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

CrystalPlayer is the most advanced video player for Windows 98, ME, 2000 & XP.

CrystalPlayer features original video kernel allowing high-quality playback from any kind of video source, e.g. video files (.AVI, .MPEG, etc.), from internet or network. It does not use built-in WindowsMedia environment, so there are no limitations, as with most other players. CrystalPlayer Professional offers uncomparable control to improve the quality of the videos you're watching. Check Video filters, Video Postprocessing, multisampling and supersampling features of Professional version.

Download Crystal Player Professional 1.98 in Softonic

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

VCDEasy allows you to play/watch your videos (from DV camcorder, DivX, DVD,...), your pictures (from digital camera, scanner,...) and your audio files (music, audio comments,...) directly on most of the home DVD players, without having to buy a DVD Writer and DVD discs. How? VCDEasy allows you to build VideoCDs (VCD/SVCD)!

A VCD is a CD (CD-R or CD-RW, so cheap) that can contain up to 80 minutes video, up to 1980 pictures, up to 6 hours of audio (CD sound quality), or a mix of them. On a VCD, it is also possible to have menus and chapters, similiar to DVDs. You can also have simple photo album/slide shows. The same way most of the home DVD player and computers can play Audio CDs, a VCD can be played on almost all standalone DVD players (only a few persons know that!) and of course on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software player.

Download VCDEasy 3.1.0 in Softonic

Nearly all software can be categorised as being from one of two groups: the programs that do one thing, normally fairly well, and the programs which do everything - often with some loss of quality. Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite (EMCS) is a classic case of the second type. While its capabilities are huge and impressive, they bring with them other problems like reduced performance and long load times.

The original cornerstone of Roxio's flagship product is CD and DVD burning. EMCS still packs a powerful tool for writing to disks but it's really all the extra functionality that makes this suite interesting. EMCS does it all: photo slide shows, video editing, iPod and MP3 player management, secure backups, multimedia organisation and video playback - to name but a few.

We tested each of the components and found that most of them perform to at least a satisfactory level. Sadly, Roxio included several design-related elements which annoy (like using custom window decorations, buttons and even file browsers when the Windows default shell is perfectly usable). Also, the suite contains numerous advertisements for new Roxio services which appear a little odd given that this isn't a free program. Likewise, Roxio's insistence on opening web links using Internet Explorer whether it's your default browser or not was disappointing: it's never a good sign when a program effectively forces you to do things its way or not at all.

The worst feature of the suite is without doubt the video player (called 'CinePlayer') which is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill movie player. After loading for nearly 30 seconds, it took ages to load a simple DivX file and crashed when a couple of buttons were clicked. When free players like VLC can do so much better, one has to wonder why Roxio didn't make an effort to deliver a really fast, lightweight player instead of the slovenly, unstable one bundled in this suite.

All that said, Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite is actually a pretty good bundle. We love the photo editing application which is fairly fast and has just the right balance of basic and advanced tools. The mobile phone photo wizard is a particularly cool utility which really did help camera-phone pictures look better.

The most significant problem with Roxio is the way it treats your PC. This is not a program which is designed to be removed once installed. It installs so many components to your system that you can easily lose track of them... and it fails to include a comprehensive uninstall application for the whole bundle. Instead, you must uninstall each component separately, a time consuming and irritating hassle. I'm still having trouble getting the 1.4 GB installer off my computer!

Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite is a powerful and comprehensive media suite. If you're looking for one bundle of software, which you'll never remove from your computer, to handle all your media tasks then this is the software for you. If, however, you prize quality over convenience, and have some respect for your hard-disk and registry, Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite is not recommended.

Download Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite 10 in Softonic

Most mobile phones and portable devices use 3GP as their standard format for video. This means that if you want to enjoy your favorite videos on your phone, you need a tool like ImTOO 3GP Video Converter.

ImTOO 3GP Video Converter lets you convert videos from a wide range of formats (AVI, MPG, MOV, even DVD video files) to 3GP, so that you can watch them anywhere on your portable devices. The process also works the other way round, meaning ImTOO 3GP Video Converter converts from 3GP to other formats as well.

ImTOO 3GP Video Converter is generally very easy to use. It features an embedded video player to get a preview of the video you're about to convert and also enables you to set the PC to turn off automatically after the conversion is done. Each target format is presented as a profile with its own settings, which you can customize to suit your needs and then save as a new, different profile. The settings menu though could be improved to make it more intuitive.

With ImTOO 3GP Video Converter you can easily convert almost any kind of video to 3GP, the standard format for mobile devices.

Download ImTOO 3GP Video Converter 5.0.99.0729 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

Xilisoft PSP Video Converter is a powful MP4 video converter which helps you convert video to Sony PSP movie (.MP4 file). The PSP Video Converter is capable of converting almost all popular video such as DVD, VCD, SVCD, MOV, RM, MPEG, WMV, 3GP, AVI to PSP video format (H.264/MPEG-4), all the conversion processes are very easy and fast with high quality.

