Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic (MPC), Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) are a family of free and open-source, compact, lightweight, and customizable media players for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The original MPC, along with the MPC-HC fork, mimic the simplistic look and feel of Windows Media Player 6.4, but provide most options and features available in modern media players. Variations of the original MPC and its forks have been and are, standard media players in the K-Lite Codec Pack and the Combined Community Codec Pack.

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema
Media Player Classic - Home Cinema version 1.6.5 in default form, running on Windows 8
Original author(s)Gabest
Developer(s)MPC-HC Community Forum
Initial releaseMay 30, 2003 (2003-05-30)
Stable release
1.9.8[1] / October 24, 2020 (2020-10-24)
Preview release
1.9.8.157 (x64 only)[1] / February 2, 2021 (2021-02-02)
Written inC++
Operating systemWindows
PlatformIA-32 and x86-64
SizeIA-32: 15.1 MB (Exe)
x86-64: 16.2 MB (Exe)
Available in42 languages[2]
List of languages
Arabic, Armenian, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English (British), Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Spanish, Tatar, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
LicenseGNU General Public License
WebsiteMPC-HC official website (inactive)
MPC-HC on Doom9 (active fork by clsid)
Media Player Classic - Black Edition
Language setting is Japanese.
Developer(s)Alexander Vodiannikov
Initial releaseSeptember 12, 2012 (2012-09-12)
Stable release
1.5.5.5433 [3] / August 23, 2020 (2020-08-23)
Preview release
1.5.5.5274 [4] / May 8, 2020 (2020-05-08)
Written inC++
Operating systemWindows
PlatformIA-32 and x86-64
SizeIA-32: 13.1 MB (Zip)
x86-64: 14.2 MB (Zip)
Available in26 languages
List of languages
English, Russian, Basque, Belarusian, Catalan, Chinese(Simplified), Chinese(Traditional), Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese(Brazil), Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian
LicenseGNU GPL v3
Websitempcbe.sourceforge.io

This project is now principally maintained by the community at the Doom9 forum. The active forks are Home Cinema (MPC-HC) by clsid, and Black Edition (MPC-BE) by aleksoid.

Development

The original 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.[5] Later on, in August 2007, an unofficially patched and updated build became available, hosted under the guliverkli2 project at SourceForge.net. Known as Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1, it was meant for fixing bugs and updating outdated libraries; its branch's development has been inactive since 2010.[6][7] The community at the Doom9 forum has since further continued the project with MPC-HC.

Home Cinema

A fork, called Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), adds new features, as well as fixes bugs and updates libraries.[8]

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.[9] Windows 8 support was introduced in version 1.6.5.[10] Beginning with version 1.6.6 the stable releases are signed.[11]

Apart from stable releases as published, nightly builds are also publicly available.[12][13] MPC-HC is also distributed in the PortableApps format.[14] 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 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.[15] Its source code on GitHub was last updated on August 27, 2017, a month and a half after the official final version.[16]

Updated fork

Updated builds of MPC-HC, a fork from the same developer (known as clsid on Doom9 and clsid2 on GitHub/SourceForge) responsible for MPC 6.4.9.1, started appearing in January 2018. This fork contains updated internal codecs (LAV Filters), AV1 support, youtube-dl integration, a new dark theme, support for MPC Video Renderer, A-B Repeat, subtitle performance improvements, updates to some other external components, other improvements, and many bug fixes;[17][18] support for Windows XP was also dropped in these builds.[17] Binary releases are available,[1] as well as source code.[19]

Black Edition

Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) is a fork of MPC and 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.[20] MPC-BE, however, doesn't include LAV filters by default, making it less efficient than MPC-HC for decoding. This is most noticeable with higher resolution files, newer codecs, or on lower end hardware.[21]

Player development began in February 2011. Developers used a modification of MPC-HC made by a programmer nicknamed "bobdynlan".

