Things to get for this page, which haven't been satisfactorily obtained yet:
To play back multimedia files, the system must have software that understands the file format. A very popular way of handling this is by having software employ the use of a codec (COmpressor/DECompressor software), or multiple codecs (one for video and one for audio). As the codecs often can be used by multiple pieces of software, and are therefore viewed as being more general purpose, they are listed first. Playback and creation/modification software is listed next.
An open source codec claiming on its main page that it "offers better compression than codecs like Huffyuv, Alparysoft, and CorePNG." Lagarith codec (v1.3.14), Lagarith codec (v1.3.14) for Windows64 (with a readme file with manual installation instructions regarding problems with install.bat failing), Lagarith 1.3.15dev Source Code, page for Mac download.
Made by the creator of Sir Lagsalots AVI Player
Unstable version?
A forum page
seems to have numerous statements about the "new beta
huffyuv 2.2.0 not working well (created files aren't able to be played back).
Both URLs were used to obtain a file, and the resulting files were tested to be identical.
To install, the forum post gives directions. Summarized, they are:
“The most balanced and flexible codec is FFV1: relatively good speed and high compression for various presets.” Lossless Video Codecs Comparison 2007. GPL (noted in the copyright information of web page showing ffv1.c).
Wikipedia's article on the “Snow” codec says “FFmpeg aims to get the codec to become a Request for Comments (RFC).” Lossless Video Codecs Comparison 2007 rated it slightly higher to FFV1 in compression ratio. Snow(Default) was actually rated slightly lower than Snow(max), which suggests that some options to specify maximum compression don't lead to the codec's maximum possible compression. Post on Doom9 forums by akupenguin says “Be careful of trying to play Snow with any stable release. It changes often, and isn't always backwards compatible, sometimes in subtle ways.” When checked on Friday, Sept 26, 2008, the FFmpeg page had a colored banner noting the money raised so far to get Snow to have an RFC.
MSU Lossless page on Free-Codecs.com references Lagarith, saying “the MSU Lossless Codec and FFV1 are the only codecs that outperform Lagarith in terms of compression.” (MSU Lossless) (This codec also has modes which are not lossless.) The software's home page says “This codec is free for non-commercial use.”
Lossless Video Codecs Comparison 2007 says “In Maximum Compression area the overall winner is YULS.” Itgives some more “Main conclusions” found in its comparison paper which boasts a length of 130 pages. (Apparently there are quite a few graphs in it.) YUVsoft's Lossless Video Codec (YULS) is free for non-commercial use. The software's home page says “Due to high complexity, the codec is not suitable for video capture or non-linear editing.” Tested in Win2K Pro and XP Pro.
Windows Media Encoder 7 Introduction to Windows Media Encoder 7.1 "New features include the addition of the Microsoft Windows Media Audio 8 codec, the Microsoft Windows Media Video 8 codec, and four new profiles that make use of the version 8 codecs for real-time capture and streaming." "Windows Media Encoder 7.1 still provides support for all the features that were available in Windows Media Encoder 7" (In comparison, Windows Media Encoder 9 Series utilities documented changes in tools from Windows Media Encoder 7.)
wmencodersdk71.exe is lowercased version of a filename WMEncoderSDK71.exe mentioned at page. (The direct download URL was found via Google search: microsoft.com WMEncoderSDK71.exe. WMP71SDK.exe. Windows Media Encoder 7.1 (Portu/Spanish) http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediatech40/wmenc71/7.1/W98NT42KMe/EN-US/wmencoder71.exe is no longer available. Download available from following third party link: wmencoder71.exe download from FileFront.com
For Windows Media Player 7.1 through 10. Includes Windows Media Audio 9 and 9 Voice, and Windows Media Video 7, 8, 9, and 9 Screen, Microsoft MPEG-4 versions 1, 2, and 3, ISO MPEG-4 versions 1 and 1.1. (No mention of "Windows Media Video 9 VCM", "Windows Media Screen 7", or "Windows Media Audio 9 Voice" that the 6.4 codec package lists.)
(Yes, the hyperlink to the package for Windows 2000 referred to a file with 9x at the end of the base filename.)