In addtion, the PSP Video Converter also provides a powerful way to convert video and all popular audio files (WMA, AAC, M4A, AC3, OGG, etc) to PSP MP3. Download PSP video and PSP MP3 to your PSP and enjoy PSP movies and music with 16:9 wide screen now!

Download Xilisoft PSP Video Converter 3.1.8.0720b in Softonic

Given that not everyone has the luxury of a 2Mbps broadband connection or a Terabyte hard drive, handling video on a PC is still far from a seamless process. Whether you’re transferring movies over the Internet or merely backing up your home video collection, it’s often difficult to find an adequate compromise between quality, transfer speed and file size. What’s more, different users prefer different video formats depending on the platform they're running and the media player they use. BPS Video Converter sets out to make the crazy mixed-up world of digital video a little easier, allowing you to convert your movies to and from a range of different formats.

While there’s a decent array of formats to choose from (including AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV, Real etc.), the list of file types is by no means exhaustive and, most notably, BPS doesn’t handle MPEG-4 or QuickTime movies. Still, there’s always a bright side, and in the case of this program it makes up for this by furnishing you with an almighty array of options for the formats that it does support. Through the simple one-pane interface you can select from a range of different compression rates for each format you wish to convert to. This is great to tinker with in order to produce the best quality video and audio at the lowest file size.

Thankfully the conversion process is pretty quick, meaning that you don’t have to wait an age to discover how the finished video will turn out. Things are made much quicker because the process is easy to use– simply drag and drop your file onto the interface, select your conversion format and compression options then hit a button.

Although basic video editing features are lacking, the application does have another trick up its sleeve. The built-in decompiler lets you grab still images from a video, either by scrolling to the precise frame you wish to capture, or by sequentially snapping every frame of the video. Again, this is a speedy process, and it gives you the option to save to a range of image formats such as JPEG, TIFF or GIF. This is ideal for instantly showing someone what scene you’re referring to via email or on a website, or even for dissecting the cell animation of your favourite Simpsons episode.

As long as you’re not using the MPEG-4 or QuickTime (MOV) formats on a regular basis then BPS Video Converter and Decompiler provides a quick and easy way of converting video. What’s more, the addition of the decompiler serves to bump up the value for money of the application.

Download BPS Video Converter & Decompiler 1.4.0.4 in Softonic

TubeHunter downloads videos from YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, Metacafe, Dailymotion, iFilm, Flurl, Pornotube, Bebo, Break.com, VSocial, Grouper, Bolt, Yikers, Revver, Guba, Vidilife and Blip.tv, and saves them on your computer or directly to your iPOD.

All downloaded videos can be converted by TubeHunter to other video formats including MPEG, MPEG4 AVI, iPOD MP4, MOV, Flash SWF, M4A, PSP, MP3, WAV, OGG, 3GP and 3G2.

TubeHunter does not have any spyware or adware. No personal information is collected, stored, or transmitted by TubeHunter. Tubehunter does not modify your web browser or registry. It does not install any browser plugins or hijackers.

Download TubeHunter 9.6 in Softonic

DVD-TO-AVI takes care of two processes that result in the conversion of a DVD movie into an high quality AVI file within roughly 5 hours. For an average two hour movie, the resulting AVI file will be 750MB allowing you to burn to CD. One click functionality makes this program an excellent option for anyone who doesn´t want to get too tied up in a sea of options. This program supports a variety of DVD formats, including PAL and NTSL.

Download DVD-TO-AVI 2.2 in Softonic

Create backup DVDs that are practically identical to the original. With advanced compression technology one 4.7Gb disk is sufficient to backup all data from any ordinary D9 disk and the process can be complete within two hours. When you use DVD-TO-DVDR, you won't be bothered with any complicated settings. In most cases, what you need to do is just one click. DVD movies can be burned to DVD-R and DVD+R.

Download DVD-TO-DVDR 2.2 in Softonic

DVD-TO-MPEG can convert DVD MOVIES in different regions to files in MPEG-I or MPEG-II. The files made by DVD-TO-MPEG can be recognized by almost all the video application software and you can edit DVD movies at your pleasure.

Improvements:

• Program core update, increased speed
• Improvement on the function to shut down the PC automatically
• Various bugs fixed
• Algorithm enhanced for better speed and quality

Download DVD-TO-MPEG 2.2 in Softonic

Xilisoft DVD Audio Ripper is an up-to-date DVD to MP3 audio ripper and DVD audio extractor which provides a simple, fast method to rip audio from DVD, convert DVD to MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, AC3, OGG, RA formats.

Using DVD Audio Ripper, users are allowed to rip DVD audio tracks to all popular audio formats with ease and super fast speed. No more multiple programs, no more complex progress.