The first version (1.0.1.0) was released on September 12, 2012.[22]

Starting with version 1.5.0, MPC-BE no longer supports Windows XP.[23]

MPC-BE version 1.5.1 and newer require SSE2 supporting CPU and no longer run on Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP.[24]

MPC-BE stable release version 1.5.5.5433 was released August 23, 2020, and nightly builds are also available.[4][20]

Media formats and features
In this section Media Player Classic and MPC refer to both the original MPC and its forks, unless otherwise specified.
Japanese MPC 6.4.8.3 audio playback on Wine

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; along with native playback of the Matroska container format. 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.[25]

Supported media formats within the latest builds of MPC-HC and MPC-BE have been considerably expanded compared to the original MPC, as these builds are bundled with iterations of libavcodec and libavformat. MPC-HC version 1.7.0 and newer utilize LAV filters,[26] while MPC-BE uses FFmpeg directly.[27] Consequently, they support all formats from those libraries.

MPC-HC is also one of the first media players to support Dolby Atmos audio natively.

MPC can use an INI file in its application folder,[28] making it a portable application.

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 the original MPC. MPC-HC and MPC-BE, however, can play videos in these formats directly without ffdshow.

MPC-HC and MPC-BE also provide DXVA support for compatible Intel, NVIDIA, and ATI/AMD video cards when using a compatible 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.[29] Though some of these files may play without the external codecs or filters installed. Alternatively, QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative can be used in place of their player installations for expanded support of their respective file formats.

TV tuners

MPC supports playback and recording of television if a supported TV tuner is installed.

See also

References
  1. "clsid2 builds". Github. 2018-06-19. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  2. "About MPC-HC". MPC-HC project. Retrieved 2016-02-21.
  3. "Release Builds". SourceForge project MPC-BE. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  4. "Nightly Builds". SourceForge project MPC-BE. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  5. "SourceForge's discussion about project status". Retrieved 2011-04-06.
  6. "Doom9's topic on Media Player Classic patched build". Retrieved 2007-11-11.
  7. "Patched MPC 6.4.9.1". Sourceforge project Guliverkli2. 2011-04-10. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
  8. "Doom9's topic on Media Player Classic - Home Cinema". Retrieved 2007-11-11.
  9. Attila Tamás Áfra (2010-09-20). "ICC color management in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema" (blog). Retrieved 2014-02-09.
  10. "Changelog v1.6.5". MPC-HC wiki. 2012-12-16. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  11. XhmikosR (2013-02-25). "Binaries are signed". MPC-HC.org. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
  12. "Media Player Classic - Home Cinema". MPC-HC Nightly. 2016-02-21. Retrieved 2016-02-21.
  13. "Media Player Classic - Home Cinema". free-codecs.com. 2013-03-29. Retrieved 2013-04-01.
  14. "MPC-HC Portable 1.6.5 Released". PortableApps. 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2013-02-11.
  15. "v1.7.13 is released and farewell". mpc-hc.org. 2017-07-16. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  16. "Commits · mpc-hc/mpc-hc · GitHub". GitHub. 2017-08-27. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  17. "clsid builds thread on Doom9". Retrieved 2018-05-20.
  18. "Newvers". Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  19. https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc
  20. "Media Player Classic - BE Win32/x64". Doom9. Archived from the original on 2013-03-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  21. "Which Media Player Classic to Download?". Retrieved 2020-09-29.
  22. "MPC-BE x64 1.0.1.0". SourceForge project MPC-BE. Retrieved 2016-02-02.
  23. "Поддержка Windows XP".
  24. "Media Player Classic - BE Win32/x64".
  25. Doom9 - Media Player Classic supports Matroska v2, *.mp4, *.mov, and MPEG-4 Timed Text
  26. "v1.7.0 is released". mpc-hc.org. 2013-09-29. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  27. "Complete Version history / Release notes / Changelog for MPC-BE". videohelp.com. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  28. "Media Player Classic v6.4.9.1". The Portable Freeware Collection. 2012-08-20. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
  29. "Installing Media Player Classic - A step by step guide". Gizmos Freeware Reviews. 2012-06-15. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
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