The best media player is VLC, but I use media player classic and the community codec pack because it's much nicer. You can press 1 in media player classic and the video will go fullscreen, while leaving the taskbar visible. You don't see this feature in any other players.

Media Player Classic
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

Community Codec Pack
http://www.cccp-project.net/
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VLC hands down! http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Source(s):
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

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Quicktime is still the best.
But u have to use some extra's to get the best out of it.
Install:
- Flip 4 Mac
- Divx
- Perian
- 5.1 Audio Decoder

VLC is buggy.
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For Windows I am using Media Player Classic. It's very fast and all codecs work perfect with it!

Actually every time I format a PC with Windows I install the Kazaa lite Mega Pack and that player comes with it. VLC is also a very good option so I don't think there is a need to switch to another player.

For Mac I don't have a clue:)
Source(s):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm

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I like winamp because I have a history with it and it and you can skin it like crazy
Source(s):
http://www.winamp.com/

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I'm not convinced that VLC is the best player. It's certainly the most versatile. Why? Because its development is user-driven, so whenever somebody finds something it won't play, they add that.

Personally I use iTunes both on Windows and Mac, mainly because it works with my iPod and does a good job. I don't really think VLC is comparable - it is more versatile, to be sure, but it doesn't do much of a job of media management, and that's an important feature to me.
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I use Vlc on a Windows system because it's the only player that can play almost video format without having to download extra codecs. Version 8.6d will also play flv files.
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There is a continuation of the Media Player Classic project on Windows called "Media Player Classic Home Cinema" that I prefer 100% of the time over VLC. I hate the way that tracking works in VLC, where you click one point in the timeline because you want to go there, and VLC decides to pick a point that's just really close to where you picked instead of going to that exact second.

As far as OS X goes, I have the same issues with VLC, so QuickTime + Perian + Flip4Mac is my first choice. But when that doesn't play something, then I have to revert to VLC.
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VLC is the best I ran across so far...but I tend towards media player classic and winamp for music...old habits die hard...
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I use VLC player. I have never had an issue opening files nor any hiccups or other issues. It is preferable to every other player, and it is FAST.

VLC is great because it is a specialized to be quick, small, and do a few things very well. Believe it or not, it is not for everyone.

Microsoft and Apple can make something this good, but they are supporting products that already have large brand names, advanced functionality, and a "prettier" interface. Windows Media Player, for instance, is a utility that has been designed to perform many tasks, and is designed in a way that it can be accessible to the largest number of people and, if grandma is having trouble playing Lawrence Welk, she can call up the largest technical support network in the world and be walked through an application that was designed with her (and supporting her) in mind.

Windows Media Player is such an important part of Microsoft's Windows branding that one is required to authenticate their version of Windows to update it. But it is not simply a media player. It Allows the user to connect, share and sync data with portable handheld devices and game consoles. It also manages and catalogs all of your media and can sync up to a database to give you detailed information concerning the media you are experiencing. It also features a plug-in system for expandability, media ripping capabilities, and media authoring, as well as a lyrics display module.

Basically, it has the typical failures associated with a "Do-everything" applications, i.e., it is fat and bloated and does everything, but nothing well. VLC is a slick, fast, bare-bones application that is great at playback.
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Apart from the obvious advantages, I love VLC (Windows or OSX) for some features that are usually not mentioned or advertised:

- VLC can play DVDs regardless of its region code
- installing VLC under Windows does not require administrator rights (great for use with locked-down Workstations)
- VLC can display subtitles from a separate subtitle file
- it can be used as a streaming server
- it seems to eat up less resources than others
- often, it's understands weird formats and damaged files that no other player can process.
Source(s):
http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Documentation

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just compare the minimum requirements for iTunes or windows media player and VLC

VLC is the winner by far

its more efficient also as it can play 1080p contect on a 1.8Ghz c2d laptop with onboard intel graphics while WMP goes through it like a slideshow
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VLC media player is great! zoom Player is also a favorite of mine.

