Far from being just office workhorses, computers are also thought of as complete entertainment systems that you can use to chat with friends, play videogames or watch movies. Regarding this last option, there's a wide range of DVD players out there, but we'll focus our attention on one of them: Power DVD.

The program's installation process is very quick. It includes Google Toolbar as an add-on but you can decline its installation if you're not interested. Once launched, you gain access to its main interface which, to be honest, is not especially nice: a close-up of a girl wearing weird sunglasses is not the kind of thing you expect to see on the screen when opening a DVD player. It would look much better with some abstract design or just the program logo instead. Anyway, configuration settings allow you to customize this interface with skins but there are no skins included. At least you can change the color scheme by clicking on the display.

Power DVD is generally very easy to use. All the buttons on the player panel have tooltips to give you hints about their usage. Also, most of their functions can be performed with the mouse or the keyboard (using the hotkey displayed in the tooltip). When playing a movie in full screen mode, the panel hides automatically and shows only if you move the mouse. Still, you can access all the program's functions through a comprehensive context menu by right-clicking anywhere on the image.

As for the playing functions, the movie flows very smoothly even when you move the window around or play it in full screen mode. Sound can be configured in different ways, depending on your hardware means (from headphones to an 8-speaker surround system) in order to obtain the best possible sound quality. During our tests, we also found some interesting tools: one offers the possibility to change playing speed and therefore obtain slow or fast motion images; another one lets you take snapshots of your favourite scenes in the movie, according to the settings in Configuration – Player – Advanced - Snapshot; and finally a tool called "Say it again" with which you can repeat certain dialogues over and over again. This may be useful for foreign language students or movie fans who like to learn certain script lines by heart.

Power DVD is then a perfect solution for your all DVD playing needs. It may seem quite simple at first sight but after all, you don't need much more apart from "play" and "pause" to happily watch a movie on your PC. And in case you want to know more about the program and their developers, have a look at our interview with Dr. Jau Huang, Cyberlink's founder.

Download PowerDVD 8.0.1730 in Softonic

Finally you can convert your PowerPoint presentation into Flash file so to have the benefits of both formats. Microsoft's popular slideshow tool makes it quick and easy to to create attractive, animated presentations; whereas Flash offers all the benefits of a universal format which can be viewed on any computer and any browser as well as a potentially much smaller file size.

Firstly, you do need to register before you can convert any presentations, but the process will take just a minute. The program integrates perfectly with Microsoft PowerPoint. Put simply, when you have created the PPT presentation, press the 'Quick Publish' or the 'Publish' button, where you can select some options, and that's all you have to do. iSpring also includes a feature which allows you to insert Flash movies into PowerPoint presentations. It's a pity that there is not an option to set the compression rates for specific elements (certain images, sounds, etc.) - as that would make it possible to decide exactly where you want to compromise on quality.

It is also interesting that you can publish your Flash file online, allowing you to access all your presentations wherever you are. After pressing the 'Publish' button, select 'SlideBoom' as destination of your file and type the account details. You can sign up for a free account from the menu as well, and the process is fairly easy and quick.

iSpring lets you easily create your PPT presentations and convert them into a Flash file to share with your co-workers and friends. You can also publish and store them online thanks to a free hosting service.

Download iSpring Free 3.5.1.2363 in Softonic

Since bursting onto the internet in 2000, BSPlayer has been downloaded over 60 million times according to its developers. The aim of the player is to "enable users to focus on watching the movie instead of dealing with poor computer capabilities or running around looking for a proper settings and codecs." For those that have had problems with mainstream media players on offer, BSPlayer may prove a useful alternative.

It supports all kinds of media including avi, mpeg, asf, wmv, mp3, etc but also specializes in DivX playback. Many users report that DivX files that wouldn’t work on other players, did in BS Player. One of the major drawbacks with many media players is resource hogging but BSPlayer consumes no more than many audio players and start-up is pleasantly fast. Because it does not use much of the processing power, its more suited to those users with slower machines that are not looking for too many fancy features.

BSPlayer also comes bundled with BSMediaLibrary which can manage all your multimedia content and enables you to create your own playlists. It also has a multitude of skins available for download, many designed by other devoted users.

The major drawback with BSPlayer is the concealed menu which appears and disappears when you wave the mouse over it. This becomes increasingly annoying if you are listening to something whilst using another application. However, loading subtitles is easy and dragging and dropping files into the screen to open files means you can avoid the annoying menu. You also have a small graphic equaliser and can load the player with other codecs that you might need.

