3 ms·

My memory is that early VLC was actually a bit slower than MPC, at least on my low-powered Windows 98 PC of the time (cobbled together for schoolwork from spare

My memory is that early VLC was actually a bit slower than MPC, at least on my low-powered Windows 98 PC of the time (cobbled together for schoolwork from spare parts). There would be skipping or a loss of sync between audio and video on some heavier clips that didn't happen on MPC. But what I primarily remember in making the switch was that VLC could play everything I threw at it, right out of the box, without installing a bunch of sketchy codec packs. And that also allowed me to basically just throw the VLC binary onto my flash-drive, and then be able to open any videos as needed from parents'/friends'/school computer by just plugging in the usb stick. It was definitely a game-changer.

xzel 6y ago
The last bit 100 times over. The pain of trying to play AIV and DIVX files 15 years ago was generally miserable. To me VLC saved me from codec hell on, iirc Windows ME, and I've never looked back. Downloading and installing codec packs back then felt like it was a dice roll to getting a virus. It was also the only player I've used that could easily play FLV videos back then. Honestly, VLC is the only software I shove on friends computers if we're trying to play video.
cataphract 6y ago
I remember MPC did hardware acceleration better than VLC, which is why I used it. I had some old Athlon 64 CPU around 2010 (IIRC) that couldn't handle some videos without acceleration from the GPU.