Comments on: No codec packs please!

By: Cd-MaN

Cd-MaN — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:09:45 +0000

Howdy Ghe :-)

Yes, Mplayer is also a good choice. In fact there is a strict relation between the FFMpeg project used by VLC and Mplayer (many developers are part of both projects, FFMpeg is hosted on the Mplayer server, etc).

What I like in VLC is that all the options are exposed in the GUI (as compared to Mplayer where the main program is a command-line one and the available GUI's are quite basic).

From a technical point of view they are both great though and you can use whatever works for you :-)

See you later.

By: Ghenadie

Ghenadie — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:59:22 +0000

Hi!
What about mplayer ported from Linux to Windows? There is a GUI interface (MPUI) that makes all the stuff easier. For those "guru" that loves command line, they still can play with it. I think that this is the best video player. I'm using from time to time MPlayer for Windows package which contains mplayer mentioned above and it can play all stuff from swf, mov, flv, etc... Installing without SMPlayer interface (which I don't like) one can enjoy playing almost all movies (all codecs).
Also one can use mencoder (it uses mplayer) that can convert all you can dream:D...
Cheers!
Ghe

By: Claus Valca

Claus Valca — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:02:01 +0000

Hi cdman83 - I appreciate you adding the tip to the "ffdshow tryouts" project on my original post.

I've been fortunate (so far) to not need to install a codec pack myself. Generally when I end up in a situation like that where a video/audio file-format something isn't supported natively by the system/application, I'd rather do a one-off conversion of the file into a native format rather than muck around with different codec packs. It's much easier that way in my geeky logic.

Your words are quite wise and I would offer a fourth reason to avoid non-standard codec pack: particularly as I have seen (all too often at the workplace) where users want to stream (unauthorized) a video file or something via an email or website they are on, but, surprise they "don't" have the right codec...but it is helpfully offered to them and they download it and end up with a compromised malware-infested system. Home users often fall into this trap as well.

For my personal back-up media players I use either VLC Media Player Portable at PortableApps.com or The KMPlayer.

Cheers!

--Claus V.