Overall, definitely worth trying for anyone who has had problems with DivX files or are tired of bulky mainstream offerings.

Download BSPlayer Pro 2.28 build 964 in Softonic

Quintessential Player (a.k.a. QCD) is a feature rich media player for Microsoft Windows. It supports all popular audio formats including MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and CDs. QCD is highly skinnable and has a robust plug-in architecture.

QCD performs CD Ripping and Encoding, streams Internet Radio, and can Clean and Tag all your audio files. QCD uses Gracenote for the best music recognition. QCD even plays videos.

Download Quintessential Media Player 117 in Softonic

007 DVD Copy is a software to backup your preciousDVD Video Disk to DVDRW disk without any quality loss. It can copy any DVD video (D9 and D5) on to your DVD disc (4.7GB/Single Layer or 8.5GB/Dual Layer) without loss of content or quality. It copys all existing DVD contents including whole movie,language tracks, subtitles, and etc. 007 DVD Copy has an user friendly interface, anyone can master it within 5 minutues.

Features:

• Real DVD movie clone, absolute the same as the original disk.
• Support all-region discs, remove region protection(Region-free), remove RPC-I/RPC-II/RCE region protection automatically during copying.
• Copy a dual-layer (DVD9) movie into one DVD5 with all the Special Features, Menus, Subtitles & Languages.DVD to DVD copy directly.
• Support both NTSC and PAL DVD.
• Fastest video compression engine built-in, copy one DVD-9 movie into one DVD-5 disc within 1 hour (Depends on your PC hardware's speed).
• Dual-layer 8.5GB disc supported, Copy DVD-9 to DVD-9.
• High compatibility, copied DVD disk is playable on both PC and home DVD Player.

Download 007 DVD Copy 5.0 in Softonic

VSO ConvertXtoDVD is an attractively designed and easy-to-use video burner that gives you the power to convert and burn a huge range of formats.

VSO ConvertXtoDVD can handle just about any format you throw at it including AVI, WMV, MKV, YouTube, OGM, MPEG and Quicktime. So instead of having to watch your downloaded films and videos on your PC, you can watch them in the comfort of your lounge on your DVD Player. VSO ConvertXtoDVD goes much further than just mere DVD creation though because it helps you create and author DVD menus.

It offers the possibility to add background video, image or audio and even have chapter and audio/subtitle menus. If you do want to add subtitles, it supports most of the major formats including SRT, .SUB/ID and .SSA and VSO CovertXtoDVD gives you control over color and font selection, and supports tags like italic, bold and the ability to toggle them on or off with DVD player remote control. The encoder makes a decent job of converting videos in terms of the output quality although it is slightly slow - estimate about 1 hour for conversion of a full movie.

A powerful and easy way to get your favourite movies and video clips onto DVD and give them an extra touch of class with a menu.

Download VSO ConvertXtoDVD 3.2.1.55 in Softonic

Not a day goes by – at least for me – without having to convert media files to one format or another. If you too are in this situation, you need something like FormatFactory.

This full featured format converter enables you to convert all sorts of multimedia files (audio, video and images) between the most popular formats, including WMV, AVI, MPG, MP3, WMA, AAC, JPG, PNG, GIF and more. What's more, FormatFactory supports all the media formats used by portable devices like the PSP or the iPhone.

The program is really easy to use – that is, once you get used to its somewhat weirdly designed- interface. Don't look for any File button or menu, because there isn't any. The option to add files to the program's interface doesn't appear until you select the target format. You can select individual files or complete folders, and also tweak some basic conversion settings if you want.

Despite its slightly confusing interface, I found FormatFactory to be a really handy, efficient application, and also one of the few I know that converts everything: photos, music and video.

With FormatFactory you'll be able to convert pretty much any media file to other formats, including those used by most portable devices.

Download Format Factory 1.48 in Softonic

Many people spend hours on Youtube and other similar sites watching online videos. But wouldn't it be better to download them to your PC and watch them any time you like?

xVideoServiceThief is precisely the tool you need. This smart app lets you download online videos from more than fifty video sharing sites and convert them straight away from FLV to other popular video formats including AVI, WMV, MPEG, 3GP and MP4 (iPod-compatible format).

xVideoServiceThief is extremely easy to use. Just copy and paste the video URL from your favorite video site and it'll be added to the download list. You can then start downloading it right away or collect a few videos to download them all at the same time later on. This is quite convenient, as you can leave xVideoServiceThief working in the background while you keep on working on something else, and you'll get a notice window as soon as the download process is finished.

