Windows 7 codec packs

August 19th, 2009 | Tags: , , ,

Whilst Windows 7 has more codecs than any version prior (yes – you can open DIVX natively), you will still need to find codecs for more advanced video/audio encoding. This is usually achieved by installing a “codec pack”, a bundle of codecs usually tested to be installed and run concurrently.

This does not always turn out to be the case, as they are comprised of many open source tools and sometimes spyware too. I previously blogged about TVersity, a freeware DLNA server used to stream supported and unsupported video to clients like the PS3 or XBOX 360, this unsupported media is handled by transcoding on-the-fly and needs codecs – hence my Windows codec predicament.

So codec pack testing commenced and my recommendation is the Shark007 Win7codec pack, this was the least disruptive I found.

Taken from Shark 007’s site:

“The Win7codecs package which I have created does not change or interfere with what Microsoft has going on concerning native codec support in Windows Media Player 12 and Media Center.
DXVA accelerated H264 playback is provided by the codec package for all other capable players.”

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