All valid points to be sure. However, my question pertained to a netbook. I won't be watching any 720p videos on it let alone 1080p, considering the resolution of the screen is 1024x600. I also won't be dealing with video files that are 64GB+ on it.

Therefore, where my netbook is concerned, I think VLC is a pretty good choice.

I'm using VLC on my own 1.6 GHz Atom netbook (with Intel GMA graphics) without even the slightest problem. Actually I was very pleasantly surprised that it was able to play movies on this hardware. I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

I also use VLC on my desktop. I haven't noticed a single one of the problems that Elenarie is mentioning. However, him praising Microsoft patterns (and trashing the competition) is a pretty stable pattern in this forum, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

MPC-HC is a decent alternative for VLC though, especially on low-end hardware. It would have become my player of choice for the netbook if it hadn't been able to handle VLC, but it wasn't necessary to switch away from that.

Regardless of the resolution, you still won't be getting the better picture quality that comes with WMP and MPCHC, and the lower load on the CPU.
DirectShow vs Media Foundation, is a no brainer, you don't have to know shit to realize that.

VLC for films, Spotify for music.