Slashdot Mirror

The DefilerPak is a minimalist collection of video and audio codecs designed to keep you up to date with the latest developments. http://hellninjacommando.com/defilerpak/ What's included? ffdshow: Rapidly making codec packs obsolete. Plays almost everything. Haali Media filter: Supports the Matroska, MP4, and OGM A/V container formats. VSFilter: Supports a wide variety of subtitle formats. DivX ;-) Audio: Just in case. AC3 XForm filter: Makes life a little easier for folks with external Dolby Digital decoders. HDTVPump: Support for HD/ATSC transport streams.

Perhaps you were joking. Video playback on Windows is flawless, provided you have the right all-in-one codec pack.

You claim that downloading and installing codecs (using a GUI) on Windows is old-fashioned. How is the command line any more modern? Pedantically speaking, the GUI(1) was developed after the command line. I apologize; this is a definitely nit-picking, but trying to say the command line is more modern than the GUI is a laughably stupid point to make. Perhaps you meant to imply that the command line is more efficient than the GUI at certain tasks; in which case, I agree.

As for the poor souls who are looking for help on the forums, you would be helping them more by pointing them to a Google search for "windows video codecs" than just haughtily replying, "I don't know; I just use Linux."

I will grant that Windows codec packs are occasionally filled with spyware, but if you weren't so busy cavalierly trumpeting the apparent dominance of Linux over Windows, you'd know about reliable sites like doom9.org.

(1)I assume, of course, you consider the Apple LISA "the GUI"; you may define it differently.

I recommend these programs to all my co-workers, friends and family.
BlueFrog - Fight spam with the Blue Community
DefilerPak - Video/Audio Codec Pak
FireFox - IE replacement
Foobar2000 - Audio Player
MyUninstaller - ADD/Remove Programs alternative
Nero - CD/DVD burning software
NOD32 - Very fast and accurate Virus Scanner
Thunderbird - Outlook Express Replacement
Treewalk DNS - Local caching DNS
Trillian - Many IM Clients in One
UltraEdit32 - Best Windows Text Editor (check out column mode)
UltraMon - If you multiple monitors this program is great
Zoomplayer - DVD/Media player

Quoting BBC:

This series shows dramatically how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media. At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended. Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.

The rise of the Politics of Fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neoconservative movement that dominates Washington. Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together. The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neoconservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision. They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see. The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to 'see the truth'.

The series are encoded in xvid placed in an .ogm (opposed to .avi) container. (Defiler Pack)

Funny how this article reminded me exactly of the documentary.

CDEX
IRFanView
Winamp
iTunes
FireFox w/AdBlock and various other extensions
Some music
Assorted pictures
Spybot & AdAware
XP SP2
DefilerPak
Novell VPN client
Citrix client
Farbrausch demos
PuTTY
and the all-important XEvil

The trick to playing random downloaded video in this day and age is to download a pack of codecs. For Windows, I recommend DefilerPak; it doesn't have every codec, but it has the most important ones and seems to have caused me the least amount of headache. You could also try the K-Lite Codec Pack, which also seems to to work pretty well.

DefilerPak