allowing for on-the-fly slower or faster playback, and live recording of streaming video. The toolbars are fully customizable, so you can have only the buttons you need in the interface, there's AirTunes streaming, and there's better integration in Gtk environments. Along with the improvements, VLC continues to offer robust support for a wide range of video and audio formats, including OGG, MP2, MP3, MP4, DivX, HD codecs like AES3, Raw Dirac, and even support for playing back zipped files.