Do u use to watch some movies in your desktop or laptop?.certainly u are, because in our busy schedule, it is not always possible to go to cinema halls or multiplex to watch a movie.
The movies which have nice visual effects are a joy to watch in theaters only and it is true. But there are some movies which do not demand any big screen or surround sound effect. U can comfortably watch them in your pc.
We know very well about the good old Windows Media Player. It is true that over the years its functionality has increased and interface has been changed, but most of us normally avoid it because of its poor codec support. There is another good cross-platform media player namely VLC Player. It is also a very capable media player but I always prefer KM Player to watch movies.
Installation:
When downloading the software, it first downloads an Installer. After clicking that, the main software starts downloading and u have to keep your internet on. Download takes a few minutes depending on your connection speed. But when installing, there is a option for ’Custom Install’ and if u chose it other than the Express Installation, u can set many parameters here like Processor Performance Priority, Decoder Usage, Work Priority, Subtitle Configuration(font, font size, subtitle position etc.), Speaker Config and more. U can set them according to your usage preference and for most of the parameters there is a ’Recommended’ option to guide u if u are not sure about any specific setting.
Interface:
The latest version is 3.9 which can be downloaded from the official website. KM Player has a very modern, no-nonsense yet elegant looking interface. It has black background theme. There are a few buttons for play, pause/stop, fast forward etc under the display area and are easily accessible. Volume control button is present too along with a small ’Settings’ button. U can simply toggle between normal or full screen mode by pressing the Enter button of your keyboard.
Codec Support:
KM player has extensive codec support be it audio or video. But as we mainly use it for movie or video watching, I will mention the video codecs only. U dont have to install any other 3rd party codec packs while using KM Player. It covers all popular video codecs like .mp4, .avi, .mkv, DIVX etc. It can also play Adobe Flash files .flv, .swf etc as well as some Real Medi files like .rmvb, .rm etc. For Subtitle it supports .srt, .smi and many more. Many popular audio file formats are supported too like mp3, wav etc.
Equalizer and Other Tweaks:
The tiny ’Settings’ button in the main interface has numerous tweaks for video, audio, subtitle etc. The Equalizer is powerful. U can easily set the frequency bars by yourself or can choose the Presets. Similarly u can change the video settings by changing Brightness, Saturation, Hue and many more. Surprisingly, here also u can find some cool Preset Effects to choose from. Some settings regarding Subtitles and Screen Size, Rotation etc can also be found here. Upon right clicking on the player window or by simply clicking the F2 button on the K/B, u will find ’Preference; inside which u can change/set a vast number of settings/parameters.
A few Drawbacks:
i) Be careful when installing KM Player in your pc because it has a tendency of installing other unnecessary software.
ii) File association may be a problem for the very first time. As a remedy, u can select a video file, right click on it and select ’always open’ for the similar type of files.
iii) Some important settings are hidden under the above mentioned Preference option which are not easy to find.
iv) With newer versions, its size is increasing significantly. Gone are those days when the KM Player could be installed within a few seconds.
v) Often there will be a pop up for update. U can temporarily bypass it but it comes again after some days.
The best part is it is free. With some deeply integrated settings it is not very easy to use for the first few days but functionality and feature-wise it is far superior than any other media player in the market. I use it with my Creative 5.1 Surround Sound speakers. With some change in the audio equalizer and a few graphics tweaks, it performs nicely.