Playing MP4 Video Files In Windows

MPEG-4 is quickly becoming one of the most important formats for video on the Internet. MPEG-4 files typically have the extension .MP4 and are created by a large number of software tools, digital cameras, and mobile phones.

There are number of free programs that can be used to play back MP4 files in Windows. Unfortunately, they can be difficult to find because searching for “MP4 player” in search engines often gives results which are not useful because they point to no-name software that may contain adware or spyware. “Adware” is software which displays advertisements to the user, either while they are using the software, or in more annoying cases by popping up windows even when the software isn’t being used. “Spyware” is software that is used to track and record a user’s actions (such as the web sites that they visit) and then report that information across the Internet to some person or business (perhaps for the purposes of showing “targeted” advertisements that are meant to be relevant to the user’s interests). Spyware and adware are often bundled with other applications and installed without asking or informing the user first.

The following packages, however, are all reputable software and do not contain any adware or spyware:

QuickTime

QuickTime is the name of Apple’s video technology. They make a player application which is free to download. It is also included with iTunes (because iTunes makes use of QuickTime). You might notice that Apple also talks about “QuickTime Pro“. This is a paid upgrade which adds functions to the player for converting video to different formats (including MPEG-4).

Advantages

• Very easy to use.
• Works inside your web browser, making it easy to watch MPEG-4 video on the web, such as the excellent quality movie trailers provided by Apple.
• Made by a major software company.

Disadvantages

• Player supports all types of MPEG-4 video, but doesn’t support many other common formats.
• QuickTime is more demanding on the computer’s processor than the other options listed here. Processing MPEG-4 video can be demanding so this may make a difference on older computers (especially with larger videos).

VLC

VLC is a popular free media player which is available for many different types of computer. It works with a huge number of different video and audio formats.

Advantages

• Can play many different types of video file, including most AVI files, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
• VLC is fast. If you have an older computer then it may be able to play videos smoothly which cause QuickTime Player to stutter or skip.

Disadvantages

• VLC is very powerful software and has advanced features like format conversion and hundreds of different options. These might be daunting for first-time users.
• VLC is free and open-source software which is made by volunteers, not a software company. As such, they do not hold patent licenses for the various patented video formats that are supported by VLC. This means that, depending on where you live, you may need to obtain patent licenses yourself in order to be able to legally use VLC.

CCCP

CCCP is the Combined Community Codec Pack. A codec is a piece of software that is used to play a particular video or audio format. CCCP is a free collection of various codecs and other pieces of media software, which can be used to play back many different kinds of video. This option is interesting because it uses the media system that is built into Windows (called DirectShow), and so it makes Windows Media Player (and some other media software) able to open the new formats.

Advantages

• Allows you to use Windows Media Player, which you may already be familiar with.
• Uses the same core decoding software as VLC, so it is just as fast.

Disadvantages

• CCCP is a collection of many different pieces of software that work together. This makes the installation somewhat complicated, and may be daunting for people who are not used to using video software. It is also possible for there to be conflicts between the codecs installed by CCCP and codecs which are already installed on the computer (although the installer tries to eliminate these conflicts).
• Has the same patent license issues as VLC, because it is also created by volunteers.