Like I said before, xVideoServiceThief supports more than fifty video sharing sites and allows you to block inappropriate content if necessary. The program also features a handy drag-and-drop window where you can directly paste the video URL. It would be even nicer if it recognized URL addresses when copied to the Clipboard though.

With xVideoServiceThief you can easily download and convert online videos from pretty much every video sharing site you know.

Download xVideoServiceThief 1.8.2 Alpha in Softonic

DVD protection is advancing at an ever increasing rate but unfortunately for the manufacturers, so are the ripping programs. If you’ve ever had problem’s copying one of your favourite DVD’s (just to make sure you’ve got a backup of course) then DVDFab could be what you’reve been looking for. It has proved popular a hit with thousands of Softonic users so far and there seems little prospect of its popularity waning.

DVDFab is an all-in-one DVD copying/converting/burning software. In just one or two steps, you can copy DVD’s to DVDR/PSP and even iPods. For such a powerful package, it only requires a mere 1.3MB of your hard drive hardrive so its not bulky like similar packages. However, note that this is the ‘lite’ version of the software; and the fully featured Express edition will probably weigh-in at somewhat more than this.

The conversion process itself couldn’t be easier. There are 5 DVD to DVD copy modes available - Full Disc, Main Movie, Split, Customize and Clone. To use any, its simply a matter of inserting your disk and Windows will ask you if you want to open it with DVDFab amongst other programs installed on your PC. In Full Disc mode, all movies, menus and trailers, are copied to a DVD in one click. In “Main Movie” mode, only the movie is copied with your specified audio. In “Split”’ mode, you can copy a DVD-9 onto two DVD-5 discs but also preserve the original menus on both discs. According to the developers, this rare little feature is apparently ideal for TV series DVD’s.

The handy “customize” mode allows you to personalize your DVD’s by recording such things as only your favourite scenes, removing adverts or selecting only certain audio tracks. Finally, “Clone”’ mode allows you to make exact 1:1 bit-to-bit copy of DVDs or even copy games disks such as PS2 DVD’s. There is also a DVD to Mobile option so you can reduce your favourite films to watch on your iPod or other favourite hand held device. Formats available include MPEG-4, DivX, XVID and Mp4.

DVDFab is a tough cookie – even those disks that refuse to be copied with other programmes can usually be cracked. The customise option allows you to get rid of pesky files that stand in your way and just rip the actual movie or essential files. It can also help in reconstituting recovering scratched or dirty disks that don’t play properly in your DVD player anymore. In addition, the ripping speed is remarkably fast. Depending on the size of disk, you can record a new one in less than 10 minutes although the average time is around 30 minutes.

One of the minor drawbacks to this ripper is that the inevitably heavy processing power needed to rip a disk often results in crashes. This will obviously be less of a problem on more powerful machines but on machines with old processors, using DVDFab may become impractical. Many user forums are however full of praise for DVDFab claiming that it can rip more disks and whatsmore, faster than comparable products such as DVD Shrink or ShrinkTo5. At the end of the day, most users consistently report they appreciate the simplicity and power of this rip-roaring ripper.

Download DVDFab HD Decrypter 5.0.9.0 in Softonic

Choosing a multimedia player used to be a real no-brainer. However, during recent times the raft of new features and updates added to classic media players like Winamp, Windows Media Player, and even iTunes have left the apps increasingly bloated. Far from being the slick, well-oiled machines they once were, these programs have been stuffed with so much that they are in danger of ending up like a sluggish, overweight athlete still holding on to past glories.

For those looking for a fresh alternative to these ballooning apps, The KM Player could be your ticket. The application has a small desktop footprint and its minimalist interface, somewhat akin to the original Winamp 5, means that access and playback are quick and hassle-free. Like Winamp, the interface is fully skinable, and there are some nice aesthetic touches, such as the changing of colour on the player with every new track. There are all sorts of options to help you pimp your player, such as visualizations, plug-ins and playback options, but the beauty of KM Player is that these are turned on at your request rather than being forced upon you at the outset.

The application handles both audio and video, and supports a wide range of different formats, meaning that once installed, you should never need to touch another player. Video playback is particularly impressive thanks to the range of processing tools available that allow you to sharpen, change picture properties, apply filters and even make video captures from within the program.

