I finally installed the famous VLC Media Player this morning.
VERDICT?
Uhhh … Ummm, it didn’t perform very well on MY computer anyway.
It performed worse than Windows Media Player 11.
Most Videos were displaying choppy, pause-riddled and breaking up.
I’d then go back and try Media Player Classic and it played them just fine.
I’d try VLC Media Player again and again I encountered the choppy, pause-riddled and breaking up results.
So, I uninstalled VLC Media Player. I think the problem was probably the same problem that doomed Windows Media Player 11 on MY computer. Both of them are TOO BIG File-sized to operate properly on my old, slow and very underpowered computer. So, I’m theorizing that JetAudio would probably NOT do well on MY computer either because it’s too big.
Consequently, Media Player Classic’s SMALL file size is no doubt what allows it to work fine on my computer. So, I’ll keep Media Player Classic.
And now that I’m back to Window Media Player 9 … combined with having uninstalled Windows Media Format 11 Runtime and having it roll back to the previous version … Windows Media Player 9 performed very well today. It played ALL Audio and Video Files I tossed at it very well. It performed definitely better than Windows Media Player 11 on this computer and better than Windows Media Player 10 has ever performed on my other computer.
So, it looks like I’m all set with:
Windows Media Player 9
Media Player Classic
QT Lite 4.0.0
Thank you for the update, Chim. I don’t recall experiencing any of the problems you describe with VLC. Your sig doesn’t seem to give the speed of your processor. My ten year old system is Windows XP SP3, dual 600MHz PIII, 1GB RAM, ATI Rage 128 video card, 256Kbps DSL. You may be suffering from insufficient memory. I think both of us would benefit from more modern systems, but even as cheap as they are, I need to stick with this one for now.
That said, I hardly ever use VLC. Media Player Classic Home Cinema pretty much plays all of my media effectively. I have Windows Media Player 11 installed, but I haven’t used it since I switched to Media Player Classic – a few years ago, I think.
Sorry to hear that Chim, annoying to go through so much trouble and it not work out for you. I think it was more than likly the low amount of ram you have is what would of affected it.
I use media player classic. The vulnerability with this player has to do with the parsing of certain .avi files, which apparently represents a possible attack vector.
I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but all I do is use it (combined with qt alternative/real alternative) and just avoid playing .avi’s with it unless I know they’re ok. The Secunia advisory linked in your other thread has the tech details. (Personally, I don’t quite know how to accurately interpret them. So I just avoid unknown avi’s.)
So far so good.
You’re welcome, Tarq57. It took a little searching to find your post from over two years ago that expressed this concern. I’m glad to hear you have the fixed version now.
Alan, my computer’s Celeron Processor’s speed is only 598 MHz. So that combined with only 256 Meg of RAM no doubt is likely responsible for Windows Media Player 11 and VLC Media Player NOT working very well on my computer. Those 2 no doubt require plenty of breathing room in RAM and my system doesn’t give it to them, so they perform sluggishly.
With Media Player Classic and now Windows Media Player 9 being smaller, they just require a little Cubicle of space ;D in RAM, so they perform much more favorably.
Yeah, Craig, it was the pits that VLC Media Player didn’t pan out after having taken almost 2 hours to download on my Dial Up. But, Ehhh, we have to take some chances like to find some great Apps that work ideally on our systems. I’ve gotten hooked on various Apps from the recommendations of people here on the avast Forums.
For example:
IrfanView, FastStone Image Viewer, IZArc, Foxit Reader, MBAM, Audacity Recorder, CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller, QT Lite, Media Classic Player, Etc.
And I tried avast on the recommendation of an AOL friend.
It’s just the nature of software. Inexplicably, some Apps will work like a Champion on a lot of people’s computers … and NOT on others. We just have to go with whatever worked on our respective computers.
Chim, if you ever manage to spare a few bucks, do yourself a favor >>> the cheapest systems… that don’t cost more then 350$ approximatively in the US are delivered with 3GB of RAM and Win7/64 on board. Would be worth bringing the suffering to an end no? ;D
I mean seriously, when such problems like what media player can be run on a system occur, this just means basically that this system is not usable anymore…and in your case for quite a long time, like 7 or 8 years :
I have nothing but trouble with VLC on any system and version of it that I tried and they all had 2GB of RAM and weren’t what you would consider under powered at the time I tested VLC. I haven’t tried the latest version, I just got fed up with trying. Mainly due to being on dial-up at the time and having to download the full installation again.
Dont know why it has never worked for u David, i run it on three machines xp 2gig,vista 2gig, and a windows 7 1gig no troubles, though the xp didn’t like it before i upgraded from 512meg to 2gig. Have no need for it on my main machine though as i use total media theater 3 which does everything and anything (within reason).
Wierd. I have a slightly modern XP SP3 system that has WMP11 and VLC, and VLC always outperforms WMP in pretty much every scenario.
HD content is choppy in WMP, but VLC makes it smooth. My system is a bit more powerful than yours though, so that may be why.
Can’t remember exactly, since I rarely even power it on, but I think it’s an Athlon 2800+ with 1.5 GB RAM, and an old AGP nVidia Quadro FX board that I pulled from some scrap Compaq computer.
But I believe Logos is right here:
However, if you’re anything like me, living paycheck to paycheck, I can understand the inability to purchase a new system. RAM is cheap though, go that route if you can. 256 is simply not enough.
Okay, I’ll spill the secret.
I’m trying to get in the Guiness Book of World Records for being able to operate with the lowest Low Tech computer possible and still manage to get on the Net and surf … and play Audio & Video Files, Etc.
I started to learn about 'pooters on an ancient W98 desktop (a hand-me-down). At a time when computers were typically shipping with 256Mb, and 512 was just starting to become available, this thing ran surprisingly well with 16Mb of RAM.
I had to run Antivir (as it was called then.) (It was OK, too) because anything else used more than 8Mb of RAM, and there wasn’t enough left over to run the OS. I also learned to trim down the start list.
I have had trouble with VLC, either it wont run fully, it just shows up in task manager Some avi’s don’t play in vlc, they either get stuck at some point in playback or become choppy, thats on a PC with windows 7 and 2 gigs of ram ! Each version seems to include more problems.
The only reason I used it is because it plays mkv files but as the newer versions of media classic play mkv’s I switched over a few weeks ago and have no problems ever since. Loosing vlc isn’t a big issue for me as I don’t use its server functions.
On a side note, my learning on windows / linux based computers goes back to my first PC, that one had windows 95a/b/c with 128 Mb ram and a hard drive with a whopping 250Mb back then I used some DOS AV scanner. That drive is still working last time I checked it. long before I got my hands on a PC I used a commodore 64, eey lad, yee good old days
For me it’s MPC-HC all the way, i especially like this:
Media Player Classic Home Cinema allows you to enhance, decode and accelerate a broad span of movie formats like x.264 with GPU assisted acceleration and image quality enhancing. The WMP Classic Home Cinema player does not require many system resources than the rest of the video media players to run smoothly. This is a low PC resources windows media player that runs on slower machines with older CPUs.
Modern graphics card offer the possibility to decode partially or completely a video stream using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA), in order to reduce CPU usage dramatically. MPC-HC includes an embedded video decoder that uses this technology, to decode x.264, H.264 and VC-1 with hardly any CPU time required.
Some avi’s don’t play in vlc, they either get stuck at some point in playback or become choppy, thats on a PC with windows 7 and 2 gigs of ram ! Each version seems to include more problems.