The DVD audio extractor is an ideal solution of ripping music DVD movies and convert DVD to MP3. Listen to favorite movies and concert DVD with your portable audio player from now on!

Features:

• DVD Audio extractor, rip DVD to MP3, WAV, AAC, AC3, OGG, RA, WMA and SUN AU formats;
• Supports ripping by chapters, custom time or custom file size;
• You can rip a clip by specifying beginning and ending time;
• Output audio quality is adjustable from 80 Kbits to 320 Kbits when ripping to MP3;
• You can edit ID3 tag for your DVD sound with Xilisoft DVD Audio Ripper;
• Allows you to select a language or audio track when ripping multi-language DVDs;
• The output formats MP3, WMA support ID3v1 and ID3v2.

Download Xilisoft DVD Audio Ripper 4.0.52.0720 in Softonic

The Elecard MPEG Player is DirectShow compliant software providing high resolution, full quality decoding of MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 SP/ASP and H.264/AVC streams. With its decoder optimized for the most efficient CPU usage, Elecard MPEG Player 4.0 is a great choice for those who strive for high performance and robustness using low power hardware. Reliable support of a number of common multimedia formats such as AVI, WAV, MP3, MOV, and others greatly benefits all Elecard MPEG Player consumers by bringing all the richness and excitement of HDTV into their homes.

DXVA support in the Elecard MPEG2 Video Decoder significantly decreases CPU usage and provides substantial performance gains.

Elecard MPEG2 Video Decoder incorporated in Player v 4.0 is Windows XP Media Center Edition compatible. Windows XP Media Center Edition compatible.

Download Elecard MPEG Player 4.0.3 in Softonic

BlazeDVD is a full-featured and easy to use DVD, Video CD, Audio-CD and media file player. It can provide superior video and audio (Dolby) quality, together with other enhanced functions: e.g. record DVD, optional skins, playback image and DV, image capture and bookmark, etc. Furthermore, it supports DIVX, MPEG4, RM, QuickTime, WMV, WMV-HD, MacroMedia Flash and popular media formats of Internet.

Download BlazeDVD Professional 5.0 in Softonic

If you have a large collection of videos on your computer and a video-capable portable device, you may find this app quite useful.

Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate is a simple, straightforward tool that enables you to convert video files between a wide array of formats, with special attention to mobile phones, handheld gaming consoles and multimedia players such as iPod, iPhone, iRiver and Zune. All supported formats are presented to the user as profiles that you can simply choose from a drop-down list.

There's also the possibility to create your own format profiles by tweaking a few settings, such as video size, image quality and sound quality, among others.

Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate also features a built-in video player you can use to preview the video you're about to convert. Sadly the program was a bit too unstable and crashed every now and then during video conversion.

Despite the odd crash, Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate is a handy video converter specially created for mobile devices.

Download Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate 5.0.98.0729 in Softonic

Xilisoft RM Converter is a powerful rm converter software which helps you convert rmvb and rm to AVI, rm to MP3, rm to MPEG format. The rm Converter is capable of converting rmvb and rm file to popular video formats including AVI, MPEG, WMV, Divx. It is also a rm to mp3 converter which provides a powerful way to convert rm to audio formats MP3 and WAV. All conversion processes such as rmvb and rm to AVI, rm and rmvb to MPEG, rm to mp3 are very easy and fast with high quality.

Download Xilisoft RM Converter 3.1.8.0720b in Softonic

I'm not particularly fond of the MOV format, mainly because I've always had problems trying to play it. This is why I was glad to find a program like Xilisoft MOV Converter.

With Xilisoft MOV Converter you can convert video files from MOV to a wide array of standardized formats such as MPG, AVI or WMA. The program is really easy to use: simply select the MOV files you want to convert, choose the target format and let Xilisoft MOV Converter take care of the rest. There's also a built-in video player to preview videos. What's more, you can just extract the audio track from a video file and save it as WAV or MP3.

Target formats in Xilisoft MOV Converter are saved as profiles which you can freely customize to make them meet your requirements. You can also save those customized profiles as new user-defined profiles. The only drawback in Xilisoft MOV Converter, in my opinion is that the customization menu could have been made more user-friendly.

If you'd like to have your MOV videos in other formats, give a try to Xilisoft MOV Converter.

Download Xilisoft MOV Converter 5.0.98.0729 in Softonic

The 3GP converter allows users to convert AVI to 3GP, MPEG to 3GP. The 3GP Converter supports almost all popular video formats including mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, wmv, mp4, 3gp, mov, rm, dv, yuv, h264 to 3GP file conversion. Xilisoft 3GP Video Converter also convert 3GP video file to popular video formats such as 3GP to AVI, 3GP to MPEG, 3GP to Divx. The 3GP Converter supports convert audio-only 3GP file to MP3, WAV, and vice versa.

Download Xilisoft 3GP Video Converter 5.1.2.0829 in Softonic