Although VLC is the great dominator among the media players that we install in Genbeta, and we are anxious for the arrival of its fourth version, which will bring with it a major redesign, some alternatives even improve its proposal in different sections.
The best alternatives to VLC media player
We leave you with several programs that stand out for their performance on older computers, such as PotPlayer, for their aesthetics, such as IINA on macOS, or for their versatility and flexibility in terms of options, such as MPC-HC and the forks that have been evolving their now discontinued code.
PotPlayer
After trying many different playback applications, we found several mentions in forums to PotPlayer, a free player that is essentially KMPlayer and has a wide variety of integrated codecs, so it can play almost any content you find on the Internet. In its settings, it allows a great configuration and customization in the use of the general experience and acceleration engines, a very convenient option given the variety of equipment with different hardware that exists.
With PotPlayer we have been able to play 4K video from modern cameras where VLC has not been able to or has been able to hardly, in the equipment of a few years ago. So, it is my recommendation if you need to watch 4K videos that you have recently recorded.
IINA
If you are looking for a change of scenery when it comes to multimedia players on macOS, IINA is a great open-source alternative to VLC, which besides being very powerful, has a modern look that, for the moment, the orange cone program does not have.
It has a dark mode, picture-in-picture, online subtitle search, Touch Bar integration with the trackpad via gestures. Beyond all this, it is an application that we love because it plays 4K videos from YouTube with its controls.
It has PiP mode and automatic subtitle search. The only thing that lets it down, for the moment, is adapting to Apple silicon, although it works perfectly on a MacBook Air M1.
MPC-HC
Media Player Classic Home Cinema ceased to have support from its developers in 2017, as they indicate on their website, but it is still more than valid for day-to-day use, especially if what we are looking for is a lightweight, flexible player that is compatible with an infinite number of files.
Also, it has integrated features such as subtitle search and allows you to adjust very deeply the image quality, being one of the options that best allows you to enjoy the content of the videos. After its farewell, a fork (MPC-HC was an open-source program) that remains more up to date is Media Player Classic-BE, which you can download here.
A former MPC developer continues to add features to MPC-HC, and in February 2021 continues to update it, now providing decoding for formats such as the new AV1.
