Media Player Classic was created and is currently maintained by a programmer named \\\"Gabest\\\". Gabest originally developed Media Player Classic as a closed-source application, but later decided to make it open source. Media Player Classic is licensed under the GPL and is hosted under the guliverkli project at SourceForge.net. The project itself is something of an umbrella for works by Gabest.MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 playback.

This player is capable of VCD, SVCD and DVD playback, without the need to install any additional software or codecs. Media Player Classic has built-in codecs for MPEG-2 video with support for subtitles and codecs for LPCM, MP2, AC3 and DTS audio. It also contains an improved MPEG splitter that supports subtitles on SVCDs and supports direct playback of VCDs and SVCDs using its VCD/SVCD/XCD Reader. On October 30, 2005 Gabest added *.mp4 and MPEG-4 Timed Text support. An AAC decoding filter has been present in MPC for a while, which makes MPC suitable for AAC playback in mp4, and an alternative to Winamp and iTunes.

DirectShow, QuickTime and RealPlayer architectures

Media Player Classic is primarily based on the DirectShow architecture, and therefore automatically uses installed DirectShow decoding filters. For instance, after the open source DirectShow decoding filter ffdshow has been installed, fast and high quality decoding and postprocessing of the DivX, Xvid and H.264 formats is available in MPC.

In addition to DirectShow, MPC can also use the QuickTime and the RealPlayer architectures (if installed on the computer) to play their native files.

Matroska and Ogg containers

Media Player Classic supports native playback of OGM and Matroska container formats. However, OGM audio playback is limited by a lack of support for the CoreVorbis DirectShow filter, which mainly affects newer OGM files (c. 2006).