Because of the limited video formats and lack of certain features of built-in windows media player, you might want to find the third-party media player for windows. VLC player is one of the most widely used free player, but the "Rebuilding Font Cache" thing and unfriendly UI may annoy you. Here I just list top 5 best free media player software which can be the alternatives of VLC player and windows media player. Read on and pick up one to get the best video experience.
Alternative 1. Leawo Blu-ray Player(Windows XP/Vista/7/8)
Leawo Blu-ray Player is a totally life-long free windows media player for DVD, AVI, MKV, MP4, FLV, MOV, up to 1080p HD video playback and much more. For audio, it supports .aac,.flac, .m4a, .mka, .mp2, .mp3,.ogg,.wav, .wma and others. The player can adjust subtitles and audio tracks at will for your better movie enjoyment, as well as the full-screen playback support. Besides, you can control the playback with the full friendly menu.For playing Blu-ray, you need to pay $59.95 for it.But now it is only $19.95.
Tips: How to Play Blu-ray on PC?
Alternative 2: KMPlayer(2000/XP/Vista/7)
KMPlayer is also one free media player for Windows. The easy-to-use interface lets you get easy access to screen control, subtitles, screen capture and many more. It features the built-in video and audio codecs and supports a wide variety of music and video formats. Also, you can customize the player like slow down or increase playback speed, select parts of a video as favorites, do A-B repeats, choose your favorite skins and color schemes, etc.
Alternative 3: DivX(Windows XP/Vista/7/8)
DivX is another great alternative to VLC and Windows Media Player. Most popular video formats are supported by it. The attraction of it is you can watch streaming videos in DivX, AVI and MKV formats through the web player. Another great function is its file converter which allows you to create and backup content or convert them into DivX, AVI, MP4 or MKV to transfer to mobile device.
Alternative 4: RealPlayer(Windows XP/Vista/7/8)
RealPlayer is a very popular media player on the web all the time. It can play lots of poplar formats including WMV, WMA FLV, AVI, MP3, MP4, 3GP and more. Apart from that, the player can convert your video files into different formats and download streaming content online. Better, you can even share your clips with friends on Facebook. But for more features, you just need to pay $49.99 to get the RealPlayer Plus 16.
Alternative 5: GOM Media Player(Windows XP/Vista/7/8)
With the popular built-in video and audio codecs, GOM Player is another greatly free multimedia player. You can play wide range of file formats such as AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD without installing any additional codecs. Good thing about it is that it can play incomplete or damaged AVI files by skipping the damaged frames, as well as the locked or partially downloaded files. What’s more, you can alter the brightness, contrast and other video settings to the videos when you view them.