Windows Media Codecs Download Package Version 8.0 (downloadable executable) applies to Windows Media Player 6.4 and 7.0. For a silent installation, the executable may be run with the "/q:a" and "/r:n" parameters.
The list of supported codecs includes some not mentioned in the other packages. Actually, it is really nice and mentions which filenames handle the individual codecs. The Q324290 has been saved locally to be able to reference this.
Xvid download page has offsite links for multiple operating systems. The Xvid Developers section: source code download may help for other operating systems. xvidcore-1.1.3.tar.bz2 has been zipped locally in xvidc113.zip
XviD movies says "The XviD codec isn't yet available for the Mac" and gives a work around involving QT and DivX, and has some downloads. Note that divxmovies.com had the same style of site logo in the corner, and it had executables that differed from the original locations at divx.com, so one may wish to be a bit cautious about what the files are that get downloaded from that site.
Beware! When TOOGAM searched for DivX 5.2.1, there were many different files located. (The files must've been different because there were multiple different file sizes.) Although it appears that DivX.com has released multiple versions of some files (some from the pad directory/pages/site as discussed below), it is quite possible that many of these executables have been somehow altered, possibly with malware introduced into the file. It is generally recommended to ensure the copy of any file obtained is from an official source, but because of this, such a recommendation especially applies to DivX.
Note: DivX 5.2.1 is not available from files in the top of the http://download.divx.com/divx/ directory. Multiple files there (including DivX521ME98.exe and DivXPro521ME98.exe) now point to the exact same file which ends up being DivX 6. (There is no Win98/ME version of DivX 6.) When using Win98SE, the downloaded file will inform the user that it won't work on the operating system and the installer has a hyperlink that launches a web browser to view an error page stating that the specified web page no longer exists.
The files are actually still available from the site, but only from some locations.
These files are probably smaller. (Or maybe not? Maybe that should be checked...)
Before the existing files on the main site were located, alternative locations were sought. One thing found was that there were some files in download.divx.com/divx/pad which had information, such as file sizes, on some files. The file sizes reported differed from the files found in the official locations. They weren't available from that the pad location any longer: Any actual executables from the area, such as http://download.divx.com/divx/pad/DivX521ME98.exe, seemed to also be updated to reference some 15MB file (likely DivX 6). However, a third party site was found with files that matched these file sizes, so unless the files were altered maliciously, the following files might be valid files that, at one point, originated from divx.com.)
Smaller Downloads
DivX downloads had multiple hyperlinks that had files that seemed to be the right size according to some files on the main DivX site. This would seem to imply that they are legitimate, and they may be smaller than files obtained elsewhere.(freeware) DivX 5.2.1 for WinME/98 is 7,587,352 bytes, matching XML stats for file.
DivX521XP2K.exe 7,680,064 bytes, matching XML stats for file.
Other files include: http://page.freett.com/flagile/DivXPro521ME98.exe and http://page.freett.com/flagile/DivXPro521XP2K.exe
The above downloads should be sufficient. Here are some additional download locations in case they aren't. (There's no particular reason to suggest these should be used instead. But since they were searched for and found, they're being mentioned here largely just for a record of some known other URLs.)
Download URL from Free-Codecs redirected to http://www.freecodecs.net/files/DivX521ME98.zip which contained a DivX521ME98.exe that matched an old archive where the file was downloaded from divx.com.
Matches DivX 5.2.1 for Win ME/98.
DivX 5.2.1 for Win 2K/XP matches DivX 5.2.1 for Win 2K/XP which is redirected to from file download redirector from free-codecs.com for DivX 5.2.1 for Win2K/XP. (That differs from the file pointed to from http://www.free-codecs.com/download_soft.php?d=3300&s=40 which redirects to DivX521XP2K.exe in http://ftp.freenet.de/pub/filepilot/windows/multimedia/video/divx/ so don't just assume that all mirrors on the site are the same.)
Apple's QuickTime codec works with the Apple Quicktime playing software, so this involves using the interface that came with that program. (To use another interface, such as that of MS WiMP, other software is needed.)
In addition to providing a codec for playing back videos, this can come with a MIDI codec.
