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Best Free VP9 Player for Buffer-Free YouTube Videos

Posted by Kaylee Wood | Last update: April 28, 2020

Finding the best free VP8/VP9 player? How to play VP8/VP9 files free? You are at the right spot! Here we’ll recommend you two best free VP9 players and some other tips to play back VP8/VP9 and even VP10 files in your present media player.

What Is A VP8/VP9 File?

Usually, rather than “VP8/VP9/VP10”, we are far more familiar with the names like “H265” and “H264” which obviously can present us videos in UHD quality. Then, it’s time to expand your knowledge. To be brief, VP8/VP9 is an open and royalty-free video coding format developed by Google that it aims at reducing the bit rate while maintaining good video quality to surpass HEVC standard in compression efficiency. It enables users with limited bandwidth to watch higher quality video than before without suffering from frequent rebuffering. Often, VP8/VP9 codec files are contained in MKV and WebM.

Why Do You Need A VP9 Player?

No matter you have encountered the VP9 playback problem or not, a VP9 player is a must for your future video music enjoyment. Why? Since it is developed by Google and so is YouTube. The combination of VP9/VP10 with YouTube and YouTube 4K streaming is nailed to earth. YouTube is without doubt the tycoon of online video music providers, and since Google has developed this video coding format, VP9/VP10 will be widely adopted sooner or later for video streaming online. So, if you don’t ditch YouTube videos, you cannot avoid VP9/VP10 videos anyways.

Though compared with h264 and h265, VP9 seems less popular at present. But do you know that YouTube has streamed over 25 billion hours of VP9-encoded video over the last 12 months is pretty good subjective confirmation that the codec is, at the very least, competitive. Though Chrome and Firefox support VP9 videos, they only support it online. If you’ve got a WebM file containing VP9/VP8 videos downloaded locally, how can you play it? You need a professional VP9 video player. So here, we recommend you 2 powerful VP9 players:

Most Professional VP8/VP9 Player - 5KPlayer

This VP9 player - 5KPlayer - as its name suggests, supports 4K/8K FUHD video playback with best rendering ability and it allows you to play back almost any video music in WebM, MKV, 3GP containing VP8/VP9 videos. It also enables you to play back x264, H.264, H.265 videos alternatively if you are lingering about which encoding method to choose for better visual quality. 5KPlayer can assist you in comparing HEVC and VP9 as a visual comparison tool.

All in all, 5KPlayer is the
* Best VP9 video player that supports all video audio formats , say, WebM, MOV , AVI, WMV, MKV , MP4, FLV, FLAC , AAC, MP3, etc.
* Best VP8/VP9 player that can play 3D movies with 7 surround sound support.
* Best VP9 media player that provides DVD playback function for both Mac (El Capitan) and Windows (10).
* Best VP8/VP9 player that enables users to directly download online videos and record YouTube live streams .

Open Source VP8/VP9 Media Player – VLC

VLC also supports VP8/VP9 videos, and it plays them smoothly. Though this powerful open source media player handles many file formats, it falls short in H.265 and 4K playback as well as MP4/MKV playback. Many VLC users also get annoyed by VLC audio delay , DVD playback problem and other VLC not working issues. To solved these problems, you can report to the VideoLAN team official forum or try other VLC alternative .

Another VP9 Playback Solution

However, if you insist on using KMplayer, QT or DivxPlayer to play back WebM VP9/VP8, you may still can, but only need some extra help. Here we recommend you professional Mac VP9 converter and Win VP9 converter that can decode VP9 codec and convert it to MKV, HEVC, MP4, AVI, WMV, 3GP, FLV, MOV, VOB, MP3, AAC etc.

Hope these two VP8/VP9 players we suggest here can indeed help you play back VP8/VP9 videos downloaded from online. Also, hope you enjoy shows to the fullest without format and codec restrictions by using 5KPlayer! Free download now!

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