Download KMPlayer 2.9.3.1432 R2 Beta in Softonic

The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to enjoy video and audio on their Windows PC. Frequently updated, it includes all the codecs available in three of the most popular codec packs available on Softonic.

As video and audio encoding develops, it can be really hard to keep abreast of the latest compression techniques and codecs. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack does this for you by putting pretty much every codec in use, on your computer.

The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack combines the contents of three codec packs:

• K-Lite Codec Pack Full
• QuickTime Alternative
• Real Alternative

Essential for anyone using audio or video apps on their PC.

Download K-Lite Codec Pack Mega 4.1.7 Full in Softonic

Listen to music, watch videos, tune in to radio, burn CDs and more from one convenient player! AMP is an application that works outside of the AOL client, and can be used to play audio and video content on your computer when you are not connected to the Internet.

Download AOL Media Player 0.6.1.7 Beta in Softonic

I'm very picky when it comes to installing codec packs on my PC: I don't like bloating the system with useless files and tools that won't be of any use or will only cause incompatibility issues.

Luckily I don't have this problem with XP Codec Pack. This compact, handy codec pack has always been my first choice whenever I need to install codecs or upgrade them on any PC. Why? Well, I like the fact that XP Codec Pack focuses on the most popular formats, and so it's not overloaded with codecs most computer users will hardly use. Secondly, it's dead easy to install and lets you choose exactly what you want, both for codecs and tools. Finally, it's incredibly stable and highly compatible: I've never had a single problem with codec since I use it.

Of course, I'm by no means saying that XP Codec Pack is perfect. There are a few flaws that should be pointed out. The most demanding users will surely miss a wider array of formats, as well as more codec-related tools like the ones you find in other codec packs.

XP Codec Pack is a great choice for those who don't need a massive selection of codecs and prefer a simpler, hassle-free codec kit for the most popular audio and video formats.

Download XP Codec Pack 2.4.1 in Softonic

Sometimes when you try to play music or a movie in your computer, you may find that either the image or the sound are not being properly played. These issues are probably a question of codecs, and you can solve them all with K-Lite Codec Pack.

This comprehensive kit includes all the codecs you need to have on your system if you want to play all audio and video formats without any problems. The full package includes quite a bunch of codecs, but the good thing is that you can choose which ones to install and which ones to leave out during the installation process.

Besides codecs, the K-Lite Codec Pack also includes several utilities that can come in very handy when dealing with audio and video files. Among others, you'll find tools to tweak and fix codecs, work with subtitles and obtain detailed information about any selected media file.

The only drawback I could point out about K-Lite Codec Pack is that it all may seem confusing for the novice user who doesn't really know what a codec is, and therefore can't really choose which ones to install. My advice here is to simply install all of them: it's the only way to make sure you'll be able to play pretty much any audio or video file on your PC.

K-Lite Codec Pack is a full featured collection of codecs that enables you to play just about any audio and video format on your PC without any problems.

Download K-Lite Codec Pack Full 4.1.0 in Softonic

123 DVD Converter provides a fast and easy way to copy onto your hard drive your DVD movies or just the parts of the movie that you want. It copies in high quality AVI (DivX, XviD, MPEG-4...), VCD (MPEG-1) and SVCD (MPEG-2) formats. It also extracts audio tracks from DVDs.

Features:

• Fast DVD conversion, keeping same quality and taking up less room on hard drive.
• Ability to select DVD clips or chapters for the ripping, instead of converting an entire movie into one huge file.
• Ability to copy protected DVD movies.

Download 123 DVD Converter 4.6.5 in Softonic

Portable VLC media player is the popular VLC media player packaged as a portable app, so you can take your audio and video files along with everything you need to play them on the go. It reads all types of formats like MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV, DVDs, VCDs and streaming.

Download Portable VLC Media Player 0.8.6i in Softonic

MediaCoder is a free universal audio/video batch transcoder, putting together lots of excellent audio/video codecs and tools from the open source community into an all-in-one solution, capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many extra features.

Download MediaCoder 0.6.1.4140 in Softonic

Although it might appear like some sort of Communist software, CCCP is actually just a pack of codecs to help just about any video run on your system.

