Torrents

[Aero]

Wow, so much info. Now I am even more confused! How can there be so many options for preforming the same task?

You can choose which ever you like, they are not identical both has a pro and con. Some people prefer one over the other so you can either try both and choose or just use one, either one will do.

[M-e-X-x]

torrents? what are those? , i don't use them

my vote for mpc as i want to use my own codecs for decoding... also, codec packs are for n00bs... ffdshow all the way!

[divx]

another vote for CCCP + MPC, MPC bundled with CCCP already so don't go hunt for both

[Hellfire]

K-Lite Codec Pack

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm

It's played everything I've ever thrown at it...and I've thrown it a lot of really weird stuff O_o

+1

[CameraBill]

Codec packs have been known to cause problems because of conflicts. There are many competing codecs that can decode the same material and sometimes when windows attempts to combine 2 codecs they don't mesh and you end up missing sound or subtitles. A codec pack can be problematic if you need to update part of the install like Quicktime.

I only use VLC player (which uses it's own codecs), ffdshow and quicktime alternative. FFDshow is the swiss army knife of codecs and decodes pretty much everything. However it does mess up some stuff and when it does I use VLC player which has never rejected anything

[CameraBill]

Oh yeah and by avoiding the codec packs you can be assured that you won't get a virus/spyware/malware or any other programs that slow down your computer

[sxz]

The CCCP + MPC combo works best. I've been using it for a year now and there hasn't really been anything it couldn't play.

[torontoraptor]

Wow, so much info. Now I am even more confused! How can there be so many options for preforming the same task?

Just download VLC. It sounds like it's the best option for you. You don't have to worry about anything else.