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Somebody fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jan 16, 2021

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Somebody fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Oct 15, 2021

There are obviously many options, but the basic gist is this: you really only need the latest ffdshow and Haali Media Splitter (better MKV support) to play just about any format (XviD, h.264, etc.) out there. Some prefer to install these two programs individually and add their favorite player to the mix like Media Player Classic, while others go the easy route and install a pack that takes care of everything for them. The goon-made DefilerPak is terribly outdated, while the popular K-Lite Codec Pack is usually considered too bloated. The current favorite is the Combined Community Codec Pack, which should get you up and running in no time. Their Insurgent tool is also great for cleaning up your system if you've previously made a mess of your codecs by installing other packs.

Since Media Player Classic seems to have been discontinued, Media Player Classic - Homecinema is a worthy continuation that's being updated with new features including 64-bit and EVR support.

A final option would be to use either the popular VLC media player or surprising newcomer GOM Player, which use their own internal decoders and thus don't require codecs.

For those that are having performance problems with h.264 encoded content, you can give CoreAVC a shot which provides the fastest software decoding for h.264 content.

For conversion between two file formats, MediaCoder and SUPER(c) are great for Windows, and HandBrake (Windows/Mac OS X/Linux)] has recently gained support for source files other than DVDs.

Check for discussion threads in The A/V Arena or Games subforums as well to see if people are already talking about your device.

Use MakeMKV to strip DRM, change the container, and rip off of the source. Then re-encode with HandBrake if you like.

DVD Flick (Windows) is a great DVD authoring program, and it's free too!

One option is to get a program that allows screencaptures, such as Media Player Classic, WinDVD or PowerDVD. For media files, you can try something like Media Player Classic, VirtualDub, or NanDub. The simple Save Image function in VirtualDub may give you finer control over frame-by-frame seeking, however.

Another option is to go to your Display Properties (right-click on Desktop->Properties) -> Settings tab -> Advanced button -> Troubleshoot tab. Then move the Hardware Acceleration down to "None". This should allow you to take screen captures from any media player. After you're done making your screencaptures, put the hardware acceleration back to normal as you may notice degraded performance otherwise.
_{Thanks Naky}

For Windows Mediaplayer 9, simply press Ctrl+I. WMP will default to saving it as capture.jpg in your My Pictures folder. You cannot save in any format except JPEG and BMP. This does not work for all formats. It will work in most (if not all) AVI and MPEG container movies, but WMV files tend to have copy protection of some sort which disallows WMP screenshots.
_{Thanks Psion}

Probably not. Read the following articles:

http://faq.storagereview.com/SingleDriveVsRaid0
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101

Basically, RAID 0 significantly increases your chances of data loss (i.e. if one drive fails, all data on array is gone), in exchange for fairly insignificant performance gains. It won't make your games faster, and in fact very few storage-intensive tasks will see any kind of benefit at all. Don't bother with RAID 0 unless you have a good application like video editing scratch disks or heavy I/O access (server environment).

RAID1 isn't a proper backup method. It does offer redundancy, but it'll only protect you from the spontaneous failure of a drive from some cause that didn't kill the others. Considering the rather high cost of having to buy twice as many drives as you need, most desktop users will be far better served by a DVD burner. A stack of good DVD-Rs will protect your data regardless of what happens to your PC, and they're far cheaper per GB than hard drives.

The popular theory is that the only way to truly and securely delete your data is by using the Gutmann method, or the US DOD method, which are basically these super-long multi-pass wipes. Gromit, - who wrote the Partitions/Formatting/Data Recovery guide on the SH/SC wiki - agrees with the rebuttal that these multi-pass wipes are unneccesary, and that a one-pass wipe will suffice.

For x86 Windows/*nix systems, you can use DBAN and do a single-pass wipe. OS X has built-in utilities and guides to help you.