Codec Guide - QT Lite says "QT Lite contains exactly the same components as QuickTime Alternative. The ONLY difference between the two packs is that QT Lite does not contain Media Player Classic." For some earlier versions of QuickTime, there were multiple releases including one called "QuickTime Alternative Lite" which was the same concept. Final Builds Site - QuickTime Alternative says "QuickTime Alternative Lite is QuickTime Alternative without Media Player Classic."
All versions of QT Lite (1.0, 1.1, 1.11, and 1.12 and later) require Windows 2000 or later. (When the installer is run in Win98SE, a dialog box appears saying "This program requires Windows NT version 5.0 or later.") QT Lite -> History indicates that version 2.0.0 requires Windows XP or newer. (It also doesn't even mention 1.1.2. xyzzy blog: QuickTime security flaws says that "it is already rather tricky to find the 2007-11-12 QT Lite 1.1.2". QT Lite versions has a QT Lite 2.0.0 hyperlink dated just 23 hours after the 12:02am Nov 11 2007 hyperlink for QT Lite 1.1.2 so that may be why there aren't a lot of archives of that file.)
For QT Lite, and at least some QT Alternative Lite reelases, there are some archives that provide multiple versions (even if not linked to). Edskes File Download Mirror) provides links to files in http://i1.edskes.com/q/ which redirects to http URL of an ftp site (from which an ftp site is easily found). The mirros page also references http://n9.edskes.com/QT_Lite/qtlite/ which redirects to files in http://www.filesharingdownloads.be/Codecs/ which does not allow directory listings. Versions 1.1 and later of QT Lite were found in these locations, and version 1.0 was in the FTP site. Any local files have been renamed to an 8.3 structure, but originally were named qtlite*.exe where * had three digits.
The QuickTime 7 codecs added H.264 support.
These don't support Windows 95/98/98SE/ME/NT, nor earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. This is true of both QuickTime 7 and also QuickTime Alternative version 1.61 which updated to QT codecs and Browser plugin versions to 7.0.2.120 and dropped support for Win95/98(SE)/Me and NT. (The earlier version of QTAlt was 1.56 and is referenced below.)
QuickTime 7 and the QT Alt program supporting the same version added support for the codec for H.264, also known as MPEG-4 AVC and MPEG-4 Part 10, and dropped support for Windows 98. If one is using Win98 and wants to use that codec, the WWW Browser add-on Flash 9.0 Update 3 added support for that codec, and so that may at least be related to a workable solution. This codec is required by the specifications of HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc formats (per Wikipedia's article on H.264/MPEG-4 AVC).
Note: There are a couple of limitations to know about before putting hope in installing this product. As quoted in the text when installing the program:
This is basically a combination of Real Alternative Lite with a bundled version of Media Player Classic and an option during installation on whether or not to install that version of Media Player Classic. It is recommended to just get Real Alternative Lite if Media Player Classic is going to be downloaded separately, which will be the case if installing some other packages (like QuickTime Alternative) that include MPC, or if just downloading MPC by itself.
Real Alternative 1.52 comes with "Media Player Classic [version 6.4.9.0+ SVN build 2007-03-25]" (as described by its installer). That takes up 4.1MB if installed, and the checkbox to install MPC is checked on by default.
PC World's "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" rates RealNetworks RealPlayer as #2. Integrating advertisements so they show when the program is actively run, or possibly even if it is simply installed and running in the background, was one unpleasant issue. Another is that new versions came with new names, such as RealPlayer G2 (version 6) and RealOne Player Version 2 (released between RealPlayer 8 and RealPlayer 10) led to utter confusion as to what version is the latest.
The Real Legacy Software Archive contains links to many old versions of software.
The following came from notes that were made citing the Real Legacy Software Archive as helping to clarify, even though the page seems to have less information now.
Playback software may be smaller, more optimized, and at a lower cost than editors (when editors are not provided for free). However, editors often include the ability to playback what is being edited, so feel free to also check back the Multimedia file editors section as well.
This section is meant to cover video players. Many may also play sound files. Some codecs are often required.
Windows Media Player 6.4.07.1112 for Windows 95 and NT4 (English Version) requires Win95, 98, "Windows NT® Server or Workstation 4.0 with Service Pack 3 (audio, illustrated audio, and video)" (according to system requirements). Windows Media Player Plug-in for Netscape Navigator can be run if Netscape Navigator 4.x is installed after MS WiMP 6.4.
