VLC is a feature rich media players that plays EVERYTHING. No matter what type of file I have thrown at VLC it has handled it without an issue. VLC does not require the installation of additional codecs. It plays most every file immediately after installation. VLC is also skinable so you can customize the way VLC looks.

VLC media Player is a free and open source cross platform (Windows/Mac/Linux)  media player. I highly recommend it.

You can grab VLC from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

“I got this .mkv (or insert other format here) video file and it won’t play on my machine. It says I don’t have the right codec. What do i do?”

First let me address what a codec is. A codec is an algorithm for compress and decompressing videos. If your computer does not have the algorithm it will not be able to decompress the video and you will not be able to watch the file.

So how do you get the codecs you need? The best option is to download a codec pack. A codec pack  is a group of codecs .. you guessed it.. packed together. The one I like to use is the k-lite codec pack.

K-lite codec pack

K-lite comes in three flavors basic, standard and full. The standard and full contain more codecs than the basic. I recommend grabbing the full pack. After you install the pack you will be able to play back the vast majority of videos available. k-lite also has the codecs needed for DVD playback.

In addition to the codecs the pack comes bundled with Media Player Classic (more on that in another post).

You can download the k-lite codec pack from http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm