Which Codec Pack Do I Need for WMP & VLC player?

[robertq]

I have installed Windows Media Player 11 and VLC Media Player.

I do not want to install Real Player OR Apple Quick Time.

Which Codec Pack do I need ?

Also would you recommend K Lite Mega Pack as a good choice ?

Thanks

 

[Tmagic650]

Is XP fully updated to SP3? Normally no additional codecs are needed

 

[ExtraGonk]

yep the k-lite mega codec pack is ace, but what we do is still have quicktime installed, but let the k-lites grab the quicktime file associations.

we dropped vlc some years ago.

 

[SNGX1275]

Who is "we" ExtraGonk? And why would you stop using VLC, its is a lot less 'messy' to play more exotic formats.

Anyway. VLC brings its own codecs and uses them. For Real and Quicktime you can download Real Alternative, and Quicktime Alternative which will include Media Player Classic.

What formats are you dealing with because you really shouldn't need a codec pack and sometimes those cause incompatibilities. If xvids won't play then I'd search out an xvid codec by itself, not part of a pack. So with Real Alternative, Quicktime Alternative, and xvid you should be able to play just about anything between VLC and WMP.

 

[ExtraGonk]

we = games development company, so we deal with fmv from many different sources and field requests to create content in many different formats using many different codecs.

historically we did use the alternatives and vlc but found that keeping them up to date and trusting the packages not to have lots of extra stuff stuck in them became too much of a mess, it was just much easier to have quicktime and media player use a centrally, easy to update, silent to install, codec pack once a month than it was to maintain 3 seperate sources.

 

[kimsland]

I prefer VLC it's simple and doesn't have all the bloated stuff of WMP

 

[Tmagic650]

I used VLC for a while about 3 years ago, and I thought it was good. After upgrading my system in 2006, I never went back to it. I have nothing against VLC, there are many, many media players that are "good"...

 

[SNGX1275]

I like it because it plays about everything. I don't like that it looks like a Windows95 app. I like keeping things basic, it doesn't need to look like WMP11 or anything, but as is it looks pretty poor. And not having a popup progress bar in full screen mode is bad.

 

[kimsland]

Download VLC Media Player skins: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php

But I agree, when I show this player to users who have issues, they usually say, no I prefer WMP (just for the look)

 

[Tmagic650]

Media Player 11 on a strong Vista Machine is nice, but I actually use iTunes, and Netfiix Movie Player more. I play DVD's mostly on a stand alone player to a flat screen TV, but Media Player 11 does a good job too