Media player for Windows ME

[lopdog]

Hi!

I need a good, lightweight media player that runs on a Pentium 1 with Windows ME (yes, just go ahead and laugh The question is serious, though).

I'd like it to play most audio/video files without installing additional codecs, if possible. Does anyone know if I can expect to play any videos at all (like divx, mkv and similar) on a computer like this?

Any suggestion appreciated.

 

[odriscoll27]

hey lopdog,

umm not sure if this one will work but i gave this link to a friend who had a P2 PC
http://www.oldapps.com/real.php?old_real_player=11

It doesnt require high specs to run and he seemed to be able to use it with no problems

James

 

[mike1959]

When I ran Windows ME, I seem to remember I used 'Zoom'.
I just checked and it's still listed.
http://download.cnet.com/Zoom-Player-Standard/3000-2139_4-10068896.html

 

[lopdog]

Thanks, I'll take a look at both, even though I'm not a big fan of Real Player (it also lists higher sys.req. than the computer I'm talking about).
I also read that VLC can run on Windows 98/ME using Kernelex.

KernelEx is an Open Source compatibility layer with an aim to allow running Windows 2000/XP-only applications on Microsoft Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows Millennium operating systems.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'll see which one runs best.

 

[SNGX1275]

I've tried VLC on ME with KernelEx, and I didn't have much luck with it. I forget exactly what the problem was, but I remember it didn't work well.

If you can get ahold of a very early version of Winamp 5 that should work. I'm not sure if the first official release of Winamp 5 will be too bloated or not. I know I have one that is called 'prealphasuperleetness' that is essentially Winamp 2 with the capability to play video - I'm sure there is a way I could get that to you if you can't find it online.




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[lopdog]

Thanks for the tips on VLC. I'll see if I can get it Winamp 5. Do you know if it plays most video formats, or do I need additional codecs?

 

[SNGX1275]

I believe the version of winamp 5 I linked screenshots of uses the system codecs (not sure on the new winamp 5s, but those are likely far to bloated to run on a P1), rather than bringing its own like VLC.

 

[Rabbit01]

Pentium 1? That was a long time ago. MP3 and dail-up networking was popular back then. Don't think DIVX or MKV formats existed yet. Anyway, I revived my old Toshiba Satellite 335CDT a year or so ago and used it to play MP3 and slide show. It has a Pentium 266 MHz, either 96 or 128 MB RAM, and Windows98. It was so underpower that it wasn't able to display photos at their original resolution. I had to resize everything to 800x600. I used Winamp to play lower bitrate MP3 files. Tried several version of Winamp. Think I settled w/ v2.92. I experienced lots of freezing during slideshow (used older version of Irfan View), eventually I gave up on using that laptop.