Media Player Classic Home Cinema Codec Pack Download
Matt Dreher
This project is now principally maintained by the community at the Doom9 forum. The active forks are Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) by clsid2 (same developer known as clsid responsible for MPC 6.4.9.1), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) by aleksoid.
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 GPL-2.0-or-later 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] MPC 6.4.9.0, released March 20, 2006, is the final official version.
In August 2007, an unofficially patched and updated build became available, from Doom9 member clsid, 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 Known as Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1, it was meant for fixing bugs and updating outdated libraries; its branch's development has been inactive since 2011. MPC 6.4.9.1 Revision 107, released February 14, 2010, is the final release version.[6][7] The community at the Doom9 forum has since further continued the project with MPC-HC.
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 that nearly all video players on Microsoft Windows lack.[11] Windows 8 support was introduced in version 1.6.5.[12] Beginning with version 1.6.6 the stable releases are signed.[13]
Apart from stable releases as published, nightly builds are also publicly available.[14][15] MPC-HC is also distributed in the PortableApps format.[16] MPC-HC 1.7.8 released in 2015 was built with the MediaInfoLib 0.7.71.
MPC-HC 1.7.13 is the final version of the program that was officially discontinued as of July 16, 2017 due to a shortage of active developers with C/C++ experience.[17] Its source code on GitHub was last updated on August 27, 2017, a month and a half after the official final version.[18]
Updated builds of MPC-HC, a fork from the same developer (known as 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, video preview on seekbar, support for MPC Video Renderer, A-B Repeat, subtitle performance improvements;[19][20] support for Windows XP was dropped in these builds.[19] Binary releases are available,[8] as well as source code.[21]
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 a video preview tooltip when hovering the mouse cursor over the seek bar, as known from video platforms such as YouTube and Dailymotion, though many of these features, including the video preview on seekbar, were added to MPC-HC at a later date.[24][25]
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.[26]
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.[30] Adobe Flash movies (SWF) can be played and frames jumped to.[31]
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,[32] while MPC-BE uses FFmpeg directly.[33] Consequently, they support all formats from those libraries.
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.
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.[35] 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.
Love it almost as much, maybe even a little more than VLC. Functionally they both seem to play any formats I want, and perhaps I just like the interface of MPC slightly better. I install this with K-Lite on almost any PC I use.
The best of the best. I even prefer this over VLC. It does need codecs on the side, but its audio boost ability, Hardware rendering capabilities, and light resource requirements make it my favorite lightweight media player to date.
A great media player, plays some files that VLC has trouble playing. Although the real power of this player comes through when you download CCCP codec pack, after that this thing can play almost anything.
For casual users, I recommend using MPC. It is easy to configure, and really user friendly. Performance may not be as efficient as mpv, but its ease of use and forgoing command line / config files in favor for a proper UI makes it the better choice for casual users.
MPC-HC is also very flexible with external components. One of the reason it has maintained its relevance after 17+ years is relying on external components/filters, allowing to decode modern formats despite its age.
MadVR is a powerful DirectShow renderer to to replace the antiquated enhanced video renderer from the Windows XP days. It is crucial to use MadVR as it not just provides powerful scalers and filtering functionality, but also fixes some errors with the default renderer (e.g. 10-bit video has incorrect pixelated chroma with the default renderer).
MadVR can be installed by simply extracting the zip file to a safe location and running install.bat with admin rights. MadVR does not copy the files as it installs in whatever directory you have the folder extracted in.
Pretty self explanatory. Formats might be a bit frustrating to register the app as the default app. You will need to click Run as Admin, select video/audio/both, click done and done again, and then you can register MPC as the default app in Windows settings (thanks Microsoft! /s).
Self explanatory. Fast seek (keyframe) allows faster seeking, but since it uses keyframes some videos will seek rather far away from preset time. Disable fast seek if you must seek exact time defined in your jump distances.
One important setting is the calibration of your monitor if you have a wide gamut display. Ideally you want to setup with custom 3DLut, but proper equipment is expensive. If you know your screen is close to DCI-P3, you can just set your calibration to assume a DCI-P3 monitor. This fixes oversaturation issues on BT.709 videos (which pretty much 99% of the videos out there are).
Note that if you apply gamut clamping/remap, screenshots will look unsaturated on sRGB devices as they are color clamped to display sRGB values on a wide-gamut color space. (i.e. red [255,0,0] on sRGB/BT.709 will be clamped to [233,54,40] in DCI-P3)
Display modes allows you to switch monitor supported refresh rates in certain conditions. Back when I used SVP with a 60Hz monitor, I had MadVR change to 48Hz (custom res setup in Nvidia Panel) in full screen. This section is irrelevant for people with high refresh monitors.
For debanding, I recommend the light filter for my provided hlsl (see shaders on how to set it up) and only use Medium/Strong for WEB or older content. For MadVR deband, I recommend Medium strength + High Fade-In/Out for Anime. (ONLY choose one debanding filter to use, not both!)
Chroma Upscaling: Jinc should be sufficient for mid-ranged GPU. Only use NGU if you got a really high end GPU and require 2x resolution. Spline is a good quality fallback that uses much less resource usage compared to Jinc. Stick with Bilinear if you have a potato PC. Remember to activate anti-ringing filter when applicable.
Image Upscaling: Most important, spend your GPU resource here first. Bilinear for potato PCs. Bicubic75 for iGPU systems if able. Spline for weak systems. Jinc for mid-end GPUs. NGU for higher-end systems that require resolution doubling (1080p -> 4K). Remember to activate anti-ringing filter when applicable.
ewa_lanczos is Jinc-functioned Jinc, a.k.a Jinc. mpv also has a sharp and soft tweaked variant but MadVR only has the default one. Jinc is probably as good as it gets without getting into more advanced NN scalers. Recommended to use in mid-ranged GPUs (GTX 1650 or better).
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