Some of the best audio and video was recorded back in the 90s when people would swap live tracks from their favourite bands, or extended remixes of popular audio tracks. Problem is, back in those days, there was big competition to get you to use their codec and there were a number of prosumer tools designed to encourage you to encode your vido with their technology. These codecs are long-since supported, but you'll still need a player that can play these and other formats and there's nothing better than VLC Media Player.

VLC Media Player 1.0 is now available and it's the best free cross-platform audio/video players. You can open and play just about any format, including video produced many years ago. As it's cross-platform, you can use VLC Media Player on Windows, your Mac or use a portable version you can take around on a USB stick.

VLC Media Player for Windows, Mac or portable links.

10 Jul 2009