Five good alternatives to Windows Media Player

VLC Media Player

I discovered VLC Media Player several years ago when I couldn't get Windows Media Player to play a particular file. Since then, I have found that VLC has been consistently able to play files that other media players just won't play.

VLC Media Player

One thing  I really like about VLC Media Player is that you can easily adjust the playback speed. I use a lot of video-based IT  training products, but they tend to be quite long. I don't have time to sit through a 20-hour class every time I want to learn something new, but with VLC, I can set the playback speed to about 2.5X and breeze through the classes.

GOM Media Player

GOM Media Player focuses on making your videos look as good as possible. When you launch GOM Media player, it asks you whether you want to run the player in normal mode, high quality mode (optimized for high end computers with HD displays), or in TV output mode. The setup process also lets you indicate whether your computer is equipped with surround sound.

GOM Media Player

GOM Media Player lets you adjust things like the aspect ratio, the hue, and saturation of video playback, and a number of settings allow you to optimize video playback. GOM Media Player also includes a number of audio and video codecs.

Zune

I installed the Zune on my PC because my Windows Phone 7 device and my Zune HD required it. I don't use the Zune software as my primary media player, but there are a couple of things about it I really like.

Zune

Zune makes it easy to navigate your media collection. You can sort music by artist, album, genre, song, or playlist. (It does a better job organizing music than organizing your videos.) And when it comes to playing music, Zune produces much better sound quality than Windows Media Player.

MediaMonkey

I discovered MediaMonkey a few years ago when I was having trouble getting my Sony Walkman X to display album art. At the time, MediaMonkey was the only application I could find that could copy music files and album art to my Walkman X in a format it liked.

MediaMonkey

MediaMonkey also works really well for managing large music collections. It includes several auto tag features that let you associate various attributes (including album art) with songs in your collection. MediaMonkey even offers CD / DVD burning capabilities.

Audacity

Audacity is more sound editor than media player, but I  had to include it here because it's such a great application. I use Audacity all the time for recording podcasts and other audio. The software features multi-track recording and editing capabilities.

Along with basic sound editing, Audacity allows you to generate various effects, align tracks, and even plot an audio spectrum. With its mind-boggling assortment of options, when it comes to sound editing there is very little this application can't do.