Video Playback Software for the PC

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Video Playback Software for the PC

Postby Red Wolf » Fri Sep 06, 2002 8:27 pm

To start let me say two things. One, I'm a pure Mac guy so I honestly don't know about the specific software available or preferred on the Windows side. Two, I'm using this information for an AMV collection of a dozen AMV creators I'm giving away freely at AWA so I would appreciate any help that can be offered however newbish this question may sound.

All of the videos on my CD set are in either MPEG-1 or XivD (playable in DivX5) format. Do most Windows machines come with the software needed to play these formats? If not can someone point out a decent freeware program which can play back one or both formats 9I would prefer a program that does both). It doesn't have to be the best software out there, just something that can be loaded on the CD for those few con goers who may need it.
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Postby kthulhu » Fri Sep 06, 2002 8:49 pm

I know that for MPEG1, the Media Player software that comes with Windows 98 and above can handle it natively. As for DivX and compatible formats, I believe you can just install the codecs, and most decent media playing software can handle it.
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Postby jbone » Fri Sep 06, 2002 9:12 pm

Yes, MPEG-1 support is native in virtually all popular OSes, and DivX content can be played back with the free codec available from the DivX homepage.

If you want, you can even go to www.divx.com and download the latest version of DivX, and include it on the CD for people who need it.
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Postby ErMaC » Fri Sep 06, 2002 11:03 pm

Windows Mediaplayer, as of Windows 95 OSR2, included ActiveMovie (later become DirectShow) which has MPEG1 support. It also contained the framework so you can install other codecs and they'll work, so including the Divx installer file on the CD should make things simple (make sure to grab the free, non-adware one).
If someone installed DirectX on their original win95 box they get the ability as well, I was just talking about direct out-of-the-box ability.
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Postby The Wired Knight » Fri Sep 06, 2002 11:55 pm

yeah often its no problem. Very few can't play X and you will never find one that can't play MPEG1 since WindowsMedia player works quite well and now there is a new winamp that will play them so you'll be fine.
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Postby Eek-1 » Sat Sep 07, 2002 12:21 am

I recommend you to include DivX Video for Windows, Mac & Linux in requirement folder in your CD, and also a readme.txt for guide.
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Postby Red Wolf » Sat Sep 07, 2002 11:19 am

Thanks for the info. My plan had been to download installer files for all the platforms just as so many of you also suggested, I just wanted to make sure I was using the best stuff out there that I could.
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