Playing media files without any issues (no more codec problems)

Many of us have problems with playing various types of media files (.avi, .mkv, .ogg, etc..) and there dont seem to be any end of formats as well!
Most of the problems arise when we don’t have the required Codecs installed in our system.
So I just write this article which helps us in combating this problem.

Overview:
Most of the files actually play without any fuss, only that the audio or the video will come; so some of us will find it difficult to find what is wrong as it wont show any error (BSplayer will show, and some media player will show the error but will continue to play the file).

We can follow the following steps to make all the files play without any issue. We will look into individuals programs now.

Players that dont need any codec packs:

VLC player:

VLC player is my favourite player as:

- It dont need any Codecs to play any file
- Plays a variety of files (inc. DVD’s and .mov files)
- It supports most of the OS
- It’s Free!

More info and download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

MPlayer:
MPlayer, is by far the most powerful player available. There is simply no contest in my opinion. But for new users, the lack of a native Windows interface can be daunting.

MPUI is a frontend for MPlayer that has a Media Player Classic feel to it.
The download has MPlayer packaged in and no installation is required. The packaged version of MPlayer is a little out of date…you can simply override mplayer.exe with a newer version and it’ll work fine.

Web Site | Download

MPlayer on Windows XP

Program to find more on codecs that the file needs and other codec related issues

Gspot

GSpot is a free utility which identifies the codec required to play an AVI file and supplies other information as well.

- Establishes what video codecs (audio and video) are required to play an AVI file.
- Determines whether these codecs are installed on your system.
- Isolates problems associated with these codecs.
- Simple operation - Basic use: “File > Open”, then read the results.

Screenshots:

The main window when the program is run:

To find the list of the installed codecs in your system:

Find out the required codec using Gspot. And then d/l that codec, install, and now play the file.

Download:
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/download.html

Alternative to Gspot:
SHERLOCK - The Codec Detective - FREE Codec Check Checking Utility!
www.updatexp.com/sherlock-codec-detective.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mplayerc/

AVICodec, Link: http://avicodec.duby.info/
Very easy to use software.
The corresponding page also has an exhaustive list of links for information about codecs and links for download, plus info abt various media players and encoders/decoders. A must bookmark for everybody.

ffdshow:

ffdshow is DirectShow and VFW codec for decoding/encoding many video and audio formats, including DivX and XviD movies using libavcodec, xvid and other opensourced libraries with a rich set of postprocessing filters

Filter also supports nowadays decoding of virtually all audio formats used in movies, including AC3, DTS, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, and several subtitle formats.

To summarize its main idea, the FFDSHOW consumes way less CPU power than original DivX or XviD codecs, even with maximum post-processing. At the same time the post-processing seems to give excellent quality results and allows more configuring than the original DivX codec. It can even automaticly reduce post-processing if your CPU is getting overloaded. The noise filter adds a kind of a rasterising effect to the picture - might be useful in some cases.So you wont need 95% of the codecs required to play the files.

When we install the software, we get to see this:

Video:

Audio:

Just make sure that you have every check box clicked on so that your media player can play all the files without any fuss.

Download:
ffdshow

Codec packs:
Codec packs contain all (or 95%) of the codecs that we might need to play any particular files. We might end up downloading more than the number of codecs that we might actually require to play the files.
This might seem a one stop solution but these are the shortcomings:
– Some codecs in the so called mega codec packs are illegal
– DVD’s dont play agian ,in case we update/ reinstall the codec packs, so we will have t reinstall the DVD software (not VLC player though :p)
– We dont need that many codecs also biggrin.gif
– We have VLC player which plays files without codecs :d
Some popular Codec packs:

K-lite codec pack:
The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack is a software bundle which includes the K-Lite Codec Pack Full, QuickTime Alternative, Real Alternative and BSplayer.
www.k-litecodecpack.com/

ACE codec pack:
www.divx-digest.com/software/acemega_codec.html

Matroska Pack:
Matroska Packs for Windows playback & creation. … itself as a very slim and
intelligent alternative to the usually overloaded codec packs out there.
www.packs.matroska.org/

How to play .mp4 files?
VLC player should play it fine…but there are hardware issues as well, we need a good and fast system to back your VLC during the playback. Mpeg4 AVC is very CPU intensive at high resolutions.

Otherwise you should install on your system the MatroskaSplitter (for .mp4 support) and the latest ffdshow decoder (which supports AVC/h264). You then should be able to playback .mp4 clips in MediaPlayerClassic, BSPlayer, etc…
http://x264.nl/

Or try a cvs version of MPlayer or
VLC

itunes/Winamp (wtih plugins) also supports it.

Alternate softwares:

QuickTime Alternative 1.63 : QuickTime Alternative will allow you to
play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install QuickTime player.
Link: www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm

Real Alternative
Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer/RealOne Player.
Link: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

RealMedia Splitter :
RealMedia Splitter allows you to play RealNetworks audio/video files using Windows Media Player. You will need to install RealPlayer/RealOne Player or Real Alternative [recommended] first.
Link: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/RealMedia_Splitter.htm
The zip file has .ax files which need to registered, see this page

Video codecs which are used commonly in avi files are divx codecs (div3, div4, etc..) or XVID.
Audio codecs that commonly used are AC3 or .mp3 or other such codecs.
So use Gspot to find out the codecs that you need and d/l them.

Hope this tutorial was useful..