K... I'm no genius on how codecs really work at all. All I know is that ever since I downloaded some random ones from a Windows Codec Pack or something from Microsoft, it turned my computer rabid. Certain audio files, such as wav, DO NOT play on WMP, yet they'll work just fine with Realplayer. At first, DVD2AVI didn't work after that, crashing at every saved clip attempt, but I fixed that by downloading some other codec, or rather, getting a better version of it or something. Sometimes, when streaming a video through WMP from the internet, certain file types lock up WMP after its first play and/or have no audio feed.
Sadly enough, I thought I was done with all this codec business....but I hadn't burned a DVD since then, and to my surprise, my DVD burning program crashes randomly due to some support groups program called Open H.323 (which I had no idea was ever on my comp...much less what on earth it IS!).
So shortly, what I'd like to know is how dowloading a codec can actually screw up a computer, which according to my comp's symptoms, I'd say that is exactly what happened. Also, why can downloading OTHER codecs fix the problems to some degree.