The full title is the "Combined Community Codec Pack". In reality, it's more like a filter pack than a codec pack but the developers say that "filter doesn't begin with C and we wanted a good acronym"! For anyone who understands Russian, the developers also like to point out that the name is also a pun on the Russian name Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, which is transliterated into the Latin alphabet as "Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik", or "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", abbreviated as "СССР" or "USSR". Anyway, the CCCP codec pack was created to replace the filter packs provided by other groups which simply often did not work properly or broke compatibility for other formats. In reality, it is an extremely powerful Codec pack, playing back effortlessly most popular formats and some unpopular ones too. There are now fiddly options to get it working although if you have other codec packs installed, you may experience some conflicts or significant slowdown in reproduction of your films.

However, overall, this is an impressive pack which deals with just about anything and I quite like the attitude of the developers and their ironic communist branding.

Download Combined Community Codec Pack 2008-01-24 in Softonic

In an age of multiple media players all with different codecs and formats, it's nice to know there's at least one out there that can play just about anything.

Haihaisoft Universal Player supports almost all popular digital media formats and can also play digital media files protected by DRM-X. Amongst the players it can emulate are Windows Media Player, Real Player, Adobe Flash Player, Apple QuickTime Player, PowerDVD and Flash Video (FLV) Player. Whatsmore though, this player embeds itself into Internet Explorer meaning that whenever you are presented with a format compatible with any of these file types, you can watch it instantly. The number of formats it can play is mind-boggling, including those protected by DRM such as WMV(Windows Media Video), WMA(Windows Media Audio), ASF, WMS, DVD, VCD, SVCD, MOV, RM, RMVB, AVI, MPEG, WMV, 3GP, FLV, SWF, MP3, AMR, M4A, ACC, OGG, MIDI, GIF and JPEG file format. Best of all, the program is constantly updated with the latest codecs so you don't need to worry about it suddenly not being able to play files.

A completely free player that supports just about any format imaginable and embeds itself into IE perfectly.

Download Haihaisoft Universal Player 1.0.7.1 in Softonic

There are a number of video editing packages out there, from the simple Windows Media Maker to industry standards like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. Sony’s contribution is Vegas Video and like most Sony products, it offers an original take on the editing genre.

Vegas actually began as an audio editing app and it shows – the entire feel of the program is more like an audio editing program than conventional video editing programs. On the plus side, Sony has emphasised giving users the greatest control over soundtracks and audio tracks to ensure that your film sounds great.

Sony Vegas Video 7.0 includes an entire suite of tools – Vegas itself as well as DVD Architect 4 to help you burn films and Dolby Digital AC3 coding software to enable you to offer broadcast quality sound in your productions. Vegas allows you to edit DV, HDV, SD/HD-SDI, and all XDCAM formats in real time and even give them surround sound. As HDV starts to become more popular, the ability to edit this particular format means that for some users, it’s their preferred editing package by default.

The video timeline works on a typical Windows drag-and-drop principle where you can add a myriad of effects to video and audio, cutting and splicing it with ease. However, as mentioned earlier, the interface is tailored more for audio than video editing. Unlike Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere, the actual video preview window of what you’re working on is given little space, being tucked away in the corner. This is rather annoying when you’d rather see a decent preview of what you’re creating than have the timelines dominate the screen.

However, one nice feature of the layout is that the interface can be customised according to your preference. You can save these configurations so that for different projects, you can have different layouts. This is especially useful if you’re trying to concentrate on one particular aspect of your film such as special effects or rendering options. You can even create your own keyboard shortcuts, a handy option for those who are mouse-shy.

The audio features are first class though. Sony Vegas was one of the first to support 24 bit audio as well as 5.1 surround sound – usually the preserve of professional editing programs such as Avid. To add surround sound, you’ll need to use the Dolby Digital AC3 software. Another excellent Sony idea has been to add a network connection to other PCs during installation. So for example, if you’re working on a project with a friend, you can edit seamlessly in real-time together.

For creating really cool titles, Vegas now features the Sony ProType titler (available in the Media Generators tab) which allows you to make some really swanky looking graphics. There's also new digital signage support which allows you to create rotated projects for viewing on a vertical or inverted display. Encoding has also been improved with support for 10-bit video encoding when previewing or capturing from AJA SDI video cards.

Vegas is never going to compete with prosumer programs based on the traditional Avid way of editing. For those used to such programs, the interface could prove too awkward, limited and confusing to make editing video a pleasure. However, as regards sound, it can’t be touched. For many users, it makes the perfect package to polish the soundtrack on their film after editing it in another package. Be warned also that if you’re unfamiliar with video editing programs, it's going to take a while to get accustomed to Vegas, so the bundled tutorial is highly recommended.

Download Sony Vegas Video 8.0.217 b in Softonic