To install WiMP 6.4.07.1121, obtain the
WiMP 6.4.07.1121 CAB file and install MS IE
5 or 6. Then follow directions (obtained from
MDGX.Com WMP6): Extract the CAB
file's contents (with 7-zip) into a directory such as C:\TEMP\ and then use
the following RUNDLL32.EXE commands in order:
RUNDLL32.EXE ADVPACK.DLL,LaunchINFSection C:\TEMP\AMOV4IE.INF,DefaultInstall
RUNDLL32.EXE ADVPACK.DLL,LaunchINFSection C:\TEMP\MPLAYER2.INF,DefaultInstall
However, perhaps WM308567 does just as well?
download details page, KB925398/MS06-078, Q308567/KB308567/WM308567 overview, download details to choose language for 308567, Wm320920_64 package (cumulative)
There may be multiple versions of Windows Media Player 6 installed at once. Windows Media Player 6.01.05.0217 (according to Help, About) is located in "\Program Files\Windows Media Player\MPlayer2.Exe" when Windows 98 SE is installed. If installing a newer version of Media Player then there may be a WMPlayer.Exe in the same directory which is a newer version while the MPlayer2.Exe may still exist as the older, slimmer version. An even simpler version may also exist as MPlayer.exe in the directory where Windows was installed to.
Hardware acceleration settings can improve performance by setting them high, but lowering/disabling hardware acceleration can help enable screenshots (by pressing Print Screen to copy the screen to the clipboard, and then pasting into a graphics application) and can even make some software (like codecs and/or video drivers) be able to play some files (like MPEG files) better (like showing correct colors). This can be done using the system-wide accelleration settings at Start, Control Panel, System, Performance Tab, ("Advanced settings" section's) Graphics... button. However, there also may be a setting in Windows Media Player that just affects Windows Media Player without affecting video acceleration of the entire operating system. In Windows Media Player 6.4.07.1112 (and not in 6.01.05.0217), the setting can be found by visiting the View Menu, selecting Options, and looking on the Playback tab. In the lower-right corner of that tab is a Video section, and underneath Zoom is a "Hardware accleration" slidebar. In general, performance does not usually degrade by sliding that bar all the way to the left (to "None") and causes screenshotting to work.
DVD Playback options can be enabled using MP6 DVD UI registry file.
This can be useful for Win95 users to get WMP 7.1
installed, according to
WMP 7.1 on Win95
guide.
Windows
Media Player 7.1 guide on mozdev
KB269605,
KB269233,
Q268874 (unattended install)
with /Q:A /R:N /C:"setup_wm.exe /Q /R:N"
No longer at the
http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/wmp7/7/NT5/EN-US/wmp7.exe
location. The following files seemed consistent, so hopefully they're
nice and athentic, but they haven't been verified yet:
http://download.oldversion.com/wmp70.exe
http://www.mywindowspage.com/mp7.zip
9,547,408 bytes?
http://download.upol.cz/Nastroje/Zvuk/wmp7.exe is 9,543,408 bytes like
http://hashes.castlecops.com/hash6496321-wmp7_exe.html
http://karinto2.mine.nu/index.php?mpeg4
This product was not usually officially called Windows Media Player 8. This was the version bundled with Windows XP that was newer than Windows Media Player 7.1, but released before Windows Media Player 9. Q324290/KB324290 refered to "Windows Media Player 7, 7.1 and 8" but Microsoft didn't seem to frequently refer to it as version 8. (There wasn't any other version 8, at least not one released for Windows 98 or XP or other mainstream versions meant for desktop PC systems.)
The Windows Media Player 9 series page says "Windows XP users: Windows Media Player 9 Series is no longer available for Windows XP." Apparently it was at http://download.microsoft.com /download/8/a/2/8a27acce-5c9e-46b3-8996-1e76c0413d17/MPSetupXP.exe (per hyperlink from AXCEL216 / MDGx WMP 9.0 page). Redistributing Windows Media Player Software says "MPSetupXP.exe and MP10Setup.exe are optimized for and will run only on Windows XP. There is no functional difference between installing MPSetup.exe and MPSetupXP.exe on a computer running Windows XP."
forum post that says renaming c:\windows\system32\ahui.exe can get past a version check so build 2980 installs. KB886540 requires validation of genuine Windows and lets one choose a language. KB886540 (English) via long URL Described by forum post above as containing Media Player 9 build 3250.
