Media Player Classic (MPC) is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. MPC mimics the look and feel of Windows Media Player 6.4, but provides most options and features available in modern media players. It and its forks are standard media players in the K-Lite Codec Pack and the Combined Community Codec Pack.
This project is now principally maintained by the community at the Doom9 forum. The active forks are Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) and the Black Edition (MPC-BE).
Video Media Player Classic
Development
Media Player Classic was created and maintained by a programmer named "Gabest" who also created PCSX2 graphics plugin GSDX. It was developed as a closed-source application, but later relicensed as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. MPC is hosted under the guliverkli project at SourceForge.net. The project itself is something of an umbrella organization for works by Gabest.
Media Player Classic development stalled in May 2006. Gabest, the main developer of the original version, stated in March 2007 that development of Media Player Classic is not dead but that he was unable to work on it. The community at the Doom9 forum has since continued the project in two main veins. The version known as Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 was meant for fixing bugs and updating outdated libraries; its branch's development is inactive.
Home Cinema
A fork, called Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), adds new features, as well as fixes bugs and updates libraries.
MPC-HC updates the original player and adds many useful functionalities including the option to remove tearing, additional video decoders (in particular H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 with DirectX Video Acceleration support), Enhanced Video Renderer support, and multiple bug fixes. There is also a 64 bit-version of Media Player Classic - Home Cinema for the various Windows x64 platforms. MPC-HC requires at least Windows XP Service Pack 3.
As of version 1.4.2499.0, MPC-HC implemented color management support, an uncommon feature in video players at the time. Windows 8 support was introduced in version 1.6.5. Beginning with version 1.6.6 the stable releases are signed.
Apart from stable releases as published, nightly builds are also publicly available. MPC-HC is also distributed in the PortableApps format. MPC-HC 1.7.8 released in 2015 was built with the MediaInfoLib 0.7.71.
MPC-HC 1.7.1 added support for HEVC format.
MPC-HC 1.7.13 now requires SSE2 supporting CPU and no longer runs on Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP. MPC-HC 1.7.13 is also the final version and the program has been officially discontinued as of July 16, 2017, due to a shortage of active developers with C/C++ experience. Its source code on GitHub was last updated on August 27, 2017, a month and a half after the official final version..
New unofficial versions from developer "clsid" started appearing in January 2018, these builds contain small fixes/improvements and updated LAV Filters.
Black Edition
Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) is a fork of MPC-HC. It moved away from MPC's aim to mimic the look and feel of Windows Media Player with updated player controls and provides additional features on top of MPC-HC such as Seekbar Previews.
The first version (1.0.1.0) was released on September 12, 2012.
MPC-BE stable release version 1.5.1, was released October 10, 2017, and nightly builds are also available.
Maps Media Player Classic
Features
Media Player Classic is capable of VCD, SVCD, and DVD playback without installation of additional software or codecs. MPC has built-in codecs for MPEG-2 video with support for subtitles and codecs for LPCM, MP2, 3GP, AC3, and DTS audio. MPC also contains an improved MPEG splitter that supports playback of VCDs and SVCDs using its VCD/SVCD/XCD Reader. On October 30, 2005, Gabest added *.mp4 and MPEG-4 Timed Text support. An AAC decoding filter had once been present in MPC. MPC-HC is also one of the first(unknown) to support Dolby Atmos audio natively.
DirectShow
Media Player Classic is primarily based on the DirectShow architecture and therefore automatically uses installed DirectShow decoding filters. For instance, after the open source DirectShow decoding filter ffdshow has been installed, fast and high quality decoding and postprocessing of the MPEG-4 ASP, H.264, and Flash Video formats is available in MPC. MPC-HC can play videos in these formats directly without ffdshow.
MPC provides DXVA support for newer Intel, NVIDIA and ATI video cards when using an H.264 or VC-1 codec. This provides hardware-acceleration for playback.
In addition to DirectShow, MPC can also use the QuickTime, RealPlayer, and SHOUTcast codecs and filters (if installed on the computer) to play their native files. MPC can use an INI file in its application folder.
Matroska and Ogg containers
Media Player Classic supports native playback of OGM and Matroska container formats. In 2006 OGM audio playback was limited by a lack of support for the CoreVorbis DirectShow filter, which mainly affected files.
TV tuners
MPC supports playback and recording of television if a supported TV tuner is installed.
See also
- Comparison of video player software
- DirectVobSub
- VLC media player
References
External links
- Media Player Classic - Home Cinema's official website
- Media Player Classic's official website as a whole
- MPC-HC on GitHub
- MPC-HC at Open Hub
- MPC-BE on SourceForge.net
- Host of the original project on SourceForge.net
- Patched build of MPC on SourceForge.net
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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