SOTW: K-Lite Codec Pack (with Media Player Classic)
Note: Do not trust anything you download from the internet. There is always a chance that it could have a virus, be unstable in your OS, or generally screw shit up horribly. I do NOT guarantee that the link provided is safe!!
When I was living in Switzerland I had a craving for video entertainment. The only TV I had access to had shows in languages I didn’t understand. I had a couple DVD’s I had brought with me but after watching those several hundred times I grew bored with them. But since I was in college with a lot of other students we soon were sharing video files with each other.
And one problem I ran into was trying to play this HUGE variety of formats, codecs, languages, etc etc etc. Good old Winamp and Windows Media Player couldn’t always handle the stuff I threw at them…so after a little research I came across this gem.
The K-Lite Code pack includes codecs for every single freaking audio/video format I’ve EVER run into. Yes…I’m sure there are people out there that will have some wacky song or movie that won’t play using this program…but I never have. I’ve thrown everything I could find at it and it spits them back to me without an issue.
The Media Player Classic program that comes with it has been great too. It’s a far more simple program than other audio/video players…so don’t expect fancy playlists, visualizations, add ons, integration into other programs…etc. On the plus side it uses only a small amount of computer power and resources to run and has some good keyboard/mouse shortcuts already built in.
When I downloaded the program (some time ago) it gave me a HUGE list of options for other programs to be included…far too many to list here. I’ve barely cracked the surface of these programs and considering I’m not some extreme power user I don’t have the need to do some of the things it can do. But they are there and I’m sure that someone out there in internet land can tell you all about them.
This program group has been, perhaps, the absolute best free software group that I have ever used. Sure it occasionally causes some issues, it doesn’t integrate with all your other software perfectly, and isn’t all that pretty…but if you want to watch any video…listen to any song…this is a great tool.