Best Media Players For Windows 11 - Download The Free, User-Friendly App Now!

5KPlayer > Video Music Player > Media Player

Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links

If you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Media Player – Free Media Player – Media Player for Windows 10

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

The world of media players is still expanding, with not only GPL-licensed ones players like VLC media player for Windows 10 and Media Player Classic – Home Cinema, self-owned multi-media players like 5KPlayer, GOM Players are touting out aloud for a space on customer’s hard disk.

Back in time we’ve sorted out best media players for Windows 10, top 10 Mac media players, dishing out a long list of the best media players with regular updates, stable performance, wide codec range, including plenty of options to choose from in the consumer market.

This article adopts a technician’s perspective to see media players as such, scrutinizing the frameworks and APIs of media players in-use. Free media players with proprietary with 5KPlayer in lead are gaining momentum in both openness and stability, pooling an increasing number of fan-base when compared to GPL/GNL-licensed multimedia players that used to dominate the desktop.

The reasons for the free 5KPlayer’s popularity, however, can attribute to the reasons below:

The Framework of Media Players

The classification of proprietary, GPL license and GNL license of media players didn’t come into being until the 1983 Appls vs. Franklin law decision which made binary software copyrightable. Which later granted exclusive rights to media players with proprietary. What are the differences between GPL-licensed media players and the proprietary-protected video players ? The differences are as below:

1. Open Source Media Frameworks

Microsoft Media Platform – formerly known as Silverlight Media Framework (SMF), setting up a platform for developer to quickly deploy a robust and scalable media player for IIS Smooth Streaming delivery. The MMPPF builds on the core functionality of the Smooth Streaming Client while also featuring a large number of additional features including an extensibility API that allows developers to create plugins for the framework. This framework also supports Adaptive streaming, closed captioning, advertising standards integration, DVR-style playback control and other advanced features.

2. FFmpeg Media Player Framework

Media players developed from FFmpeg Media Player framework includes libavodec (codec library that many other programs also use), libavformat (container mux and demux library), and the ffmpeg command line program for transcoding multimedia files. Big name media players using FFmpeg framework include VLC media player, Xine, Plex, Blender, YouTube and Media Player Classic – Home Cinema.

3. GStreamer Framework for Media Players:

GStreamer is another library for developers to construct media-processing components for media players. It has ample muscle for multimedia playback, starting from as easy as Ogg/Vorbis playback to as complex as audio mixing and non-linear video processing.

Compared to FFmpeg, GStreamer as a more flexible tool can extend its capabilities through new plugins.
Media players with GStreamer as their frameworks include Snappy, Songbird and Kaffeine (KDE based media player), Gamp (GNOME based media player).

The Proprietary and GPL/GNL-license of Media Players

The classification of proprietary, GPL license and GNL license of media players didn’t come into being until the 1983 Appls vs. Franklin law decision which made binary software copyrightable. Which later granted exclusive rights to media players with proprietary. What are the differences between GPL-licensed media players and the proprietary-protected video players ? The differences are as below:

1. Media Players with Proprietary

Paid media players usually fall into this category – Although the video player can derive into hundreds of thousands of copies, owner of the proprietary media players limit the number of PCs/Mac on which the software can be used by way of product key code and e-mail activation, thus disabling any illegal replication of the media player on an unauthorized computer. PowerDVD Standard/Pro/Ultra player, which sports Blu-ray capability are examples of this kind.

2. Media Players with GNU Public License (GPL)

First written by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, GNU Public license enables users of a free media player to run or make modifications to the software, prescribing that derivative works be distributed under the same license terms. Although there are other license for free software applications, GNU remains the most popular copyleft license for media players. Popular media players like MPC-HC for Windows 10 and Plex Media Player are products of this kind.

Which is the Best Media Player from the Perspective of Developers?

You might have stayed with one free media player for long, knowing its short-keys, control panels well yet complaining about seldom crash-downs and sneezes. For most media player product managers, compiling user feedbacks for its regular upgrade is an incremental process to perfect the media player for better, and it certainly helps when a portion of the first-hand media player users get a general picture of how their nifty little image box was born. That been the starting point, this page intends to collect some of the primary knowledge base about the frameworks, software license of the media players in trend.

Other media player frameworks include Video JS framework, DirectShow, QuickTime, libVLC and DirectShow, inviting developers to customize GUIs and plugins to the bottom layer for varied end-use products.

Also read: