Media players, codecs and whatnot2

This might be useless to some as they’ve already got their media player working for their anime or movies but I wanted to do a post anyway. I know that there are lots of people out there just using VLC or WMP to play their video files, it works.. so why not? This article is for those who want to look a lwhatittle further than just that and experiment so they can get the best experience possible. This article will be mainly for Windows, the stuff posted might also work for a mac, but don’t quote me on that.

My own setup: MPC-HC x64 with Haali media splitter and AC3Filter. Haven’t encountered any problems so far and everything is playing just fine. I don’t use any video acceleration since my CPU handles 1080p just fine. I started out with CCCP and MPC, but I didn’t want to have every codec which I don’t use anyway so that when I decided to just go for those two.

First things first, media players:

Media player classic – Home Cinema: The program that I’m personally using, it’s a wonderful lightweight program that works with every file so far, as long as you have the right codec. The version on Sourceforge doesn’t have a 64 bits version, if you want the 64 bit, visit XvidVideo. This program is also free. Click here for all the things you might want to know about MPC

VLC player: A fine program that can play, probably everything that you want it to play. For your average user this program is probably the way to go. It’s free and works fine.

Zoom player: This program is not free but it’s one of the best media players out there. It automatically downloads all the codecs you need and updates them to the latest version. It’s highly customizable and the GUI looks quite fancy. You can try the demo if you want and see if you like it, but in my opinion it’s not worth the money since you have a lot of free alternatives.

Windows media player: A media player that everyone using windows probably has. In my opinion one of the worst programs to play your media with, the version that comes with windows 7 is a great improvement but still lacking.

Next thing is Codecs:

CCCP: This is probably thé codec pack you want to have if you want to play all your media files, it probably contains every you need. For starters I recommend using this codec in combination with MPC, the video player is including in the package.

K-Lite: K-lite is an alternative to CCCP, it’s also a codec pack, I don’t use it myself but people claim it works very well.

Haali media splitter: If you want to play MKV files and don’t want all codecs (since some might conflict with eachother), this is the way to go, it’s the standard for playing MKV. And for the audio codec get AC3filter.

AC3Filter: This audio codec combined with Haali media splitter is all I am needing to play my media files, if you’re a minimalist and don’t want your PC cluttered with all sorts of files get AC3Filter + Haali media splitter + MPC-HC.

Video acceleration:

CoreAVC: CoreAVC is a program that helps playing HD content by making your GPU take over some work while decoding video. For some people that are unable to play 720p or 1080p this just might be the program to fix that problem if you don’t want to upgrade your whole PC. The program does not come free and works on nVidia GPU’s.

DXVA: DXVA, or DirectX video acceleration, is a trick you can perform to make your GPU take over some work decoding videos, it’s somewhat the same as what CoreAVC does but with this you have to do everything manually. Check out the link to DXVA, it’s a great way to play those nasty 1080p video and only use 10% of your CPU instead of 80% The guide posted there will explain how to set up DXVA with MPC-HC and mainly nVidia GPU’s.