Help! Advice needed from audio/video codec experts

Necronopticous · Post by **Necronopticous** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:01 am

Hey, guys.

Well, it's looking like a reinstall of Windows XP is in my near future, and I always like to prepare for these kinds of things beforehand. One big thing I'm concerned about is reinstalling all of the most popular audio/video codecs so I don't have any playback issues. This is constantly a headache for me, especially after an OS reinstall.

It's really frustrating when I discover that the codec necessary to play an audio/video file is not installed, and it won't play, but even more frustrating than that is when I get into that awful situation where I suppose too many codecs have been installed, and there are conflicts happening and making all kinds of funky stuff occur (very low volume on videos, freezing, etc).

I also hate having a half dozen video players floating around on my computer, and having to iterate through them to see if one will play the file better than another.

I'd like some advice for someone with a lot of knowledge on these issues on how you handle all of this, personally. Can you give me a solid list, with links, on exactly what codecs and players I should have installed so that I don't have many/any playback issues on my fresh install? This is just one thing I have grown to have absolutely no patience for anymore, and I'd really love to just not have to think about it for once.

Thanks.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:34 am

I've done Windows XP (re-)installs on my 3 laptops in the last few months, and I have installed the Combined Community Codec Pack. I chose to do the custom installation, and de-selected some of the extraneous stuff such as all the players.

Media Player Classic 6.4 is included, but I chose to instead just get the executable straight from the sourceforge page, so get the zip file and just extract it to the existing Windows Media Player directory and associate all video files to it.

t0yrobo · Post by **t0yrobo** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:09 am

I use the k lite codec pack (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_l ... c_pack.htm) and vlc player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). That covers pretty much everything for me.

themachinist · Post by **themachinist** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:12 am

t0yrobo wrote:I use the k lite codec pack (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_l ... c_pack.htm) and vlc player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). That covers pretty much everything for me.

That's what I do. There's nothing I haven't been able to play.

iatneH, who is that?

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:29 am

I wouldn't use codec packs, they tend to mess up things. Get ffdshow (which can decode pretty much anything and which also contains most codecs you'll ever need) and if necessary install Matroska (MKV) Pack Lite, ogg, and maybe the latest DivX (in case there is a problem; ffdshow should be able to decode all forms of mpeg4 including DivX).

Then get Media Player Classic, and install Quicktime Alternative (to play that pesky Apple format), and Real Alternative for those equally pesky real media files. The end.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:46 am

It's simple!

I find that all I need for good playback is:

- XviD (don't waste your time on DivX unless you really need it)
- VLC
- Irfanview (and / or Winamp or Foobar) for stuff VLC won't play

There's nothing I haven't been able to play with this combination.

Plus, there's more Free Software (not just free as in gratis) than in Ceph's post. Or at least less closed-source ;)

Ceph wrote:I wouldn't use codec packs, they tend to mess up things.

I can confirm this. In the past I have used both Matroska and the CCCP (Community something Codec Pack), blah.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:58 am

Ed Oscuro wrote:It's simple!

I find that all I need for good playback is:

- XviD (don't waste your time on DivX unless you really need it)
- VLC
- Irfanview (and / or Winamp or Foobar) for stuff VLC won't play

There's nothing I haven't been able to play with this combination.

In the past I have tried to get away with nothing but XviD and Media Player Classic, but it really wasn't cutting it, with Ogg media and Matroska and h.264 and whatnot, and I needed some filters for displaying soft subtitles, decoding AC3 audio and all that. I just install one codec pack (stripped down during the install process though), and I am good to go.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:59 am

iatneH wrote:In the past I have tried to get away with nothing but XviD and Media Player Classic

Did I not write "get VLC?" There's a reason I didn't mention Media Player Classic

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:39 am

Necronopticous · Post by **Necronopticous** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:00 pm

Hey guys. Thanks for the help.

Due to my experiences with conflicting codecs and the problems that follow, I think I will follow Ceph's and Ed's advice of avoiding those codec packs. The Xvid & VLC combo seems great and simple if it will really play everything. How does VLC work? Does it just have a ton of codec support built in? Does this cover Quicktime and Real shit? I hate these formats, but I hate not being able to play them when I need to even more.

Thanks again.

nem · Post by **nem** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:54 pm

VLC has codecs built in.

Also, if you aren't running the most powerful computer out there, you might want to look in to MPlayer. I switched over from VLC and haven't looked back since.

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:03 pm

Another good alternative for MPlayer and VLC is KMPLayer (Korean Media Player:
http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12142

You can (pretty effortlessly) rotate videos in this, so watching a superplay on a TATEd laptop for instance is a joy.

Emph

Necronopticous · Post by **Necronopticous** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:27 pm

Do those Koreans come with the player?

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:36 pm

I just want the one on the left.

emphatic wrote:
Emph

Umph!

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 1:28 am

Update: I tried playing a DVD in VLC for the first time - garbled video and sporadic audio on the chapter selection screen (Regon 1 Star Trek TNG Season 3, disc 2, for reference). Shit sux.

From a quick 'net search, sounds like some of the other options aren't much better, but I'll have to find something.

Also, fuck nVidia for touting "PureVideo HD" as a supported graphics card feature and then selling it for $19 - $50 on their site. I almost was ready to go without until I remembered to look for my retail box. Don't see it on the included CDs, so looks like I'll be calling eVGA tech support. Yay!

Edit: Actually, does anybody have an alternative that'll decode DVDs? Losing my patience like whoa