If you want to play video or music files and not worry about format, VLC is the best application for the job. With a plethora of media formats out there, VLC is a catch-all player that will handle anything.

Finally in its 1.0 release, VLC Media Player is simply the most stable, flexible and lightweight audio and video players around today. While other media players will play unusual formats after downloading a codec, or simply refuse to play things, VLC will not complain. In addition to this, you can also use it to preview files you are downloading, because it will play parts of files. It takes no time to start up either, so opening it up to preview something is no trouble at all.

VLC Media Player has great hotkey support, if you take the time to learn the shortcuts, so can be controlled without touching your mouse. The interface is functional, but by no means attractive. If you''re watching DVDs or video files through it, this is not an issue. For music, it plays more or less any file and features an equalizer and playlist creation. It isn''t as intuitive as iTunes as a media manager, but it''s a much more flexible player in terms of file formats.

For video, VLC Media Player is the best application you will find. It''s minimal interface is great for viewing, it''s got excellent tools for effects, and doing things like adding subtitles is easy.