MKV Player

MKV Player is a fast, lightweight media player that specializes in the MKV container.

If you want a media player for Windows that can handle most MKV files with ease, then MKV Player is a great choice. MKV has become a very popular format and few players handle it as well as this player does. Despite a simple, streamlined UI, the player is highly functional, and it includes excellent support for video and audio codecs without you having to install or configure them.

One important aspect that distinguishes MKV Player from many other media players that handle MKVs is performance. MKV playback can be a CPU- and memory-intensive operation, and if your computer isn’t powerful enough, playback will be choppy at best. MKV Player, however, is well optimized and isn’t nearly as resource-intensive as some other players are.

A downside to MKV Player is that it focuses specifically on the MKV format. This container can encapsulate a video file along with menus, chapters, subtitles and so forth the way a DVD does. You can expect this player to have support for all of the audio and video codecs that are appropriate to the MKV container, but it doesn’t support any other audio and video formats.

MKV Player is relatively simple to operate. It has a number of options that technophiles will appreciate, but the settings aren’t particularly well organized or easy to configure. Some of the standout features include an excellent timeline control that makes pinpointing sections of a video easy, a convenient screenshot capture control and tools for audio track and subtitle delay.

The application is not documented well, so if you need assistance with a particular feature, then you’ll have to search for it online. Even the developer’s own website isn’t much of a help. Another issue is that since there’s no way to expand the video and audio formats the program supports, this program isn’t your one-in-all solution. Nevertheless, if you have MKVs to play, you won’t do much better than MKV Player.

Pros

• Broad video and audio codec support
• Optimized performance
• Excellent timeline control

Cons

• Not documented well