Ever find yourself wondering whether you should use VLC media player or Media Player Classic? Going forward, the answer is easy - because the MPC-HC project has officially carked it.

Whether it's a music clip on YouTube, a Flash ad on a news site or the latest viral sensation on Facebook, most videos you come across on today's web want to get going without any input from you -- and that can cause problems with bandwidth as well as audio output you weren't expecting. Here's how to tackle the issue in your browser of choice.

Dear Lifehacker, I made a peaceful video of clouds on my phone and put it on Facebook. However, when I viewed it there was a bunch of talking and car noises in the background. I want it to play in serene silence. Is there any way I can delete the sounds so I can put it back on Facebook?

You already knew that YouTube made some video clips available in HD, but now they've got a dedicated HD section that lists these high-quality clips. Oddly you still have to click the "watch in HD" link even if you click on a video from that page.

With lofty rhetoric claiming it's a next-generation multimedia browser, the RADUS webapp (pronounced "Ray-DEE-us" apparently) leaves much to be desired. But the Flash-based site does have one standout feature: You can create video playlists on-the-fly, watching videos in a panel on the left while searching thumbnails on the right and clicking to cue up in a queue. It's great for quickly searching through multiple videos from YouTube, because after adding a few prospects into the playlist you can quickly click past any videos that aren't relevant to what you're looking for. Or you can just binge on Daft Punk videos. Since it plays directly from online sources, there's no waiting for downloads like in Miro or iTunes. What tools do you use to kick back, relax, and watch a bunch of videos without having to reach for your mouse or keyboard every three to ten minutes? Tell us in the comments.

RADUS

In the mid-year slump when there's absolutely nothing new on television (except the Olympics), it's time to start watching the web—and you need the right tool to do just that. The free, cross-platform internet video player Miro can automatically download online video series via RSS feed or BitTorrent, play almost any format you throw at it, and keep track of what you've watched and what's new and queued up for you. More and more independent producers are putting out fabulous video content on the web, but keeping up with it by visiting your favourite video hosting web site or in your regular feed reader can be almost impossible—but setting up Miro is like getting TiVo for web video. Let's take a look at how to subscribe to free internet television with Miro.

Searching YouTube for music videos from your favourite artists can be a bit of a crap shoot. If you've ever loaded a video expecting Billy Corgan rocking out against a surreal production set and instead got a kid in mascara rocking karaoke against a sheet in his grandma's basement, music video search engine Cleepr is for you. While an occasional karaoke fest slips in, the vast majority of searches return only legitimate footage of your favourite musicians in music videos, public performances, and collaborations with other artists. Cleepr

Windows only: Freeware application Zorro aims to take distractions like flashy ads out of your online video watching experience. It does so by blacking out all content that isn't your video, including your browser window, so it's just you and your video. Zorro is brilliant in its simplicity: it's basically a see-through application window, so you launch it, resize it so whatever you want to isolate is inside Zorro's boundaries, and hit escape to black out everything outside the Zorro window. It could even work as a distraction-stopper for any application you want to bring focus to, like the many distraction-free word processors. Zorro is freeware, Windows only. Zorro