It is no longer the case that you only have only one or, at best, two options of media player to pick from. There are now plenty of different challengers around all looking to provide you with the best and most comprehensive service.

The GOM media player is one of the best you can find, and if aren't entirely convinced by the player which came preloaded on your PC you might like to give this one a try and see if you prefer it. It offers support for DVD quality videos and 5.1 channel sound output along with a range of additional features which make it a good choice for beginners and more expert users as well.

The range of types of file you can run on it is impressively long; MPEG, DAT, WMV, DivX, ASF, MOV, ASI, MP4, OGG etc, so it is unlikely that you will have too many file which you can't run on it. If you do have something which the player can't play it will search for the solution and advise you where you to get it.

You can sort out your files using the pop up playlist and there are plenty of ways of customising the player while you use it. The video and audio can both be adjusted in a wide number of ways and you can capture screens and zoom in and out as you wish. The screen shot function is particularly impressive; as the Burst Capture facility lets you take up to 999 continuous shots.

There is also good subtitle support and a lot of handy little features for making the most of your video watching. Apart from this you can obviously carry out all of the fast forward / rewind / pause / repeat functions which you would expect to get from any reasonably good media player.

A couple of interesting features which will no doubt attract a lot of users are those which let you use files which you probably can't get to work on other players. If you have any damaged files which other players reject you might like to give them a try on this player, as the issuing firm state that their player skips damaged frames in order to let you use the rest of the file. Locked and part downloaded file are two other things which you can use it with and which other players may not accept.