Free Software Megathread

[Djinni]

Burn4Free - Free CD/DVD/DVD-DL/Blu-Ray Copying and Burning.

[Mister K]

Hell no. You want to keep that thing as far away from Windows based machines as possible. Mac OS is fine; but god damnit don't install it on a Windows machine unless you have no other option (e.g. stuck with an iPhone or iPad).

Speaking of Media players (well Video mainly in this case), it usually doesn't take this long for MPC-HC (Windows) to get mentioned in these types of threads.

No thanks, I love iTunes and HATE windows media player. Winamp is nice and all but don't like it.
Personal preference ... please no Mac was OEM's PC here pls...

[Xuvial]

No thanks, I love iTunes and HATE windows media player.

Everybody hates windows media player, he was talking about Media Player Classic

Itunes is only recommended for better-than-average machines because once you load it up with a decent number of songs + videos, it slows down and is no longer smooth/quick with it's fancy non-windows GUI.

[haxartus]

No Apple software on my machine, thanks. QuickTime is annoying and useless enough.

[Xuvial]

No Apple software on my machine, thanks. QuickTime is annoying and useless enough.

I'm yet to find a purpose for QuickTime :S

[vesseblah]

I'm yet to find a purpose for QuickTime :S

Some movie trailers are annoyingly in MOV format, Blizzard uses those too sometimes. Fortunately VLC can play those without any problems.

[Mister K]

I'm yet to find a purpose for QuickTime :S

Same QuickTime is absolute junk!

[ispano]

MPC + K-Lite Codec Pack - This combines MPC with the K-Lite codec pack, this is literally the last thing you'll ever have to download related to media players/codecs. There is no video/music format that I've had in the last 2 years that this cannot play (unless the file is corrupted). Goodbye VLC.

Honestly there's almost no need for the codec pack, just MPC-HC. It should play pretty much ANYTHING made within the last several years with nothing else installed aside from haali's media splitter, to get file linking with mkvs.

You can get newer releases here: http://www.xvidvideo.ru/media-player...inema-x86-x64/ as well as a Black modded version.

For straight up music I say foobar2000, at least until Amarok2 is working better on Windows.
Also Unified Remote for anyone with an Android device: http://www.unifiedremote.com/

[Xuvial]

Honestly there's almost no need for the codec pack, just MPC-HC.

Yeah seems I'm a tad out of date here, HC looks like it covers everything and with a dedicated site....it's the way to go I suppose = /

[Asera]

I'm yet to find a purpose for QuickTime :S

You need it for Adobe After Effects, sadly. -_-

[haxartus]

You can get newer releases here: http://www.xvidvideo.ru/media-player...inema-x86-x64/

This site is nice because it has the updated version of the standalone filters. Which means that you can get the codecs from the MPC-HC and use them with another player, like KMPlayer.

[vesseblah]

K-Lite and any codec packs are a big mistake to install. Those are well known to cause 43637895648395 weird compatibility problems all around the system with all kinds of weird hacks.

All you need is MPC-HC and Haali's Media Splitter. VLC can be used for the 0.5% of the videos that MPC-HC can't play.

[haxartus]

The standalone filters aren't a codec pack in the regular sense. You can get a specific decoder as a file and just tell KMPlayer to use it for some video format.
The idea behind this is that there are some really good players with nice customization options that lack quality integrated codecs, while MPC-HC is not that great at customization but it has nice set of decoders, filters and etc.

[Zeriphal]

Can you please explain a little about what it does. The site is kinda lacking information. It looks like a program updater, but I don't want to be wrong about it and waste peoples time.

You pick the programs you want, download the exe. It installs the selected programs that you don't have, and updates the ones you do have. You just run the exe and let it go - no dealing with clicking "next" a bunch of times in installation wizards, so you can go do something else while it installs everything.

Or this probably explains it better. ^_^ http://ninite.com/help/how-ninite-works/

[Mister K]

K-Lite and any codec packs are a big mistake to install. Those are well known to cause 43637895648395 weird compatibility problems all around the system with all kinds of weird hacks.

All you need is MPC-HC and Haali's Media Splitter. VLC can be used for the 0.5% of the videos that MPC-HC can't play.

True that.. had so MANY problems with K-Lite ... still use it... time to switch I guess. Thanks for link

Ding: Bloodsail Admiral..... ARRRRRR

[ispano]

K-Lite and any codec packs are a big mistake to install. Those are well known to cause 43637895648395 weird compatibility problems all around the system with all kinds of weird hacks.

All you need is MPC-HC and Haali's Media Splitter. VLC can be used for the 0.5% of the videos that MPC-HC can't play.

Or just get the specific filters/codecs needed for that small minority of files, which usually happen to be OLD formats or stuff like quicktime, and not have to deal with the garbage bin that is VLC.

[Jaqera]

What's with the hate with VLC? Am I missing something? I watch my anime from VLC on my 22' monitor and it seems fine!

[Donthealme]

awesome list!

[theredviola]

What's with the hate with VLC? Am I missing something? I watch my anime from VLC on my 22' monitor and it seems fine!

I agree with the hate because I've been trying to play my DVDs on my XP system laptop for the past 3 days and VLC lags the shit out of my computer and won't play my DVDs smoothly. And I REFUSE to pay for a plugin that will allow WMP to play my DVDs.

VLC just slows down my system and doesn't work -- so yeah, I'm not a fan of it, but seeing as how I don't have many other options its the devil I choose to live with.

OT -- thanks for the list OP. I'll be getting some of the programs after work!

[haxartus]

VLC is ok if you just want player that works. Or if you want to watch a stream of some kind. It's very good with streams.
If you want extended customization options and settings, allowing you to do whatever you want with the player, then VLC is not a god choice.