Microsoft reveals new feature coming in Windows 10

Nov 26, 2014 07:55 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has already confirmed that Windows 10 will come with native support for MKV, but the company now talks about a brand new feature that will be integrated into the upcoming operating system.

Windows Media Player is going to become a really powerful media player for those on Windows 10, as the application will be able to play not only MKV clips, but also FLAC files.

Microsoft's Gabriel Aul has revealed in a short tweet that Windows Media Player will get support for this particular format in future updates and should be there in the final version of the operating system coming out in spring 2015.

At this point, Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9879 already supports MKV files by default, so there's no need to install additional software or codecs to be able to play this format.

Minor visual tweaks for Windows Media Player

Microsoft is working to make Windows Media Player a much powerful solution, but the existing Windows 10 Technical Preview builds came with exactly the same version as before and with only small changes under the hood.

The same focus on feature improvements is very likely to continue in future updates, as Microsoft doesn't seem to be willing to improve the interface and prefers to rather concentrate on what's under the hood of the app.

More enhancements to the app, however, could be made in the next Windows 10 Technical Preview update, as it's expected to bring many more significant tweaks to users enrolled in the Windows Insider Program.

What is FLAC?

FLAC, which stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, was created to provide better packing of audio data, so it can lead to compression levels of up to 50 percent. At the same time, FLAC can be adopted for faster streaming and decoding, which is clearly a big advantage for those who wish to manage large collections of songs.

As compared to MP3, which provides the best audio/compression ratio, FLAC does come with some limitations, but it also supports rich content such as album cover art (as you can see in the screenshot provided by Microsoft itself), fast seeking and tagging.

Until now, users who wanted to work with FLAC files had to install additional codecs and software on their computers, but Microsoft says that, starting with Windows 10, everything will change.

While Windows Media Player is the big winner of this improvement, all the other third-party apps working with multimedia files will also benefit, as no additional plug-ins will be required to work with FLAC.  

Windows Media Player on Windows 10 (10 Images)

WMP with FLAC support on Windows 10
WMP on Windows 10WMP interface on Windows 10
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