Alternative Media Players.

Do you have problem playing videos downloaded from the net?

Do you encounter "Error downloading codec" in you Windows Media Player upon playing videos downloaded from the net?

do often download a video from you tube then you have to convert the flv to mpg?

Well, try this player and codecs to solve your problem?

VLC  Player

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats (H.264, Ogg, DivX, MKV, TS, MPEG-2, mp3, MPEG-4, aac, ...) from files, physical media (DVDs, VCD, Audio-CD), TV capture cards and many network streaming protocols.

It can also convert media files, transcode and act as a streaming server over unicast or multicast and IPv4 or IPv6. It doesn't need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.

link:

Windows Platform Download

Mac OS   Platform Download

K-Lite Codec Pack (the one i use. almost all can play this player)

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codecs are required to encode and/or decode (play) audio and video. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play 99% of all the movies that you download from the internet.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs:
- It it always up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs.
- It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want.
- It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs.
- It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies.

There are three versions of the K-Lite Codec Pack: Basic, Standard and Full.
• K-Lite Codec Pack Basic contains only the most essential things. It contains everything you need to be able to play the most popular and widespread formats. It is small enough to fit on a single floppy. Also great for including on your movie CDs.
• K-Lite Codec Pack Standard contains everything you need to play all the commonly used formats. This package should be enough for the average user.
• K-Lite Codec Pack Full contains even more codecs. It also has encoding support for the various formats. This package is for power users and people who do their own encodings.

Features of K-Lite Codec Pack 5.4.4 FULL version :

• Player :
- Media Player Classic Homecinema [version 1.3.1333.0]
- Media Player Classic Homecinema [version 1.2.1008.0]
• FFDShow :
- ffdshow [revision 3130]
- ffdshow VFW interface
- Extra plugins: KernelDeint and TomsMoComp deinterlacers, DScaler plugin
- extra plugins
• DirectShow video filters :
- XviD [version 1.2.2]
- DivX H.264 [version 8.2.0.26]
- On2 VP7 [version 7.0.10.0]
- MPEG-2 (Cyberlink) [version 8.4.0.923]
- MPEG-2 (Gabest) [version 1.0.0.4]
• DirectShow audio decoding filters:
- AC3/DTS/LPCM/MP1/MP2 (AC3Filter) [version 1.63b]
- Vorbis (CoreVorbis) [version 1.1.0.79]
- AAC (MONOGRAM) [version 0.9.6.0]
• DirectShow audio parsers:
- FLAC (madFLAC) [version 1.8]
- WavPack (CoreWavPack) [version 1.1.1]
- MusePack (MONOGRAM) [version 0.9.2.0 | 0.4.0.0]
- Monkey's Audio (DCoder) [version 1.0]
- OptimFROG (RadLight) [version 1.0.0.1]
- AMR (MONOGRAM) [version 1.0.1.0]
- DC-Bass Source [version 1.2.0]
- IT/MO3/MTM/S3M/UMX/XM (Tracker) and TTA (True Audio)
- AC3/DTS Source (AC3File) [version 0.7b]
• DirectShow source filters:
- AVI splitter (Gabest) [version 1.3.1333.0]
- AVI splitter (Haali Media Splitter) [version 1.9.42.1]
- MP4/3GP/MOV splitter (Haali Media Splitter) [version 1.9.42.1]
- MP4/3GP/MOV splitter (Gabest) [version 1.3.1333.0]
- Matroska splitter (Haali Media Splitter) [version 1.9.42.1]
- Matroska splitter (Gabest) [version 1.3.1333.0]
- Ogg splitter (Haali Media Splitter) [version 1.9.42.1]
- Ogg splitter (Gabest) [version 1.3.1333.0]
- MPEG PS/TS splitter (Gabest) [version 1.3.1333.0]
- MPEG PS/TS splitter (Haali Media Splitter) [version 1.9.42.1]
- FLV splitter (Gabest) [version 1.3.1333.0]
- CDXA Reader (Gabest) [version 1.0.0.2]
• DirectShow subtitle filter:
- DirectVobSub (a.k.a. VSFilter) [version 2.39.5.3]
- DirectVobSub (a.k.a. VSFilter) [version 2.33]
• Other filters:
- Haali Video Renderer [version 1.9.42.1]
• VFW video codecs:
- XviD [version 1.2.2]
- On2 VP7 [version 7.0.10.0]
- huffyuv [version 2.1.1 CCE Patch 0.2.5]
- YV12 (Helix) [version 1.2]
• ACM audio codecs:
- MP3 (LAME) [version 3.98.2]
- AC3ACM [version 1.4]
• Tools:
- Codec Tweak Tool [version 4.0.4]
- Win7DSFilterTweaker [version 1.9]
- MediaInfo Lite [version 0.7.24]
- VobSubStrip [version 0.11]
- GraphStudio [0.3.2.0]
- Haali Muxer
- Bitrate Calculator

Download it here