I had been using VLC for years, but I had issues with it recently, upgraded to MPC, didn't look back once.

Why don't you want to use VLC anymore? I've used it for years, never felt any need to try any other player.

I even have it on my Android phone as the default video (and music) player.

EDIT: Ah ok, your latest message shed some light on that...

The previous VLC versions (2.2.8 and 3.00) had indeed some problems, but the latest one seems ok to me.
(maybe except for the default HDMI passthrough)

I've always been using VLC. Mainly because the villain, a mailman - or an unknown 20th century poet some might say -, of Jurassic Park used it.

As I can see "customers" word I think you can be tech-savvy person. :)

Do you know maybe if VLC can somehow be used as portable player? I'd like to have such configured player on USB pen to run some media files on other PCs without player software installation.

https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/vlc_portable

Portableapps is quite good for your portable needs and has plenty of other useful software, no spyware/adware or clickbait software you never ask for.

MPC black edition now, I find it more stable than MPC HC vanilla. I say stick with Black edition, seems to be the best media player for all filetypes and 4k, HDR stuff as well.

Hmm... what is this? Official builds of VLC can be downloaded from https://www.videolan.org - this "PortableApps.com Platform" (as they call it) seems to be something different?

Do I need to install and/or install any additional "platform software" or just "download VLC, unpack on USB and use"?

The PortableApps platform provides applications/programs for people who are one the run(!) and wants to have all the configuration with them nicely packed on a tiny usb pen. There are several other reasons also, like not having to clutter the windows installation with more in the registry (less footprint) and more.

You can download the apps one by one and use them on the computer as a normal app (update is manually), or you could download the Portable.com app and download all the other through it and have it notify you if there's a new version available.

But yes, you can unpack one of them and use it, and they are "official" as they need approval to pack them like this.

I use several of these portable apps, even on my own gaming computer to provide for simple access (with menu) to those apps and semi-auto-update. If I need to take them with me I simply copy them on my usb pen / or drive and run them without any hassle on other computers. Pretty usefully actually.

My definite preference, is MPC (or MPC-HC). It has always used less resources than VLC in my experience, though I do use VLC with troublesome files sometimes. Of the two, MPC is the smoother player I have found ... and less likely to go pixelly on you. But if you have a high end machine, that should not be an issue.

VLC here and it's what we suggest to our clients.

Having said that, we also go ahead and provide the specific link to where to get VLC. The software has a problem with lovely folks repackaging it with malware, buying Google Adsense keywords and having their links show up as the "official download" when folks search for it.

https://www.geek.com/news/vlc-media-player-suffering-in-face-of-crapware-and-uncaring-google-1400411/

I use mpv, the first Windows build on the list here: https://mpv.io/installation/

You can fine-tune the rendering/quality/etc through the config file, and it's quite a bit more flexible than MPC (what I used before).

Have you also used VLC in the past?

I'd be very grateful if someone could compare these two media players.

I've never used it as a daily driver, but I've tried it several times. It feels bloated to me, and I think the interface is distractingly ugly. MPV's interface is extremely minimalist (possibly to a fault, if you rely on UI to modify settings - you have to edit the config file for most things). This is the entire interface you get, there's no options UI past that.

I think that's the main difference between the two, I can't comment on video quality but mpv has extensive options related to that: https://mpv.io/manual/stable/#video-output-drivers