Free video and audio suite GOM Player can handle just about any format you could name, and even supports 360-degree VR video. This not only lets you play online video from YouTube, but also interactive videos you've shot yourself. This might not have mass-appeal at the moment, but it's a video type that will only grow in popularity in the coming months and years.

GOM Player has a couple of very neat search tools built in. It supports subtitles – ideal for accessibility, or just watching videos without sound – and rather than hunting high and low on the interest, you can use the player's own search facility to track them down and add them to the video.

In a similar vein, should you find that you have a video in a format that GOM Player is unable to play by default, the problem will help you to find the necessary codec and get it installed.

GOM Player has a simple, clean interface, though this comes at the expense of accessibility. There are very few on–screen control besides the bare minimum playback buttons. If you want to do anything else, such as changing sound or video settings, you'll have to navigate its menu system. Some useful everyday tools – such as a the graphic equalizer – are present, but harder to find than they should be. This can cause frustration when you're first starting out, but it's worth persevering with the program. Once you get used to the way it works (and the learning curve really isn't all that steep), you can forgive it some slight peculiarities.

Like many other media players, GOM Player is skinnable. This means that if you don't like the way it looks by default, you can completely change it by applying a new theme. That said, these skins are purely cosmetic, so if you're not a fan of the menu system, changing the look won't help.

GOM Player supports all the most popular media file formats, and could easily become your main media player once you're used to its quirks. There's also a mobile app – GOM Remote – that lets you control the desktop software from the comfort of your sofa.

The installer is a bit of a sneaky one, though. The Express setup option installs potentially unwanted programs (including web browser plugin), and will change your default search engine and home page. It's off-putting and easy to miss unless you work through the installer slowly. Take time to read what's happening, and make sure to select the Custom Installation option (don't be put off by the fact that's labelled as Advanced) so you can opt out of unwanted extras.

A capable audio and video player that will serve you well in the years to come, GOM Player is let down by an interface that conceals some of its best features.

Free media player Winamp is a one stop shop for managing your music library. You can sync your music collection to an MP3 player or smartphone, and you can also stream it over the internet, allowing you to share your favourite tunes with your friends.

The music sharing functions don't end there. Winamp provides access to a huge number of online radio stations, and enables you to scan sites for downloadable MP3 files to add to your library.

Winamp is also ideal for ripping and converting music It can rip music from DRM-free CDs and encode music in the aacPlus, AAC and WMA formats, ready for burning to disc.

If that's not enough, you can extend Winamp even further with its catalog of free plugins, including downloads to help boost 3D sound, graphic equalizers, crossfading, and support for the lossless FLAC format.

Before making it your main media player, it's worth noting that Winamp is currently in a state of limbo; the latest release (5.666) was published in 2013, just before publisher AOL announced that it was terminating the project. However, the site was never taken down, and in 2014 the brand was acquired by Belgian music company Radionomy. It's unclear exactly what the future holds for the player, but its huge community of users are actively developing exceptional plugins to expand and improve it, so it never stands still.

Importing music to Winamp is easy – just select the appropriate directory when you first launch the player and everything will be cataloged automatically. There's also a built-in tool for importing existing iTunes playlists, and a third-party plugin to help you migrate from Windows Media Player.

Winamp comes with a small selection of skins to change its default appearance, and many more are available to download through the software's main menu. The standard look is busy but informative, with tabs for switching between your media library, the currently playing video (if applicable), colorful music visualizations, and a web browser designed to help you find and download media files from websites.

Winamp doesn't offer as many playback optimization tools as more modern media players like MusicBee, but all the essentials are covered.

There's no automatic tagging to help organize a sprawling music library, either. The auto-tag option is still visible under the View File Info menu option, but it requires a service called Gracenote that has terminated its contract with Winamp. If your songs are a mess, you'll need to use a third-party tool like Musicbrainz Picard to correct the tags, or do the job manually.

Winamp is still a great player, and its third-party plugin support is second to none, but its age is starting to show and today you'll be better served with a more modern tool like MusicBee or VLC Media Player.

VERDICT

Winamp is still a great media player, and has all the essential tools you need for managing and enjoying music and videos, but it now relies on third-party extensions to add features found as standard in more modern players.

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Calling AIMP a music player would be doing it a disservice. As well as playing music, the program also acts as an audio organizer, making it easy to change MP3 tags and create playlists.

Playlists are an interesting feature here because as well as curating them by hand, you can also take advantage of the smart playlist option to create something to match a mood with less effort. On top of this, the program can be used to listen to streaming internet radio stations. AIMP can function as an alarm clock, audio converter and more.

In addition to the regular application, there's also a portable version that can be installed on a USB drive and easily moved from one computer to another.

That's extremely handy, but what's most impressive about AIMP is the level of control it gives you over your music – and not just in terms of organization. The DSP Manager includes an impressive 18-band graphic equalizer, and there's a range of sound effects that can be applied to music during playback.

You can also tinker with speed, tempo and pitch settings. The timed shutdown and alarm clock function are very welcome additions too, as is support for an almost unparalleled number of audio formats.

