VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats (H.264, Ogg, DivX, MKV, TS, MPEG-2, mp3, MPEG-4, aac, ...) from files, physical media (DVDs, VCD, Audio-CD), TV capture cards and many network streaming protocols.

# Free and Open Source cross-platform media player
# Supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs
# Features a complete streaming server, with extended features (video on demand, on the fly transcoding, ...)

It can also convert media files, transcode and act as a streaming server over unicast or multicast and IPv4 or IPv6. It doesn't need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.

There was a time when video files all conformed to some basic requirements and could be played without protest using any media software. As technologies change and licensing becomes more restrictive and specific, simply playing a video file has now become a challenge and thanks to the plethora of obscure proprietary formats now available, finding a media player that works for the majority has become more hassle than it’s worth. Thankfully the open source community have come up with a solution in the form of VLC, otherwise know as VideoLAN Client.

This cross platform player doesn't strike as particularly good-looking when put side by side with Windows Media Player or Winamp, but you'll appreciate its far superior usability within moments. Its power can be demonstrated with any video files you happen to be downloading, which can be played in whatever form they exist, be it an actual video format or an unclassified temporary one. As you preview a video, it will skip the parts that have yet to be downloaded and let you see the rest – Media Player in comparison, can't preview files in this way.

Features:

· Input
· Input media
· UDP/RTP Unicast
· UDP/RTP Multicast
· HTTP / FTP
· MMS
· File
· DVD 1
· VCD
· SVCD 2
· Audio CD (without DTS)
· DVB (Satellite, Digital TV, Cable TV)
· MPEG encoder 3
· Video acquisition Direct Show
· Input formats
· MPEG (ES,PS,TS,PVA,MP3)
· ID3 tags
· AVI
· ASF / WMV / WMA
· MP4 / MOV / 3GP
· OGG / OGM / Annodex
· Matroska (MKV)
· Real
· WAV (incuding DTS)
· Raw Audio: DTS, AAC, AC3/A52
· Raw DV
· FLAC
· FLV (Flash)
· Video
· Decoders
· MPEG-1/2
· DIVX (1/2/3)
· MPEG-4, DivX 5, XviD, 3ivX D4
· H.264
· Sorenson 1/3 (Quicktime)
· DV
· Cinepak
· Theora (alpha 3)
· H.263 / H.263i
· MJPEG (A/B)
· WMV 1/2
· WMV 3 / WMV-9 / VC-1 4, 5
· Indeo Video v3 (IV32)
· Subtitles
· DVD 6
· SVCD / CVD
· DVB
· OGM
· Matroska
· Text files (MicroDVD, SubRIP, SubViewer, SSA1-5, SAMI, VPlayer)
· Vobsub
· Filters
· Deinterlace
· Cropping
· Image wall
· Image adjust
· Rotate/Mirror
· Logo overlay
· Magnification
· Image distortion
· Bluescreen
· RSS/Atom feeds
· Outputs
· Native DirectX, GDI
· SDL
· ASCII Art
· Audio
· Decoders
· MPEG Layer 1/2
· MP3
· AC3 - A/52
· DTS
· LPCM
· AAC
· Vorbis
· WMA 1/2
· WMA 3 7
· ADPCM
· DV Audio
· FLAC
· QDM2/QDMC (QuickTime)
· MACE
· Real Audio 8
· Speex
· Filters
· Visualization effects
· Equalizer
· Outputs
· Native DirectX WaveOut
· S/PDIF DirectX WaveOut
· Multi-channel DirectX WaveOut
· SDL
· Streaming
· Interfaces and control
· Default WxWidgets
· Qt 4
· Skins
· Web
· Telnet
· Command line
· Miscellaneous
· SAP/SDP announces
· Bonjour protocol
· Mozilla/Firefox plugin
· ActiveX plugin
· SVCD Menus
· Localization
· CD-Text 10
· CDDB CD info 11
· IPv6
· IGMPv3 Win XP
· CPU acceleration 13