>
> > i recommend VLC
> >
>
> > Anyone having video playback issues should download and install
K-LITE CODEC PACK
found
HERE.
> >
>
> Could you please not do this. Both VLC and K-Lite are rather inadequate playback solutions.
>
> I recommend either Media Player Classic HomeCinema (MPC-HC) or Combined Community Codec Pack, both playback solutions superior to the quoted two in basically every way. MPC-HC can be used as a standalone player (like VLC), while CCCP is a completely DirectShow-based playback solution (that comes with MPC-HC and another great DirectShow player called ZoomPlayer).
>
I fail to see how you can classify VLC or K-Lite as "inadequate". I have never had a problem with them when installed... VLC plays every file format (more than Media Player) plus it's far more light weight AND easier to make playlists with.
I also do large amounts of video encoding, re-encoding, creation, and Video DJ'ing.... and not once have I had a codec or playback issue.
Also, I prefer to NOT have 3-4 different players installed.
How is what you recommended "superior"? I would like to know, because if it truely is I might check it out... but if you are plucking words out of the air based on assumption then I'll stick with my "inadequate" products thanks.
~Sol
First of all, video playback is more science than opinions, but I think you know that.
But really, VLC has it's fair share of problems, but for the most part the biggest problem is that it's dragging behind every other playback solution by many years. Only recently in version 1.0 it got instant pause, something that other players have had for literally years. It's H.264 decoding has been quite unstable for years, causing blocking every now and then on videos that have been encoded without problems. The seeking in VLC has always been horrible, causing blocking, a lot. It doesn't also support quite many advanced subtitle and container features because it contains outdated libraries (such as outdated libass, libmatroska or whatever they use these days, etc) that simply do not work with them. There's also nothing that you as an user can do to fix this as it is a standalone player. You can't even use external codecs like you can with MPlayer. For one example of recent VLC failure, during version 0.99 it couldn't open Matroska files with ASS (Advanced SubStation Alpha) softsubs under Windows 7. At all. Sure is modern media player we have here, incapable of opening modern media files on a modern operating system! The reason for this was simply the fact that the developers had bad code - they were using libass, the subtitle rendering library, incorrectly, causing it to stall forever on loading files with ASS subtitles.
As to when it comes to K-Lite, there's just a single word for it: bloated. Very, very, very bloated. It comes with tons of outdated DirectShow filters, tons of overlapping filters (ffdshow + the tons of decoders for stuff ffdshow already decodes perfectly fine), hell even different versions of the same filters (different versions of VSFilter for example). It also comes with VFW components, and even x264vfw, which is something that the x264 developers hate due to the fact that VFW and H.264 video are simply unfit for each others. In fact, even the K-Lite installer suggests that you shouldn't use it, yet comes with it anyway. Combined Community Codec Pack on the other hand only comes with the bare minimum, yet plays 99% of everything K-Lite is capable of playing, with the exception of RealMedia and QuickTime Video, since technically speaking the components K-Lite use for those (Real Alternative and QT Alternative) are illegal to distribute, thus you'll have to install them separately with CCCP if you want to watch Real Video or QuickTime Video. CCCP comes with two players since they're both great DirectShow players - however, you're not forced to install both of these. In fact, you can use even something completely different DirectShow player, like Windows Media Player, if you want, but be wary that they might not be as good as DirectShow players as the two that comes with CCCP are.
If you need a portable player, or aren't using Windows, there's always MPlayer. MPlayer has always been far more stable and capable than VLC - most people have probably just ignored it since they think it's a CLI-only player, which isn't true. There's plenty of good GUIs out there for MPlayer, such as SMPlayer. Nowadays MPlayer is also capable of doing everything that you can do under DirectShow (up until recently, most advanced subtitle and container features have been Windows-only things). They're not in the main branch yet, but there's plenty of builds around that come with these things patched in. Even without them, though, MPlayer is far more capable and stable at video playback than VLC is and has always been. Also, when it comes to being portable, MPC-HC alone is also a good solution if you're only going to use it on Windows computers, as it comes with plenty of decoders built in as well.
I've had CCCP installed for years. I only have one additional thing with it, CoreAVC, for more optimal decoding of H.264 video. I've never ran into any video that wouldn't have played with the combination CCCP+CoreAVC and the MPC-HC that comes with CCCP. Ever. I have VLC installed as a backup player if something would happen to fail (and for occasional live streaming of something), and I've never had to actually use it as a fallback.
I do large amounts of video encoding, subtitling and muxing. Video compression and related technologies are my another big hobby along creating games. Needless to say, I've done lots of study on the subject and have extensive knowledge about video encoding, video playback and the capabilities of various media players. I've also instructed tons of people in the subject of video playback. Most problems that people face stem from having bad software - like VLC or K-Lite - and have been successfully solved by replacing them with proper playback solutions, like CCCP or MPlayer. Actual playback errors are pretty much nonexistent with these - the biggest problem people have is A/V desync with HD H.264 material, which is caused by insufficient hardware (and is most often solved by installing a proper multithreaded H.264 decoder like CoreAVC or DivX H.264 decoder).
But yeah, that's some food for thought.