new system install - avoiding the BLOOOOAAAAAT

[nudone]

i'm currently installing everything back onto my machine - this time i'd like to keep it free of everything except for the 'essentials'.

so, just the software i use that has a REAL purpose - stuff i work with - not little things showing me the temperature or the time or the latest news or blah, blah, blah.

how long this will last is anyone's guess.

but the point of this post is this - i use the machine for video editing and encoding. quicktime seems to be a necessary component for this with things like adobe premiere (or it was in the past, not sure now), so can i get away with installing the quicktime alternative or do i have to use the apple version? i know, i know, i could just install it and find out - i probably will but i'm trying to avoid installing things and then uninstalling them if they aren't required - i'm trying my hardest to just install what is really going to work. apple's quicktime seems a little bloated to me.

the same question applies to codecs - in the past i've used the cccp pack as it sounded like the most well rounded collection of codecs - but i can't say it worked perfectly. i still required things like gomplayer or kmplayer to play some videos.

i appreciate there is no single right way to do all this but i'm interested it what other video people have done with their machine.

[f0dder]

Quicktime Alt works pretty well for me - it's really the apple codecs underneath, just hax0red to remove the player and some other bloat stuff. They do mention there's a few compatibility problems here and there, but that's mostly Microsoft Media Player related, I think. Dunno how picky Adobe's apps are

Stay away from codec packs, they're evil, and there's no end to the problems various packs have caused. You can usually get away with xvid and ac3. H.264 movies require a H.264 codec (CoreAVC is the one with the best performance, although I've heard rumors they sacrifice a slight bit of quality), also H.264 content often comes in matroska containers so you might need a splitter for that as well. And if you have old DivX movies, you might need their codec as well.

But this little extra bit of manual work usually means everything works a lot smoother

[nudone]

i used to go the manual way of installing but that still never seemed to cover everything that i tried to play so i resorted to packs.

if you've managed to get away with just those few things then i'll try the manual way again. truth is pretty much everything i've tried will play on that kmplayer (as i remember) so i probably only need xvid installed for when i'm encoding my own things.

i have a few old mov's that have always seemed really picky - only working with apple's player so i could test quicktime alternative with those.

f0dder, what to do you use to encode the audio in your videos, i've always gone for mp3 but sometimes when i pass these videos onto other people they complain that they can't hear the audio stream. i thought mp3 would be universal - and i assumed that ac3 would be even more problematic - have i got it the wrong way around? as for matroska, i've still not come across any file using that container, or am i just not aware of it - do they just have an .avi extension anyway?

[brotherS]

so, just the software i use that has a REAL purpose - stuff i work with - not little things showing me the temperature or the time or the latest news or blah, blah, blah.

how long this will last is anyone's guess.

-nudone (January 15, 2007, 03:57 AM)

Stay away from codec packs, they're evil, and there's no end to the problems various packs have caused.

-f0dder (January 15, 2007, 04:11 AM)

I'm using the K-Lite Codec Pack and never experienced problems with it. Much better than being frustrated since some codec is missing.
Things like installing only the needed fonts and running a defrag program often were more beneficial to system speed here.

[f0dder]

Well, how many codecs you need depend on how queer the videos you want to watch are . Also, I think that VLC (videolan) has built-in decoding support for a LOT of formats - if not VLC, it was some other player.

When I did video encoding, I used MP3 - iirc with a LAME codec. Sounds weird that people can't play back your audio. Are you doing 16bit 44KHz? That ought to play back even with the default fraunhofer decode-only codecs. AC3 is problematic in that it requires a codec to be installed (although that should be present on any machine that has DVD playback software, I think).

Matroska files come with a .mkv extension, and I've only really seen them used for hosting H.264 content, usually HD rips from digital cable/satellite TV (no, I don't think that's entirely legal). People use Matroska for that, since such rips are huge (either a full single- or dual-layer DVD), and AVI files only go up to ~2gig.

[brotherS]

Well, how many codecs you need depend on how queer the videos you want to watch are

-f0dder (January 15, 2007, 04:41 AM)

True

Also, I think that VLC (videolan) has built-in decoding support for a LOT of formats - if not VLC, it was some other player.

-f0dder (January 15, 2007, 04:41 AM)

Yes, but IMHO Zoom Player is much better if you are a true keyboard user. I use VLC as an alternative player to test files should Zoom Player have a problem with them.

[dk70]

You could also improve on WMP MP3 encoding, upgrade it to proffessional. Already on hd so no need for more.

Go to System32 folder then rename l3codeca.acm to l3codeca.bak. Then copy l3codecp.acm to l3codeca.acm.

From this thread http://forum.videohe...+player+mp3+registry and still works with WMP11 - I just did it. Fraunhofer should say 3.4.0(build 0) in about box and encoding options be unlimited where ever you want to use it, not limited to any app. Almost freeware from Microsoft. I found this trick when I had problems with LAME, Fraunhofer just worked a lot better with the tv-software I used at the time.

Ive never really been into extensive codec use but enough to have messed up. There are tools to sort out codec conflicts but very complicated. Can get to a point where you must reinstall OS! Much more than MMcompView http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mmview.html is complicated to me. Less is better is what Ive found, let VLC take care of strange videos.

Probably unfair to warn against codec packs because some could be tested really well. But do they conflict with what editing tool install or not? Do they uninstall properly?

Ive dumped Quicktime Alternative, even Real Time Alternative. Not really much of a difference but of course you have to disable a bit to avoid a few startup tasks. Not a big problem. Even Real Time does not seem intrusive, have to go through settings though. Some question of legality with QA since it is a real "Pro" version with serial number punched in. Might bother you. DivX much the same, disable everything but codec itself during installation and what is difference to any pack?

[nudone]

i see that we are quickly getting into the 'art' of codec management.

k-lite gave me trouble somewhere along the way that's why i switched to cccp - their blurb convinced me they had tested everything thoroughly and ensured they'd created a pack tested far more than any other. it wasn't the magic bullet so i'm not recommending it over any other pack.

vlc is something i've also moved away from. i've found kmplayer to suite my purposes better but the truth is that they are probably evenly matched in what they can do - i know there are plenty of keyboard shortcuts for kmplayer but i've no idea if this is more or less than vlc or zoom.

f0dder, i'll try your recommendation for mp3 settings - just to make sure.

dk70, i'll consider your suggestions but i'll probably leave it until i encounter a problem with encoding.