The following comparison of audio players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs. For the purpose of this comparison, "audio players" are defined as any media player explicitly designed to play audio files, with limited or no support for video playback. Multi-media players designed for video playback, which can also play music, are included under comparison of video player software.

General

Operating system compatibility

This section lists the operating systems on which the player works. There may be multiple versions of a player for different operating systems.

Features

Audio format ability

Information about what audio formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins/filters that provide such functionality.

Container format ability

Information about what container formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or filters that provide such functionality.

Scalable, composite and emulation format abilities

Protocol abilities

Information about which

internet protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP h ...

s the players understand, for receiving

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

content. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality.

Playlist format ability

Information about which

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sever ...

formats the players understand.

Metadata ability

Information about what

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

, or tagging, formats the players understand. Most other containers have their own metadata format and the players usually use them. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality.

Optical media ability

Information about what kinds of

optical disc In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc that encodes binary data (bits) in the form of pits and lands on a special material, often aluminum, on one of its flat surfaces. ...

s the players can play. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality. Playback of

Super Audio CD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows multiple aud ...

is not possible for any media player, because no suitable hardware exists. All media players capable of

audio CD Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Red Book'', one of a series of Rainbow Books (named fo ...

playback will also play the

Redbook ''Redbook'' is an American women's magazine that is published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the " Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines. It ceased print publication as of January 2019 and now operates an article-comprise ...

core of any

HDCD High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) is a proprietary audio encode-decode process that claims to provide increased dynamic range over that of standard Compact Disc Digital Audio, while retaining backward compatibility with existing compact ...

disc, providing no sound-quality benefits over standard audio CDs.

Notes

References

{{Home theater PC (application software) Audio player software