Yes, it’s really a very solid media player I ever used. It plays about every video file I tried. Although it doesn’t look like much, it is a very stable product that works very well. In fact, it looks like the yucky old Microsoft media player. Perhaps that’s why they called it Media Player Classic (MPC)? I mean, when I play videos, who cares how the media software looks, right? I just want to watch the video. How the software looks is not important to me. Sure there are a lot of people who take a look at this software and say that it looks old. But surely, those are just eye candy and when you are watching movies, you won’t be looking at that. Oh, yes, it’s free (open source) too. And you don’t need to worry about resources, it takes very little of it. And it’s just about 2MB to download! If you are looking at functionality, Media Player Classic is your man. If you are aiming for looks, there are a huge number of players out there for you to choose from.

You can even use MPC to play quicktime (mov) and realmedia (rm) files! Just download the related codecs (which could be rather big) and your MPC will be able to play them. Not a lot of players can play these two types of files. And it plays DVD Videos too! Even Microsoft Media Player requires you to purchase a third party codec to play DVDs, but not MPC. It plays without any additional software. If you are looking for subtitle support, MPC has it too. Good for watching those foreign movies eh? It is surprising that such a small compact piece of software can have so many features! I am always surprised to see people willing to trade functionality for looks and then start complaining when their player acts up. It’s actually quite amusing to see that when it happens.

Media Player Classic is for Windows only. There is a version for Windows 98 and Windows Me as well. Please give it a try. I am sure you will realize that nothing beats MPC.