Always use open source codecs to avoid DRM and other closed platform technology. VLC plays everything you can throw at it , and more; it has never failed me for audio or video playback be it lossless files like Flac /Ogg/Vorbis or compressed crap like MP3s. On the video side the same holds true though newbies should invest some small amount of time to peruse documentation and understand the defined elements of a dvd (hint hint no links but google dvd + decrypter). VLC full 1.0 release is available and will take less than 30 secs to grab as of Mid May 2010 the latest version is 1.05 and here's a link to the win32 binaries: http://www.videolan.org/mirror-geo.php?file=vlc/1.0.5/win32/vlc-1.0.5-win32.exe
Hey now I maintain this patch of cyber real estate primarily to share links and the occasional tech tip with friends
