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How to play (just about) any media file
So you’ve come across some fancy media file. Maybe it’s a movie, maybe it’s a song, maybe it’s a picture. Now you want to enjoy it, but it doesn't seem to want to open.
Ok, so let's start at the start and then take it away...
Let's assume 3 basic media types:
- Pictures
- Sounds (music)
- Video
Pictures are really the easiest. I'm going to assume that everyone can open jpeg's , gif's , jpg's , bmp's , and png's without any help. For the other bazillion formats out there, I recommend one piece of software exclusively...well, ok, 3. The first one, of course, is Photoshop . If you've got the dollars, you really can't beat it. For almost the same functionality, there's The Gimp. However, if you are reading this because you want to learn how to open pictures, both of those pieces of software are going to be significantly over your head, which leads me to our real choice: IRFRAN View. Irfran will open pretty much any image file you can give it, and then let you edit it, or play with it as you desire. It's free, easy to use, and relatively popular. When you install it, it should have you pick what formats will use IRFRAN by default. Alternatively, you can hold shift and right click a file, choose "open with", and then select Irfran from the list of option. Checking the "use this program for all files of this type" will make it the default viewer program for that filetype.
See? Easy.
Sounds really go hand in hand with video, because for the most part they require CODECS to run. Some are easy and I'm not going to cover here, such as wav and mp3 . Others, like ogg will require additional help. However, I get to skip that part, because these formats are all covered by the codec packs covered in the next section! Hah!
Video streams are an interesting animal, because in most cases they are a combined format, with an audio stream and a separate video stream. Just because you can play the audio doesn't mean you can play the video, and vice versa. What you need are codecs, and besides codecs, you might need a new player!
In days past, it was pretty common to see people recommending things like the "Ace Mega Codec Pack" or the "K-lite Codec Pack". Even I made the mistake of referring people to those codec packs, until I found out how really *bad* they were for my computer. What the codec packs do is try to dump literally hundreds of codecs on your computer all at once, to guarantee that you'll have one that works when the time comes. The issue with that is that there might be 4 different codecs for the same format, and they don't necessarily all get along. That leads to crashes and slowdowns, which generally defeats the purpose.
So what's the solution Mr. Melee, grand poo-bah of digital media?
Well, the answer is that some geniuses have put together all-in-one codecs, multi-purpose gems that do all the work for you in one convenient package. My favorite is called "ffdshow ". I should note before we go too much further that I actually really like Windows Media Player 10. Not 9, not 11--just 10. I like the easy access to things like brightness, contrast, and gamma, I like that it's fairly quick, and I like that my wireless keyboard's media buttons work for it. Sure, I have media player classic , and I keep VLC around for things that just won't play otherwise (and for streaming through my xbox), but for now---I like Media Player 10. Anyway, I digress. Back to the task at hand.
In a perfect world, ffdshow would be all you needed. Too bad it's not a perfect world. That's where my new favorite codec pack comes into play, CCCP . No, CCCP isn't the old soviet union (well, I guess it is, but not in this case), it's the "Combined Community Codec Pack ". Go ahead and give that a clickeroo and start downloading. CCCP bundles ffdshow, plus everything else you NEED, into one simple package. Grab that, get it installed, and away you go.
Please note that CCCP includes Media Player Classic--but you don't have to use it. Simply getting the appropriate codecs installed on your system should be all you have to do to watch any media with your favorite player, it's really about that simple.
FFdshow is the core function with CCCP, which is great, because it supports multiple language tracks, subtitles, and just about any media format you'll ever encounter. After you've installed the codec pack, go ahead and restart your computer. When you get back in, you should be able to double click just about any video or sound file and it'll open right up. Absolutely perfect for all those illicit copies of MacGuyver you've just downloaded.
Notes:
Yes, I know VLC Player uses proprietary goodness to play media w/o codecs. It also doesn't like my computer, and I don't like the way it handles graphic adjustment.
Yes, I know I didn't include any screenshots. If you can't press "ok", you don't deserve the files you've downloaded.
Yes, I am aware that there are media files that won't be opened with this software package. In that case, I suggest you download g-spot in order to see just exactly what crap you've downloaded. (Stick to scene releases, numbnuts.)
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