What's a good alternative to Windows Media Player?

[Gothic Sponge]

I've been using IrfanView for video, but it's really meant for images.

[Kellanved]

1. well

Winamp , Core Player, VLC Media Player for starters.


http://www.winamp.com
http://www.corecoded.com
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ (this one is pretty CPU heavy, but comes with a few cool features, i.e. streaming)

Edit: forgot about guliverkli, AKA Media Player Classic, sorry about that.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

[NYC Liberal]

4. I'll second VLC.

[madrchsod]

2. winamp is really good

real player is ok,most sites use real player or quicktime which is really slow loading most of the time

[SmileyBoy]

3. RealOne and QuickTime.

I have all the big three, Windows media, RealOne and QuickTime.

[miss_kitty]

5. Real needs to phone home all the time

and even if you deny cookies via privacy programs in your browser (I am experienced w/ Mozilla and IE) AND uncheck the 'Enable Cookies' box on their preferences screen, IT'LL STILL LEAVE GODDAMNED COOKIES!
If you have a firewall and make it ask permission to 'get out' it'll ask EVERY 3 GODDAMNED HOURS, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00.
I have the oldest real player, not as 'smart' as the current version.

REAL PLAYER=SPYWARE

IMHO, of course