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.

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Features

Version 2 ("Twoflower") brings a new interface, faster decoding, support for more formats and the ability to play HD and BluRay. It still remains however the most stable, flexible and lightweight audio and video player around today. While other media players will play unusual formats after downloading a codec, or simply refuse to play things,

VLC media player handles tons of formats, from MPEG to FLV and RMBV files. Version 2 has seen some important additions too such as support for 10 bit codes plus multi-threaded decoding for H.264, MPEG-4/Xvid and WebM.

Also useful is the fact that you can use VLC media player to preview files you are downloading since it plays incomplete parts of video files. VLC media player is not just for video playback however. It also offers superb integration with video channel streaming services such as Channels.com giving you access to channels such as ESPN, Reuters and National Geographic. Just right-click or CMD-click on the playlist, select Services Discovery and Channels.com.

Channels.com will then appear in your VLC media player playlist. Click on it to reveal the the different categories of channels available. Click on the category you want and a drop down list of all available channels appears in VLC media player. Just click on the channel you want to watch and streaming should begin almost immediately.

Usability

VLC media player also has great hotkey support and if you take the time to learn the shortcuts so it can be controlled without touching your mouse. If you're watching DVDs or video files through it, this is not an issue. For music, it plays more or less any file and features an equalizer and playlist creation. VLC media player isn't as intuitive as iTunes as a media manager, but it's a much more flexible player in terms of file formats. You can even use VLC to convert your files, and on top of all the formats and physical media it will play, many streaming protocols and TV capture cards are supported.

VLC media player makes it easy to add subtitles to your video files too - just add the SRT file to the folder where your video is kept, and it will automatically play with subtitles.

Finally, the interface in VLC media player has been somewhat improved in version 2 although it remains strictly functional. However, you can download skins to completely change VLC media player's appearance. The preferences menu is comprehensive without being overwhelming, and there is extensive documentation online.

Conclusion

VLC Media Player is quite simply the best multimedia application for Windows and Mac. It plays just about anything, hassle free - what more could you need?

What's new

Rework and fixes of the Mac OS X interface

Fix Pulseaudio initial synchronization

Fix MKV, SWF, AIFF and subtitles demuxer crashes

Translations updates and new Welsh translation

DVB-S delivery system detection

Fix audio and video track selection through libVLC

Fix system sleep issue on Mac OS X 10.5

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As you would expect from an Apple product, Quicktime is extremely slick to use to the point of sometimes "hiding" features that you would expect to be more readily available - such as creating playlists for example. When it comes to performing basic functions such as playback, it's very easy to use although launching it is still a little slow. If you want to really get the most out of QuickTime however, you need to upgrade to the Pro version which allows you to do much more such as edit and convert video files.

QuickTime is designed to play Apple's MOV video format although but beyond this on Windows, it isn't very flexible. There are other players such as VLC media player which play almost any format and are much quicker to launch.

QuickTime is Apple's flagship media player although there are many other free players out there for Windows that are much more powerful

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This little program has been around for years, but it's done a great job of improving over time. ZD Soft Screen Recorder started out as a modest app, but it's become a great tool that both looks and acts like a much more expensive program.

Each ZD Soft Screen Recorder operation is accompanied by a Capture Wizard, which makes the process supremely simple (you don't have to use it if you're feeling independent, though!). Here you'll see the options to create a screencast, capture a video, record gameplay and even share your screen. In many cases, you would actually need separate software to carry out these processes, but not with ZD Soft Screen Recorder!

The actual recording process is very simple. ZD Soft Screen Recorder explains it each step of the way. You'll also be able to control the recording using F8, and by using the minimized controls in the taskbar. Remember that ZD Soft Screen Recorder is a pretty intuitive app, so if you're recording from VLC, for example, it will automatically focus on the VLC window.

ZD Soft Screen Recorder also has pretty comprehensive audio and video settings, which should keep even advanced users happy. Of course, there are slightly less technical options you can tweak too, and if you have no interest in the nitty gritty, ZD Soft Screen Recorder will make the decisions for you. In fact, the only problem with ZD Soft Screen Recorder is that the number of formats you can save video and screenshots is a little limited. Of course, with videos in both .AVI and .WMP, you have most bases covered, but if you want any other format, you'll have to use a separate converter like Format Factory.

ZD Soft Screen Recorder is an excellent recording program for screencasts, videos and games.

