Video/Audio Codecs

December 10, 2004 3:34 PM

I'd like to learn how to control and manage all the video/audio codecs on my Win2K and XP computers. There's no control panel for this, unfortunately. I know sometimes I have several codecs installed that can play a particular video, but one has priority. How do I control which one, or disable/suspend others? How can I even tell what all I have installed? Gspot is helpful for peeking on a per-movie basis. What else is out there? Thanks!
posted by scarabic to Technology (8 answers total)

Don't bother doing any of that, it's not worth the effort. Just use VLC instead.
posted by ascullion at 5:07 PM on December 10, 2004

Response by poster: I do actually use VLC and it plays everything. But being able to play everything isn't really what I'm after. I actually need to get a better grip on my codec situation so I can process video and audio with better control.
posted by scarabic at 5:50 PM on December 10, 2004

Graphedit?
posted by Pinback at 6:12 PM on December 10, 2004

Response by poster: Cool. And that looks like a great little blog. Thanks!
posted by scarabic at 6:28 PM on December 10, 2004

Control Panel -> Sounds -> Hardware (tab) -> Audio Codecs/Video Codecs -> Properties -> Properties (tab) -> There they are!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:38 PM on December 10, 2004

Response by poster: Hey! Wow. I wouldn't have looked there. Thanks.

Any idea how precedence is governed?
posted by scarabic at 8:11 PM on December 10, 2004

Things on top take priority, me believes. But I could be wrong. There might not be a way to adjust priority except by uninstalling, then reinstalling. Even that might not work, however, because uninstalling doesn't always remove the actual files, and Windows might just keep the records so that when you decide to re-install it, it just pops right back into position again.

I hate Windows.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:10 PM on December 10, 2004

Click on a particular codec, and choose properties (again!).
You can set priority there.
posted by reverendX at 10:26 PM on December 10, 2004