The reason this is called "9 Series" for the Windows release is not apparent. In fact, that new naming scheme (with the word “Series”) was dropped by the next version.
Microsoft Windows Media Download Center page links to download page for Windows Media Player Plug-in for Firefox which adds Windows Media Player ActiveX control to Firefox in Windows XP and Vista, both x86 and x64 releases. Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin.
For a number of fixes, see the unofficial, third party site's page: MDGX WMP page.
MS02-032: Cumulative updates for WiMP 6.4, 7.1, and WiMP for XP
See the Codecs download section.
[#playdvd]: DVD Playback software is described in this area.
Video on DVDs use some sort of MPEG technology. This section should become expanded. In the meantime, and even after it does, other files related to using DVDs may be found in other sections on the site. For a list of such references, see the CD/DVD page.
DVD playback software generally consists of the following major features:
Because the handling of DVDs for playback and the ability to play back similarly encoded files is a trivial amount of core functionality (basically just controlling how the video data gets located), it is not uncommon for more generalized media players to support DVDs, and likewise it is not uncommon for DVD playing software to support loading video from a file on a hard drive. Therefore, for more options, see general media players.
To enable MS WiMP 6.4's DVD playback, one can simply use Media Player 6 DVD User Interface Registry File (mp6dvdui.reg): Having a modern Windows operating system attempting to execute this file should cause RegEdit to import its needed contents. MDGX: newtip16.htm quotes Andreas saying this software "is totally hardware oriented, not software bound like PowerDVD, WinDVD or CineMaster."
Newer versions of MS WiMP need even less coaxing to support DVDs. The options should just appear, if supported.
For Windows Media Player 9, if the right software isn't installed to support this, the DVD tab simply won't show up on the Tools,Options screen of WMP9.
Windows Media Player 9's help (Help, Help Topics/F1, Using the Player, Using DVDs) says "To play DVDs, you must have a DVD-ROM drive, and a software or hardware DVD decoder installed on your computer. If you do not have a compatible DVD decoder installed, DVD-related commands, options, and controls do not appear in the Player and you cannot play DVDs. By default, Windows does not include a DVD decoder. For more information about DVD decoders, see Windows Help." Windows Help, in turn, says "Your DVD hardware may require a decoder card and specific software. Check with your DVD and computer manufacturers for details."
Commonly web browsers are used to view images. Other software that commonly views iamges includes image editing software and possibly some video playing software. Images may also be displayed within other types of software, such as screensavers. Image data is often supported by other file types, such as office documents.
GQview (for Unix) and GQview for Windows provides slideshow capabilities.
Playing CD audio is often a feature provided by software that plays music other than CD audio, including software that handles multimedia such as video playing software.
SJGPlay for DOS, according to its web page, “has all the features you would expect in a CD player plus lyrics capability.” This software heavily depends on a library whose source code is not something the author has clear permission to distribute, and the software has been discontinued, so further development of the DOS version is not expected. The final version, version 1.29 from December 5, 1996, is available as a free download. A multimedia player that can play more media formats, SJGPlay for Windows, has also been created.
Netpbm is a collection of programs. There seemed to be a larger number of convertors than editors, so information is in the converters section.
One option may be to use graphical editors, as they can often load and save in multiple formats. However, this is often a more manual process, whereas these converts may be able to do things with less interaction. These converters may also help optimize some graphics, such as increasing the amount of data compression within an image. Note that extra conversions of lossy formats is not recommended.
This collection of software contains many programs that will each convert from one file format to and from one of the Netpbm formats (which are the “pnm” formats of pbm, pgn, and ppm, as well as the pam format).
The Netpbm documentation: program directory lists the programs, which are generally named after the conversion features they offer, and provides hyperlinks to specific documentation on each program.
The programs are meant to be run from the command line. In many/most/all cases, the programs send graphical output to the “standard output” stream. (It is expected that this output may be redirected to a file.) Error messages may be shown to the “Standard Error” stream (sometimes called “stderr”).
The Netpbm documentation's main page contains information on a large number of other pieces of software to perform various tasks on images.