As to why windows and mac don't make these products, these are only my speculations: They're catering their products more towards people who love programs such as itunes (which I personally can't stand) and can't figure out how to work a simple player such as VLC, which has limited buttons and virtually no instructions. It seems simple enough to people like you and me, but others would be frustrated by it's bare-bones interface. Windows and Mac also have the very frustrating habit of only supporting certain file types in order to try and compete against each other, and also to force customers to purchase mp3s from various sources.
Source(s):
http://www.inmatrix.com/

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for best video player both mac and windows and other softwares (freewares)

http://www.bestfreesoftwarelist.com/

http://www.raymond.cc/forum/general-forum/8873-what-is-the-best-media-player-for-mac.html

iam using gom player it is also very good player with good sound with lot of
functions brightness adjusting etc..

special features is gom player( can play any type of files even 3gp files very well.they have all built in codecs but vlc cannot play all types of videos . it play but sound will not come. i have experienced many times.


sources:

http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_Introduction.htmlhttp://paperkingdoms.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/gom-player-the-vlc-killer/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOM_Player

http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_Introduction.html
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VLC. It does some other things that I don't think have been mentioned that are just nice extras, but actually can be quite useful:
1. Makes grabbing "screens" from within any movie/video file very easy.
2. Allows you to play the video as your desktop background - I don't see a whole lot of use there, but it is just a "neat" feature - I suppose if you wanted to have a constantly moving background, you could have a video clip repeating over and over in VLC, and set it to your Windows background.

According to this "source" I found, it works very well on Mac as well, though I've little experience on Macs, period.
Source(s):
http://www.sol4.net/reviews/dvd2.shtml

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I love VLC for the fact that you can feed any video file into it and it will just work. Their interface is far from intuitive at times, and it will occasionally crash on me with an obscure error message.

I presume that the commercial products aren't as versatile because supporting every codec out there would require paying more developers for more of their time. At some point, there are diminishing returns to paying for extra development effort on a product you're going to give away for free, so the big guys don't do it.

I do like Apple's interfaces better than VLC's, both for QuickTime and the Mac OS X DVD player, so I usually try those first and then revert to VLC if necessary.
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VLC is awesome, but I still use QuickTime as my main player (with Perian and Flip4Mac of course).
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I personally have always enjoyed using Mplayer on my Mac. It's simple and effective, and has played pretty much everything I've thrown at it.
Source(s):
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPlayer

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VLC is open source -- so it doesn't focus so much on proprietary features like Apple and Microsoft do -- although it will play nearly every format. This is why open source is so important.
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The best media players are:
- QuickTime
- VLC Media Player
- MPlayer
- Windows Media Player

If you download Perian and Flip4Mac, you will be able to open most everything in Quicktime.

Grab VLC for those few things that still have problems.

VLC can be defined by "Playback anything, at any cost" and has the widest possible codec support, and as a side effect it crashes a bit.

I use VLC sometimes since it offers a playlist option

Two vulnerabilities in VLC Media Player have been reported, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system.

1) A boundary error exists within modules/access/rtsp/real_sdpplin.c when processing SDP data (Session Description Protocol) for RTSP sessions. This can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow e.g. when a user is enticed to connect to a malicious server.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

2) An error in the handling of arguments passed to the VLC browser plugin can be exploited to overwrite arbitrary files on a user's system when a user visits a malicious web page.
Source(s):
http://quicktime.en.softonic.com/mac/compare/vlc-media-player,mplayer-os-x,...
http://secunia.com/advisories/28383/

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VLC
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Open source usually works hard to give you the best product. They are not looking for profit but for recognition. That my friend, is why there is things like VLC and firefox that outperform any media players or web browser that are made by people that get paid for it and are limited into what they do by their companies.
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I use VLC on all of my Macs but I use quicktime enough to mention it. QT allows me to have more than one open video and this helps when I am doing a quick edit and want to copy/paste between video files.
QT uses more resources though even for regular full screen playback so I use VLC the majority of the time.
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Real Player
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I love VLC, and it's my personal favorite, but I really think it's about what you want.

VLC is a lightweight media player that does just that -- plays your media.

Something like iTunes is a little bloated, but also has the advantage of organizing your media, etc.

