Alternative Media Players

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Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (WMP) is a digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. It is included in the new Windows vista, scheduled for official release on January 30th 2007, but users of Windows XP can also use it by downloading the XP version from microsoft.com. An interesting new feature is the Windows Media High Definition Video (WMV HD) allowing to experience high-definition video on your computer. Finding a missing codec is easy with WMP. You can search for it at WMPlugins.com or at Microsoft.com. It is always a good idea to set a system restore point before installing a new codec, because many codec suppliers offer minimal customer support if something goes wrong. Additionally, you can set WMP to download the needed codec automatically, by going to the Tools menu, then click on Options. On the Player tab, select the Download codecs automatically check box.

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ALShow

Some call ALShow the easiest movie player on the Internet. It has codecs already built in, its the only download you'll ever need, according to experts. With this software, you can download automatically a required codec from the online codecs center, therefore it is highly unlikely that you will ever have a missing codec problem while using it. ALShow has very modest system requirements and runs without a problem on older computers, while on newer and faster machines it is highly responsive and fast.

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The latest version of the DivX player - 6.4 is enhanced for high definition (HD) playback and developers claim it's capable of playing every DivX file ever created. the DivX Player provides a great way to enjoy DivX videos. It requires less CPU and memory than most other players, including Windows Media Player. The DivX Codec takes the power of advanced digital video compression to the next level, allowing you to encode video at resolutions up to high-definition 1920 x 1080, which is to 10 times more than MPEG-2/DVD format and hundreds of times over raw digital video. This DivX 6.4 codec also features automated noise reduction. For free download, click here http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/download/.

Gspot

To finish the topic on the different media players and codecs, lets take a look at Gspot. Gspot is a utility designed to find out which codec you need to install so that you can play your video and audio files. The software is free for personal use and the whole kit (.exe file, ExportFormat.txt, license.txt and the .dat file) will take almost one megabyte of your hard disk space. It doesn’t require installation, just run the executable to find out the codec you need to watch a given video file.

To download the latest version, go to http://www.headbands.com/gspot/.