Good video codec for playback on older machines.

[Eóin]

Hi folks, I recently treated myself to a neat little 'ultra-portable' PC. I'm very happy with it but it's struggles just a bit with decoding DivX. It especially struggled with (h/x)264 but I expected that.

So I was thinking of re-encoding to a older format, even if there's a bit of loose in quality I don't mind.

Would anyone be able to recommend a good format for playback on yesteryear's PC .

[cmpm]

Here is what I use on all computers.
Works on new or old ones.
Uninstall any codec packs first then do this one.

http://filehippo.com/download_klite_mega_codec/

[f0dder]

Codec packs are generally a bad idea, you often get more than you need, and some of them have shown stability problems. They do make life a bit easier if you play a zillion different filetypes, but if you just need divx/xvid, AC3 sound and H.264, it's not like you need to hunt down a lot of codecs.

Eóin: iirc Koepi's xvid builds are a bit more optimized than the stock ones, and for H.264 playback the (payware) CoreAVC helps a lot.

[Eóin]

Thanks cmpm, I usually use the Combined Community Codec Pack or CCCP myself. I wonder do they largely bundle the same codecs? Should read to proper release notes myself to find out.

What I'm really curious about though is reencoding into an older format because the machine struggles with x264 vidoes. I have ripped a number of music dvds to high quality x264 files, makes it much easier to throw them on in random orders and such. If I instead encode them into XviD then the small machines can play them pretty well.

I'm wondering if there is a more suitable format. I'm kinda trying to tradeoff between video quality and playback performance over the more usual trade off between quality and filesize.

[Eóin]

f0dder, I hadn't come across Koepi's xvid builds before thanks for the link. I must also try out CoreAVC, if it works it very reasonable to buy.

As for codec packs, I'm always a bit wary about such things myself but the CCCP I saw recommended and I've had zero issues with it so far.

[cmpm]

It's my undersdtanding and from what I've seen of this K-Lite mega or full. It doesn't download every codec there is. It's more of an on demand type deal. You'll get the basics and it senses when you need another codec.

What player do you use?

[Lashiec]

Try with CCCP first, and ignore the rest of the codecs. K-Lite packs too much in it, and 99% of the time you won't need so much extra functionality. You can also try with mplayer, VideoLAN, GOM Player or KMplayer, just to name the ones which pack their own codecs, and don't use DirectShow.

As for the encoding side of the question, video encoding is not my thing

[cmpm]

This is a good player also.

http://filehippo.com/download_media_player_classic/

I like K-Lite because it's a minimal install and downloads on demand.
I haven't tried CCCP, so I don't know about it.

Stay with one pack, either way.
Or there could be conflicts.