With all the different video and audio formats out there, it is bound to happen now and then – the mouse clicks over the icon of the video that you want to watch and Windows Media Player opens. Unfortunately, the video does not display, instead there is a screen that says the proper CODEC is not installed.

This is an all too common annoying occurrence that wastes tons of time. Windows Media Player (WMP) does a few things well but it is by no means a multimedia workhorse. WMP is fine to rip a few tracks from that new CD, or perhaps for making a CD to listen to compiling the best songs in your MP3 collection but for much more than that it often turns out to be a major flop.

There is a free alternative to WMP that is capable of much more and not only that, it does it more efficiently. VLC media player, a VideoLan product is arguably one of the best multimedia players out there. VLC is cross platform, there is a version for Windows, Linux, Mac, Be OS, and others. VLC is full of CODECs straight out-of-the box. This translates into a lot lest time searching the internet for a missing one. VLC is capable of playing almost any video format or audio format there is.

Another cool feature that VLC brings to the table is that it capable of playing a file that is missing or corrupted. A corrupted video or audio file would stop WMP and most other players dead in their tracks, not so with VLC, it simply skips over the offending part and goes on to fisnish the job it was designed for, playing media files. VLC is lightweight meaning that it does a superior job of managing RAM and other system resources resulting in less lag and distortion playing media files that would place too much demand on WMP. There are several “skins” or appearance themes that are available for VLC, which can help to make it more attractive than the standard user interface of Windows Media Player.

Another cool feature of VLC are the numerous streaming channels that it can carry bringing added content the user, presenting a wider variety of entertainment. As if that were not enough for VLC to knock other media players off their thrones, there is still more like the fact that VLC will play archive files such as those compressed through Winrar or similar programs without having to extract them first. This is another time saver, which is after all what our little technological boxes are supposed to do. If you have ever be frustrated with Windows’ puny little multimedia player, give VLC a try.

Learn about all the features of VLC Player and use this link to download VLC PLayer Download