Almost all plugins written for QCD will work perfectly with QMP. However, the installation program used by these plugins may not recognize QMP.

However, it's usually easy to fool the plugin's installer into using QMP's installation folder. Most QCD plugin installers look for a file called qcdplayer.exe, while the filename used by QMP is qmplayer.exe. The best way to fool the installer is to make a copy of qmplayer.exe and rename it to qcdplayer.exe.

Open up Explorer or My Computer and navigate to QMP's folder (usually C:\Program Files\Quintessential Media Player\). Select the file qmplayer.exe, click Edit → Copy, then Edit → Paste. You should end up with a new file called 'Copy of QMPlayer.exe'. Select that file and click File → Rename. Change the file's name from 'Copy of QMPlayer.exe' to 'qcdplayer.exe'.

Once that's done, you should be able to point the plugin's installer to your QMP folder and install the plugin. When the installer asks you for your QCD program folder, you can either manually type it in (again, usually C:\Program Files\Quintessential Media Player\) or select the folder using the Browse button.

QMP provides native support for Winamp DSP plugins, but again, many of them come with installers that look for Winamp's files and do not recognize QMP. The solution is essentially the same as for installing QCD plugins, only instead of creating a file called 'qcdplayer.exe', you instead create one called 'winamp.exe'.

Note: Sometimes if you select the QMP folder by browsing to it during installation, the installer will try to add \Winamp to the end of the path, giving you something like 'C:\Program Files\Quintessential Media Player\Winamp'. Be sure to remove the \Winamp part before installing.

QMP does not directly support Winamp input plugins, but they may be used in conjunction with the Winamp Input Plugins Manager. The plugins manager is a standard QMP input plugin that serves as a translator between QMP and Winamp input plugins.

Download and install the plugin manager from QPlugins (click on Download, the file's name is QCDWAInMgr). Once it's installed, you should see a new plugin type on QMP's preferences screen called Input (Winamp). From here, any installed Winamp input plugins can be seen and configured. If you already have Winamp installed, you'll probably want to click the button below Winamp Plug-In Folder and choose existing folder for Winamp plugins (usually C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins). Otherwise, Winamp input plugins can be installed the same way as Winamp DSP plugins.

DirectShow filters are essentially audio/video plugins that are installed to Windows itself, rather than to a specific application. QMP has built-in support for DirectShow filters through its video input plugin. With a little tweaking, this can be used to support an extremely wide variety of audio and video formats.

An excellent starter codec pack is the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP), which will decode most MPEG-family video including DivX, Xvid, and H.264, MKV, and more. For Apple QuickTime video support, try QuickTime Alternative, and likewise for RealAudio and RealVideo use Real Alternative.

Once you have the appropriate codec installed, you have to tell QMP about the format. To do so, open up the Preferences screen, then go to Settings → Playback → Video and add the extension of the file you're trying to play to QMP's list of Video File Types. For example, to add QuickTime, put :MOV at the end of the list. Remember to put a : between each extension.

If all goes according to plan, at this point you should be able to play the video.

This method can also be used to add support for various audio formats. For example, if you add :MID to the list, QMP will be able to play MIDI files. No additional codecs are needed for MIDI because they are built into Windows. CCCP supports AC-3 audio, so if you have that installed, you can enable AC-3 audio support in QMP by adding :AC3 to the video file type list.