You probably have lots of different videos and films on your computer you would like to play on your home DVD player. Unfortunately, many DVD players can only read the standard DVD format and it's therefore a waste of resources to burn DVDs with avi, mpeg or wmv files.

DVD Flick comes in handy because it converts PC video files to a proper DVD format, readable by all standard devices. The final file size is much bigger than the original, for example: a 600mb requires a whole DVD. The conversion process is also very slow, but you can leave the program working while you use other applications, as you can select the priority your system gives to the conversion software. The final result will be an audio_ts and a video_ts folder, which is the standard for all DVDs and you can also chose to create an iso file which can be burned again at a later date. It would have been good to have the possibility to add subtitles but unfortunately this feature is missing.

If you are patient enough, DVD Flick is the perfect solution for burning your holiday movie to DVD, meaning that whatever DVD player your friends or family have, they’ll have no escape from your not-quite-Oscar-winning production.

This is a reliable program that does what it's meant to but at the end of the day, DVD Flick is really only going to be useful to people without a multi-format DVD player.

Download DVD Flick 1.3.0.7 in Softonic

FFDshow is a collection of video and audio codecs, allowing you to run almost all types of video and audio files, from DivX and XviD to MPEG 2 files.

As well as the various codecs, there are also playback filters to alter the quality of your files. If you are lookking for a collection of these codecs, FFDShow is a great place to look.

For the regular PC user, it's very unlikely you'll need to use such an application, as video and audio files are becoming more standardized. However, FFDShow is a pretty deep program, and if you're comfortable changing the playback settings for your media player, this gives you a lot of power.

What it doesn't do is explain how it should be used - there is no help at all, and apparently no undo button, which makes changing settings if you're not comfortable quite nerve wracking.

As many media players are now very flexible when it comes to accepting different file types, these codec packs are becoming somewhat obsolete. However, if you are a fan of Media Player classic, and confident messing around with your system's settings, FFDShow will be perfect for you.

Download ffdshow 20041012 MMX in Softonic

There's nothing more annoying than downloading or ripping a film and then reaslising you don't have th right codecs to play it.

Or worse, the codecs that you have are corrupt and don't playback properly. If you've found yourself in this situation then m5Studio Codec is a neat little package which brings together most of the most important codecs you'll need. m5Studio Codec includes all the major codecs you'll need to make sure that you'll never have problems playing a film again.

Among the codecs included in m5Studio Codec are DivX or XviD, Ogg Vorbis or Cinepak or AC3 plus some some lesser known ones such as CoreAVC and Fraunhoffer IIS. Installation is simply a matter of double clicking EXE file and you've got a few configuration controls to control exactly how you want the codecs to perform.

m5Studio Codec is a useful codec package that will be able to playback most of the major formats that you can download or rip films to.

Download m5Studio Codec 8.3a in Softonic

DirectEncode is a software MPEG Encoder. It is implemented as a DirectShow Filter, and allows developers to encode all types of media to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 from within their applications. The MPEG content can be constrained to the VCD, SVCD or DVD profiles (including VOB). The encoder is optimized for speed, standards compliance and high quality video.

DirectEncode comes together with 3 ActiveX controls. All controls can be used in Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi, VB.NET, C#.NET or any other development enviroment that supports automation.

Download DirectEncode 4.5 in Softonic

VidLizard is a multimedia player of DVD, video files (DIVX, AVI, MPEG, ASF), Audio CDs and audio files (MP3, WAV, MID) for Windows. VidLizard multimedia player has an easy-to-use interface with an optional control panel and positioning bar available during full-screen play.

New version has full DVD support (third-party codec required), easy-to-use DVD navigation menu, DVD title and chapter management, DVD subtitle support, and is highly functional as hardware DVD player. But VidLizard, unlike hardware DVD players, can play DVD movie from any folder of hard disk.

CD-Audio features include possibility to play Audio CD from any of CD-ROM drive installed on your system and to play only tracks you like in order you like by modifying the play list. You can change playback rate from one-tenth to double speed and customize movie size with or without aspect ratio preservation. This can also optionally change your screen resolution when it switches to full-screen mode and back. You can adjust properties of all DirectShow filters and build a play list with bookmarks which you can save and load later. It can even step through video stream as slowly as one frame at a time.

Download VidLizard 1.24 in Softonic