Windows DVD Codecs & DVD Burner Software

[roo_ster]

I need to find Windows DVD codecs and DVD/CD burner software.  I'd rather download freeware, due to my good experience with open source linux apps, but I will consider commercial software if that is the only good solution.

Background:
I just bought my wife a laptop and installed WinXP for her, as well as the requisite anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, etc.  It has a DVD+/-RW that functions just fine as a CD-ROM and data-DVD reader.  I have the driver from the manufacturer installed.

However, I am clueless when it comes to Windows multimedia apps.  I've downloded Realplayer, Quicktime, and WinMP came with the OS.  As players, they rot.  I am used to having several good players (mplayer, xmms) & burner apps (xcdroast, nautilus) already installed/available through my linux distro of choice.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

[Justin]

1) Get rid of Real Player.  If you absolutely must have something that will run Real Media files, check into Real Alternative.  Plays the files, and no spyware.
2) Media apps on PC's generally suck.  As much as I'm loathe to admit it, Macs handle video much, much, much better than PC's.  
3) CODECS can generally be found through Microsoft's website.  There should be an option to check for it.  However, if you're interested in playing DVD's without the idiocy of WMP, I strongly suggest that you pick up a copy of Power DVD.
4) For burning, check into Nero.  Roxio Easy CD/DVD burner used to be good, but has really become bloatware in the last few versions.

5)Windows Media Player sucks.

[Justin]

Oh yeah, did I mention that Windows Media Player sucks?

[P95Carry]

Media Player Classic is way to go - seems to pick up all codecs available on my system and plays every darned thing I throw at it!

[jefnvk]

I like Windows Media for music.  It makes the files much more available than that pretty, but useless iTunes.  And WinAmp is simply ugly and unfriendly.

For DVD's, I use AsusDVD XP.  It came with my video card.  Your laptop should have some player already installed, if you bought it and it had a DVD player in it.

For burning DVD's, I like DVD Decryptor.  You have to make the image to burn an ISO, though, first.

[Guest]

Uninstal real player and quicktime as soon as you can, they are both WAY bloated and very nearly the equivalent of a moderate computer virus.

Its not the best player in the world but the freeware program "video lan" is probably the most versitile media player out there, it will play ANYTHING short of the propiatery quicktime, and real audio formats. For those you can download the afore mention "realalternative" and I believe that the same company produces a player for the quicktime format as well.

For burning disks the easiest way is probably still Nero, it isnt free and if you want to take the time there are better ways, but it does work quite well and its very user friendly.

Let me add that my favorite source for all things media is: www.dvdrhelp.com" target="_blank">www.dvdrhelp.com they are the ultimate source for just about all the information you could possibly ever want, its hard to navigate but once you get a grasp on things its unparallelled.

[roo_ster]

Thanks for the pointers.

(shuffles off to investigate options)

[InfidelSerf]

well cyeager beat me to it.  
I'll second  www.vcdhelp.com  aka www.videohelp.com and dvdrhelp.com
The best single resource for all things video encoding

[Vodka7]

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc) has every codec on earth built into it.  If you can't get something to work, try VLC.  mplayer has a Win32 build, too.

Personally, I think VLC is too slow and ugly for regular use, so I use Media Player Classic with all the important codecs.  (DVDs and SVCDs are MPEG2, btw.)

For a commercial DVD player, anything not based on an ASPI driver is the way to go.  I like PowerDVD, but there are plenty of great alternatives out there.  (And you can pair it with DVD RegionKiller for a transparent, free way to watch DVDs from other regions.)

If you want to rip/burn DVDs, like another poster said, DVD Decrypter is the way to go.  The author recently got served a C&D letter though, so you'll have to google for the last version he released - SetupDVDDecrypter_3.5.4.0.exe.  Nero is a more versatile burner, but most people will still recommend burning DVD movies through DVD Decrypter.

[BryanP]

An excellent Windows freeware CD/DVD burning package is CDBurner XP Pro -

http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

It has one annoying bug that they are working on - you can burn ISO images up to 4.2GB in size.  Any larger than that and it gives you errors.  Other than that it works very well.  Considering it's freeware status I can highly recommend it.