This all good media players, AIMP has a unique look - this is certainly not your typical Windows program. It looks almost like a blend between a Mac and Linux app, and while this might sound off-putting, it works.

Once you have music playing, chances are you won't want to sit and look at the program (but if you do, you can enjoy a selection of visualizations) and AIMP has an interesting way of minimizing out of view. Rather than disappearing into a taskbar button, the program window disappears completely and can be accessed through a tiny tab that appears at the left of the screen when the mouse is moved near to it. This can be a little confusing if you're used to Alt-tabbing through applications, as AIMP disappears from view and can only be access via the side-of-the-screen menu.

Because AIMP has something of a different look to other programs, you might feel that it would be confusing to use, but that idea quickly evaporates. Basic playback options and playlisting are easy to use, and the audio converter -- which handles a highly impressive number of formats -- is a breeze to get into. For diehard keyboard users, there are plenty of hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts to ensure that program control and navigation can be achieved without ever having to lift your fingers from the keys.

The latest version of AIMP comes with an MP3 encoder, resolves an error that sometimes occurred when opening files via the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer, and fixes several other minor bugs. For full details, see the official release notes.

Even if you're happy with your current media player, give AIMP a try - you're likely to fall in love with its intelligent design and raft of music-tweaking options.

VLC is a hugely popular free media player, and for good reason – it supports almost all file formats without the need to download additional codecs, can optimize video and audio playback for your chosen device, supports streaming, and can be extended almost infinitely with downloadable plugins. These not only add extra features to the player – they also enable integration with other programs and streaming services.

VLC Media Player supports MPEG and DivX streaming, and can play videos as they're downloading, letting you watch the beginning of a film and then decide whether it's worth downloading in full. You can also play ZIP files without having to unpack them individually. If a video is too quiet, you can manually increase the film's volume up to 200% after the download is finished.

VLC Media Player can also search for album covers. A playlist function allows for multiple films to play one after the other. This is particularly useful if you have downloaded a film in several parts or just want to watch several shorter videos.

VLC Media Player isn’t just an app. It’s a life-saver. Are you trying to open a video that’s in a format your Windows or Mac machine doesn’t support? VLC. Do you need to listen to music in a long-forgotten format but don’t have a player that supports anything but MP3 and AAC? VLC. Do you need a decent DVD player for Windows? VLC. Do you need… you get the idea. 

In an ideal world everything would just work when you wanted it to, but over the years we’ve evolved all kinds of competing formats for music and video - and different delivery mechanisms too, ranging from discs to downloads and streaming. VLC Media Player knows about all of them, and that means it’s our go-to app for any kind of media playback.

VLC Media Player has excellent tools for tweaking video and audio playback, it can play formats nobody’s mentioned for years, it’s blazingly fast and it does everything without spyware, ads or anything else unnecessary.

Factor in a whole bunch of interface skins and a big library of add-ons, and VLC Media Player is the Swiss Army Knife of digital media.

Its standard interface isn't as stylish as some media players, and doesn't make tagging as simple as some other tools (specifically MusicBee), but VLC is superb, and easily good good enough to become your main media player for both audio and video.

VLC offers everything you could need from a media player - comprehensive format support, streaming, downloading and much more besides.

MusicBee is a brilliant free music player and organizer to help you enjoy your music collection – no matter how huge and sprawling.

MusicBee searches your PC for music and enables you to add tracks from iTunes or Windows Media Player. Once everything has been added to your MusicBee library, the app's intelligent tagging system makes it easy to complete missing metadata using industry-standard formats, locate album art and find lyrics, which are displayed while a song plays.

MusicBee is designed to make the most of your PC's hardware, with support for high-end soundcards and 5.1 surround sound.

MusicBee also supports streaming, is compatible with Last.fm and SoundCloud, and is a great choice for enjoying your favorite podcasts.

Many free media players will happily tackle both video and audio, but MusicBee is designed specifically for managing your tunes – and it does a superb job, even if your collection is currently a mess of duplicates, missing metadata, and jumbled albums.

Importing your music library to MusicBee is easy, and if you currently use either iTunes or Windows Media Player there's a simple wizard to automate the process. The files will be indexed, but won't actually be moved unless you select that option manually.

Once that's done, you're ready to start tagging to complete missing metadata and get them all properly organized. MusicBee's automatic tagging system is superb, withr industry-standard templates for all kinds of audio files, but you can also dive in and edit tags manually.

Speaking of file formats, MusicBee can also convert audio files if you'd like to keep them consistent or encode them in a format suitable for other devices.

Playing music in MusicBee is a real joy; not only does it search for album artwork to display while you're listening, it also tracks down pictures of the artist  and song lyrics, which it rotates during playback.

MusicBee also makes the most of your audio hardware, including high-end soundcards and surround sound stetups. There are various playback options to explore as well, including the ability to eliminate breaks between tracks and normalize volume (a notorious problem with iTunes).

Support for streaming services and optional plugins round off this superb free music player, which has become a firm favorite for getting the most from our tracks. If you love music, you need MusicBee.

A comprehensive audio player and streamer that's perfect for cataloging and tagging even the biggest music libraries.