5 Best Free 4K Video Player Software for Windows and Mac

Have downloaded some actual 4K movies or TV shows from popular online streaming sites or capture some 4K video on your own with your 4K camera or 4K mobile devices and look for a way to get the 4K videos played on your computer with some free 4K video player. To play 4K video on computer, make sure that your computer meet the minimum requirements to play and edit 4K video. If not, you will need to compress 4K to 1080p for smooth playback effect. If your computer is powerful enough to handle 4K video playback, just feel free to have a try at the following free 4K video players.

Best 4K Video Player

Best Free 4K Video Players

No 1: VLC Player

Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
License: Free

As the free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols, VLC also adds support for 4K video playback since an update in 2013. However, the 4K video playback effect on VLC is not that satisfactory. A lot of VLC users complain that they suffer VLC 4K video playback choppy or lagging issues.

No 2: 5K Player

Platform: Windows & Mac
License: Free

5KPlayer is a relatively new but powerful 4K video player. Like VLC, it is completely free and clean and safe to use. Any malicious stuff is excluded. It has full compatibility with Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and lower, and Mac edition can also run perfectly on new macOS Sierra and previous operating systems like OS X 10.11. With this UHD player, you can play (4096x2160, 3840x2160) 4K 60fps, 48fps or 30fps video at any format (e.g. MKV) without choppy or other problems.

No 3: Media Player Classic and K-Lite Codec Pack

Platform: Windows
License: Free

Media Player Classic, also known as MPC, is an open source free media player, mimicking the look and feel of Windows Media Player 6.4. As a matter of fact, MPC on its own cannot play 4K UHD videos. It needs the help from K-Lite Codec Pack. To make things easier, you are suggested to download K-Lite Codec Pack full package which covers Media Player Classic. Despite that it can work on even the oldest computers, you still need a more powerful system to perform 4K playback.

MPC is also a 100% clean 4K UHD media player. No advertisements, no toolbars. You may feel relieved the use greatly.

No 4: KMPlayer

Platform: Windows & Mac
License: Free

The KMPlayer at first only serves for Windows users. But in April, 2016, a Mac alpha version was released for Mac users with OS X 10.6 or later operating system. It supports for a wide range of file formats and can play videos in superb quality, including 4K UHD. According to the description in its official site, the PC edition only works on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7(32bit). If you need a 4K video player for Windows 10, 8.1 or 7, you'd better choose another program, such as 5KPlayer.

No 5: Divx Player

Platform: Windows & Mac
License: Paid

DivX Player is the first of its kind, award-winning software offering free HEVC playback, including Ultra HD (4K), a must-have for those who appreciate high-quality video. Player is also optimized for movies, TV shows and web video clips in the Internet's most popular formats, including AVI, DIVX, MKV, MP4 and more.

Note:
1. There's an open candy in DivX 4K player download package. Make sure to clean it while installing.

Best 4K Video Converter

If you suffer choppy or lagging issues when playing 4K video with 4K video players listed above or fail to open some 4K video with some 4K video player apps, then you can turn to helps with our powerful 4K video converter - Pavtube Video Converter for Windows/Mac, which has full support for all 4K video file formats including 4K AVI, 4K WMV, 4K MP4, 4K MKV, 4K MXF, 4K AVCHD, 4K XAVC/XAVC S, 4K H.264, 4K H.265/HEVC, 4K Prores, etc. You can either convert above listed 4K video or 4k footage by 4k recoding devices to any of your desired 4K file formats such as 4K AVI/WMV/MP4/MOV/MKV/H.264/H.265/Prores for viewing with 4K video players, 4K TV or 4K game consoles like Xbox One S, or compress 4K to 1080p, 720p for smoothly viewing on HDTV, smartphons, tablets or devices and programs that lacks the ability to handle 4K video.

Besides converting 4K video, the program also offers some beneficial video customization and editing tools. You can flexibly adjust output 4K video codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate, audio codec, bit rate, sample rate and channels. Edit 4K video by splitting, merging, trimming, cropping, etc.

What's Next? Price: $35