Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic (MPC) and its derivatives are a family of free and open-source media players for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Focusing on compactness and customizability, Media Player Classic mimics the simplistic look and feel of Windows Media Player 6.4, but provide most options and features available in modern media players. The original MPC stopped development in 2006 after which it was forked into two new projects: Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE), which are now principally maintained by the community at the Doom9 forum.

The active fork Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) is maintained by "clsid2" (same developer known as clsid responsible for MPC 6.4.9.1), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) by "aleksoid". Variations of the original MPC and its forks are standard media players in the K-Lite Codec Pack and the Combined Community Codec Pack.

Development

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 <code>guliverkli</code> project at SourceForge platform. 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. MPC 6.4.9.0, released March 20, 2006, is the final official version.

Forks

Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1

In August 2007, an unofficially patched and updated build became available from Doom9 member "clsid", hosted under the <code>guliverkli2</code> project at SourceForge platform. Known as Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1, it was meant for fixing bugs and updating outdated libraries, but its development has been inactive since 2011. MPC 6.4.9.1 Revision 107, released February 14, 2010, is the final release version. The community at the Doom9 forum has since further continued the project with MPC-HC.

MPC Home Cinema

A fork, called Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), adds new features, as well as fixes bugs and updates libraries. It also updated the license to GPL-3.0-or-later.

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. Windows 8 support was introduced in version 1.6.5. Beginning with version 1.6.6 the stable releases are signed.

Apart from stable releases as published, nightly builds are also publicly available. MPC-HC is also distributed in the PortableApps format. MPC-HC 1.7.1 adds support for H.265/HEVC codec. 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. Its source code on GitHub was last updated on August 27, 2017, a month and a half after the official final version. It requires CPUs with SSE2 support and no longer runs on Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP.

MPC-HC fork by clsid2

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; support for Windows XP was dropped in these builds. as well as source code.

MPC Black Edition