One Tip A Day » codecs

Ultimate Guide To Windows 7 Media Center Codecs

Tony Williams — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:04:26 +0000

My mate Everton has published a very comprehensive guide to setting up codecs for Windows 7, which covers how to play mkv, flac, h.264 and other files easily on Windows 7, without needing a quad core PC. The guide will work on any PC that has been built in the last 4-5 years.

Windows 7 is coming out on October 22nd. If you want to find out more about Windows 7 and more about what versions will be available to buy, then check out Windows 7 News.

Guide To The Best Windows Codecs

Tony Williams — Sun, 04 May 2008 11:44:18 +0000

Most users find that installing a codec pack is sufficient for playing video and audio files on a PC. However, if you are a power user and have in particular HD content on your PC, then if your PC isn’t top notch you will need the best codecs in order for your PC to be able to cope with the files.

This handy codec guide walks you through how to manually install codecs so that your PC can handle HD formats like H.264 and MKV with ease, rather than installing a bloated codec pack.

More: Guide To The Best Windows Codecs

10 Essential Free Vista Media Center Addons & Tweaks

Tony Williams — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:43:23 +0000

I’ve had a lot of fun customizing Windows Vista Media Center over the last couple of days. Here are the best 10 free tweaks and addons I’ve found for VMC that will allow you to get so much more out of your Windows Media Center.

My Movies 2: A free addon that automatically adds new movies that you add to your PC to your Windows Media Center library. It also downloads information about your movies from the My Movies WebService, including genre, actor, movie reviews and other information. More info

Vista Codec Packs: This codec pack is the only one you will need to install on your Vista PC. Not only does it support nearly every format known to man, there are no messy configuration screens. If you are a 32 bit user you just need to install the 32 bit version. If you are a 64 bit OS user then you need to install the 32 bit version AND the 64 bit version.

Remove annoying ‘Sample Music/Sample Videos/Sample Photos folders’: The annoying sample folders that Vista Media Center adds as a default, just refuse to die no matter how many times you say to ‘stop watching’. Unless, you follow these instructions. More info
Add Amazing Visualizations: Media Center visualizations suck – here’s one that doesn’t. More info

Show DVD Library: In VMC the DVD Gallery is not enabled by default like in Windows XP Media Center. A quick registry fix will take care of this problem. More info

Download Windows Vista Codecs

Tony Williams — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:11:59 +0000

One of the annoying parts about downloading videos in particular off the internet is ensuring that you have the correct codecs. Not having the correct codecs installed can mean that your videos won’t play, or even worse in my view, play with audio but no video!

Finding the right codecs can be difficult if you don’t know where to look. Luckily there are some great codec packs out there for Windows Vista users. These packs contain all the codecs you could ever need, and once installed you don’t need to do anything else.

The packs are so good, that if you are a Windows Vista MCE user then you will be able to watch DVDs, DivX and Avi files inside MCE without having to change any settings. If you are a 64 bit Vista user you need to install both the files below.

More: 32bit Vista Codec Package and 64 bit Vista Codec Package