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Free FLV Converter searches for, downloads and converts FLV videos, all from within the program. This means that there is no need to search through websites for the videos you are looking for - just open up Free FLV Converter, enter the video title into the search box and the program finds the video for you.

Videos can be filtered and the results can be ordered by site, name, description, duration, date added or views. The Free FLV Converter download window - accessed from the icons along the top of the interface - shows the status of downloads and displays technical specifications.

But that's not all you can expect from Free FLV Converter. This multi-functional tool is also a flexible video converter, transferring your videos from a variety of formats. The converter works very well, but isn't very clearly labeled, so check the file properties to make sure you are converting to the right format.

There are two small problems with Free FLV Converter, however. Firstly, you cannot pause downloads, which can be a problem for longer videos. Secondly, Free FLV Converter has a large range of adult websites. Obviously, you can exclude these sites from your searches, but you cannot remove the option to search them, which will probably present a problem for certain users.

Free FLV Converter - much more than the name suggests!

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Improved interface

The first thing that will strike you when you start up Windows Media Player 11, is the complete revamp of the interface. No more deep blue, the whole application is now dark and shiny and you can customize it by selecting a hue of your choice. Windows Media Player's left side is a drop down pane for your library, the center displays your lists and the right side is used to create playlists which you can rip, burn or sync with a mobile device.

Compared to Windows Media Player 10, we feel that Microsoft has actually made an effort to simplify the interface and give you more ways to browse through your media list, whether by using the drop down menu or the quick rollout line on the top left. The 'play' and 'previous' and 'next' buttons are now nested at the bottom of the interface and have a jazzy glow whenever you roll over them. Microsoft has finally succeeded in integrating a good search function into its Windows Media Player interface. As you type the name of an artist or title the application will bring up the results in the main window.

Windows Media Player 11 makes all your media more accessible. Double click the Media Library button to browse from your music to pictures, movie files and recorded TV. The thumbnail view is a great way to quickly scan through pictures and videos and to include the album image to audio tracks. By clicking the “Media information changes” option under the Library button you can also scan your PC to automatically find new media files. Creating a playlist is a case of drag and drop and oddly enough you can integrate audio, video and pictures. Burning and ripping in Windows Media Player is also very simple, yet disappointingly converting is limited to WMA, WAV or MP3.

Easy to use

The sync process is promising yet remains a bit unstable. While it’s very easy to create a list and sync media, Windows Media Player can occasionally crash or fail to load your mobile device, even if you press the refresh button. When we tested it with a Pocket PC, we had to restart Windows Media Player 11 so that it would recognize it and let us sync our music. As soon as the device became accessible though, it also became visible on the left sided menu, making it very easy to browse through it for music or pictures.

A big improvement

Windows Media Player 11 is a huge improvement from version 10. The whole interface is snazzier and makes browsing through your media simpler. Microsoft has also made creating playlists, syncing, burning or ripping just a case of drag-and-drop. Windows Media Player lets you check out music on dozens of online stores and is loaded with small features to customize your interface and change how you interact with your media.

Conclusion

While the syncing process still remains a bit unstable and we lament the lack of podcast feed support, Windows Media Player 11 is a solid competitor to Apple’s iTunes.

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VLC DVD Ripper is a competent DVD ripping software capable of converting DVD movies to numerous popular video and audio formats at high speed and high quality. The program can be used by anyone no matter the prior experience with such applications and supports AVI, WMV, MPEG, FLV, PSP, MP4, 3GP formats.

Our website offers a powerful dvd ripping application anyone can use to convert their collection of DVDs to numerous digital formats with great speed and in great quality. Once converted you can transfer them to any desired portable device to enjoy a

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WMV is also supported to playback in portable media devices such as Microsoft Zune, Pocket PC and XBox. Aside from MKV, MKV To WMV Converter can convert other video files into WMV file.

The program supports conversion from AVI, MPEG, ASF, MPG, VCD, DAT M1V, MPE and other known formats to WMV. With the right codec installed in your computer, the program can also convert DivX, XViD, OGM, SVCD and DV files to WMV.

Parameter settings of videos are fully customizable in this software, and resolution adjustment to HD 1080p 0r 720p is easy. MKV To WMV Converter can cut your lengthy videos into segments, and has multi-language support.

Lastly, the program is able to run in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP to Vista platforms. MKV To WMV Converter is a quick solution to your video conversion needs.

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