Features

These days, it's an app that attempts to be all things to all people - play DVDs, organize music, catalog photos, convert video, interact with social networking sites, browse internet multimedia....there's no end to what RealPlayer offers to its users. Even so, it's not an out-and-out success...

Usability

For a start, installation of RealPlayer is annoying - it takes a while, requires lots of "nexts" and tries to install and enable several features that users don't really need. Finally, when it starts, you're offered a chance to upgrade to paid versions of RealPlayer before you have to register yourself with Real Networks. If all this messing around doesn't appeal, check out a slimline app like UMPlayer.

When you're up and running, RealPlayer features a wide interface where you will notice ads and videos recommended by Real Networks. This looks cluttered and messy, and it's hard to know what the app actually offers. In reality, RealPlayer is ideal for playing and sharing video with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter and it works easily with BlackBerry, iPod, iPhone and other game systems. The new video converter allows you to copy online video to your iPod, Xbox, PS3 and other devices. Unfortunately, you can't rip DVDs with RealPlayer, although this is available as a feature if you upgrade to RealPlayer Plus.

Most recently, RealPlayer has been updated with far better mobile and social networking integration. You can now copy your favorite videos to an iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and dozens of other popular devices automatically. Downloading internet videos is faster, and for those of you with something to hide, RealPlayer offers a new Private folder. Social media has also been bumped up, with direct access to Facebook videos and usefully, a built-in feature to transfer videos to your mobile devices.

Quality

That said, RealPlayer isn't bad at all. It's comparable to Windows Media Player 12 as they both have some impressive ways of organizing your music. For me, the best feature is the CD burner which is something I've used from the early days of RealPlayer. The sheer quality of some of the media only available in Real formats makes RealPlayer an essential item in the toolkit of any fan of internet video and audio.

Conclusion

There's no shortage of media players theses days, and RealPlayer is by no means a bad option. It offers lots of features, good options and is a high-quality player that will do justice to your media. The only problem is that despite its modern features, it feels like a bit of a dinosaur. It's heavy and slow, looks chunky and takes an age to respond to clicks, and for many people - especially those who have experience of lighter options - it's just not the most comfortable player.

RealPlayer is a media player that, although powerful, has suffered from serious feature-creep over the years.

Download RealPlayer 16.0.2.232 in Softonic

Easy to install

In the latest release of SopCast, there are virtually no noticeable interface changes, so it's still extremely easy to use. On installation, you're asked if you'd like to install the Ask.com search bar, which you can de-select by clicking the check-box. When you run SopCast, you can log in either anonymously or, if you're planning on setting-up your own channel, create your own account using the link at the bottom. When you log into SopCast, click on the Live Channels tabs so you can see the channel listings. The first thing you notice is the number of channels to choose from. There's absolutely everything here from obscure Chinese channels to mainstream offerings like The Discovery Channel (although again, you will find many programs either dubbed or subtitled in Chinese). Some of SopCast's channels are organized, such as by News and Sport but these categories can be unreliable and the lower down you go, simply indecipherable.

Pop-out TV screen

SopCast's channel window will pop out of the side of the player but you can expand this to full screen or export it to Windows Media Player using the vision controls on the panel. This truly separates SopCast from the rest of the P2P TV streaming applications. If you want to use a different media player (such as VLC Player), you can do this by clicking on the Options button at the bottom of the main interface.

Broadcast your own programs

SopCast's major draw though, and the reason why many of its channels look like a garbled mess, is the fact that you can broadcast your own channel on it. Once your program has been filmed, edited and is uploaded on your PC, all you have to do is stream it via SopCast and select a server address to which people can connect and watch

Quality depends on other users

The quality of the broadcast in SopCast will very much depend on the number of people connected (the more users there are, the faster the video will stream). You can even create your own private channel and decide what users can watch it by creating a network group, thus enabling you to run your very own personal TV channel in SopCast.

Conclusion

SopCast might look a bit confusing for the first-time user but, despite the dominance of Chinese channels, it provides a whole new world of TV to watch. What's more, it gives you the chance to start your own channel!

