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VLC is a free multiplatform video and audio player with plenty of features and a great interface. It doesn’t need any external codecs and can stream multimedia over a network.

It supports GPU acceleration for video playback.

The quality of its video engine is not that good compared with other players (at least in my personal tests), but you can tweak the options to improve it.

For a player with internal codecs, I recommend Media Player Classic Home Cinema instead. Its video quality is superior, supports video acceleration and has plenty of features too.

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foobar2000 is a lightweight and feature-rich audio player.

It is by far the most configurable player around. You can make it as simpler or full-featured as you want. Supports tagging, renaming, file conversion and more.

My custom installer contains additional components like DTS and AC3 decoders, ColumnsUI component to further enhance its interface and iPod support, among others.

With it you have a music library, audio converter, mass tagger and other useful options.

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There is a new version of Winamp. This media player finally has grown into a great media library manager now that there are many offerings, free or commercial that follows the trend of media libraries instead of the old winamp’s scope to be only a player.

Here’s the description of the Lite and Full versions, which are both free.

• The Full version plays MP3s, AAC, WMA, and more; Compatible with Winamp 2 Plug-ins; Full Support for classic and modern skins; Plays Videos; has a Powerful Media Library; Browse Internet Radio & TV Stations; Integrated Internet Music Videos & Songs; Bundled Visualizations; and Burn & Rip CDs.

• The Lite version plays MP3s, AAC, WMA, and more. It is compatible with Winamp 2 Plug-ins and has full support for classic skins.

For the latest changes, please read the version history.

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SMPlayer is an open source, multiplatform video/audio player, focusing in video features.

It uses the well-known (at least in the open source field) command-line player MPlayer. This means SMPlayer doesn’t need external codecs in order to play the files. This is great because it saves you time and troubles when playing less-known formats.

Note:For it to work well with Aero, go to Options – Preferences. In the General tab, select gl or gl2 in the Output Drivers: Video drop down list. Aero won’t be disabled anymore.

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