Also, to answer your second question, I think the reason VLC is the best is because it doesn't have to promote anything, or look or sound like anything in particular, it can be it's own entity, play any files, etc. It doesn't have the corporation attached to it like iTunes and WMP do.
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my favorite free multimedia player for a long time - VLC Media Player.
http://www.sunephones.com/wp-content/uploads/VLC%20media%20player.jpg
VLC media player - Quick Features
Highly portable capable of playing multiple media formats
Plays audio and video formats including MPEG-1. MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, OGG, etc and a mind-boggling array of options.
Also plays DVDs, VCDs and supports various streaming protocols
Use it as a Server to stream in unicast or multicast on a high-bandwidth network
It is supported in multiple operating systems - Windows, Linux, OS X, BeOS, etc
Streams SHOUTcast internet radio stations
Recent 0.9 version added Last.fm support
Tag support
Supports a lot of subtitles
Mouse gestures
Supports metadata editing



DETAILED REVIEW------ The VLC Media player is described to be as a multimedia player that provides support to video streaming and also an encoder. Some of the streaming protocols that are supported by this player are DVDs, VCDs and many more. It is able to rip multimedia files to be saved in another format. It is the most flexible form of media player meaning it can be played in different operating systems. The operating systems that it is compatible with are Syllable, BeOS, BSD, Mac OSX, Linux, MorphOS, Microsoft Windows and Solaris.


User-Interface: Less is more. This is the principle that is applied on the VLC Media player. The developers obviously did not focus on making the application “pretty”. It did not lack the important controls and functions needed from a media player. Just by looking at it a user will already know which is which no need for in-depth explanation on what a specific control does. This player is perfect for beginners and also for technically inclined users. It has a lot of features that one would really see it as very useful.

Performance and ease of use: It loads quickly due to its small size. Installation is a breeze and installs in just a few minutes just by clicking several buttons. A video plays instantly once the play button is clicked. Every button works perfectly as it should be. With its drag-and-drop ability, the user can simple drag any audio or video file on the VLC Media player screen.
Audio and Video Quality: It is like watching a movie in a theater clear audio and video. Especially when it comes to DVD videos, it really possesses high-quality images and sounds. No need for a surround sound system just to boost the audio quality. Simply increasing the volume will do the trick.

Features: It is able to play unfinished or damaged videos. Like for instance if a video has not finished downloading it can still be played. This feature might not be known to other users. This feature will help a user determine if the video being downloaded is of good quality. Accessing or playing ISO files is also available. Even if the operating system does not have the capability to directly play ISO images.
All the file formats that are supported by FFmpeg can be played by the VLC Media player. It even has filters that can rotate, deform, deinterlace, split and the like. With the use of a Firewire connection, the VLC Media player can stream video that has unencrypted content. The fireware is then connected to the computer to the larger monitor or HDTV.

Things you can do with VLC============

How to rip any DVD
Convert any video for your iPod or iPhone with a drag and drop batch script
How to stream media to other computers
Play ripped DVDs
Also, VLC is available in a portable format so you can carry it in your USB drive.
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Quicktime
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DIvX is the best player forever & also winamp
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I use Winamp for music and VLC for videos. Both are simple to use and can play just about anything you throw at them.
Source(s):
My experience.

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1. a. I use iTunes to organize my media. This is because I have an iPod and itunes makes it easy for me to rename files, create and sync playlists.

1. b. However, I use Media Player Classic (MPC) 6.4.9.0 to play my media (audio and video) by default. It is very responsive compared to iTunes or VLC based on my experience. If I want to listen to a specific song, all I need to do (after I've associated all media files to Media Player Classic) is press the windows button to bring up Windows search, type the title or artist, then press enter and immediately the song plays. (I can also just drag the file into the window to play it.)

This is what I did for my system:
i. Download CCCP from www.cccp-project.net/. This is what hardcore anime fans use to watch anime in different formats. It includes a wide range of audio and video codecs in MPC. If we can easily watch anime with this, you can watch almost any other video (even .flv).
ii. Once installed, associate all media files with MPC.

2. Open-source works better because the "software player" and its creators are not worried about playing proprietary media files, and thus do not set up processes in the system that eventually make it more difficult for users to consume media (even media that they may have legally acquired). Also Apple and Microsoft may not support other media file formats out-of-the-box unlike other more open software.
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