Download SopCast 3.8.2 in Softonic

Similar to VLC media player, ALLPlayer is ideal for playing stubborn video files that won't play in your usual video player. It supports subtitles and plays just about anything and if it can't play a file, it will try to download the appropriate codec from the ALLPlayer website. If you need subtitles for a film, it will even try and download those as well although this function is very hit and miss. An unusual subtitle feature is an automatic voice recognition system that actually reads the subtitles for those who are visually impaired although again, it's not very accurate.

However, one thing to be aware of is that ALLPlayer is based on DirectX which is notorious for being a backdoor for trojans and other malware. DirectX has been much improved and tightened-up since the bad old days though and this shouldn't be an overriding concern if you're thinking of using ALLPlayer.

There are tons of other features in ALLPlayer including an attractive iTunes style Coverflow browser, support for Dolby, and it even previews incomplete AVI files such as those that are downloading. The interface isn't as polished as VLC media player's version 2 release but this is a relatively minor drawback to a solid media player.

ALLPlayer is an excellent multi-format media player that's packed with features.

Download ALLPlayer 5.2 in Softonic

FreeSmith Video Player looks nice, with a slick interface, easy full screen mode and clear controls. What we didn't like was that although the full screen mode looks good, there are no on-screen controls - except by right-clicking and selecting Play. There are fully-customizable hotkey controls, but we'd like to see both options for the full "movie experience".

As features go, FreeSmith Video Player covers the basics, but is unlikely to amaze you. It's got the full selection of extras that make it user-friendly - like a screenshot function, subtitles and good playlist options, but that's about it.

FreeSmith Video Player's technical options are middle of the pack - you'll be able to make basic changes to your videos, like cropping and rotating, but the program doesn't offer the advanced options that you might see on players like VLC.

Overall. we thought that FreeSmith Video Player was a nice free application that will suit many people's needs. That said, if you've got a bit of experience with multimedia players and are looking for something a little special, you're unlikely to find it with FreeSmith Video Player. We also noticed a lot of lag, which, for a player that prides itself on being light, was a little unusual.

FreeSmith Video Player covers basic media player needs, but really offers little to make it stand out from the pack.

Download FreeSmith Video Player 1.2.3 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. What's more 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 1.5.7.0 in Softonic

FireANT is an RSS video aggregator and media player that helps you keep up to date with the latest internet TV channels and programming.

With the FireANT Player, you can subscribe to any RSS 2.0 channel and automatically download fresh media content to watch and listen to. In this way, you don't need to keep checking your favourite channel - whether it be CNN or ESPN - to see whether there's anything you want to watch on as FireANT delivers it all to you in much the same way as Google Reader tracks your favourite blogs.

The other big draw of FireANT is that the media player is incredibly versatile - rivalling VLC Player in some respects - as it's able to play just about any format without the need for codecs including Quicktime, Windows Media, Flash, Real Media. FireANT can even sync downloaded files with portable media players such as iPod and Sony PSP.

In addition, FireANT player comes with an integrated Yahoo! Video Search function. When FireANT was originally released this was probably quite useful but now that Google is king, you probably won't find much use for it. You can also interact with video creators by sending comments to them based on their content although I'm sceptical as to whether this actually works properly.

A format free and fun way to keep track of your favourite programming, FireANT is maybe a bit dated now but better than having to keep checking channels for new content yourself.

Download FireANT Beta in Softonic

The Nero Media Player program enables you to play back audio tracks. The program supports the most current formats, including MP3, WAV, AAC, to name but a few. Nero Media Player also enables you to play back Internet streams, and to create and play back playlists.

• Create playlists from your audio CDs, MP3, HE-AAC, WMA, WAV, and MIDI files, and from Internet radio stations
• Rip audio tracks to MP3, HE-AAC, WMA, and WAV
• Add digital track-labeling to your audio CDs
• Make your own sonic profiles with the graphic equalizer
• The very latest Fraunhofer MP3 audio-encoding technology
• Standard bit rates from 96 to 320KB/s
• Winamp DSP plug-in support

Download Nero Media Player 1.4.0.35 in Softonic