ffdshow rev1281

ffdshow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX and Xvid movies using libavcodec or xvid with rich set of video post-processing filters. ffdshow can also be used as a separate post-processing filter for other decoders.

The support for those encoding formats in this codec pack is great and it won't mess up your Windows OS as some codec packs do. It uses few resources and the support for technologies implemented in the CPUs such as MMX, SSE or 3D Now! is there.

There are a lot of post-processing filters inside this pack and all you need is patience and time in order to set up everyone of them. Since the video support is quite complete I am going to write a few words about the audio support.

I like it because the mixer has support from mono to Dolby Prologic II. The Equalizer is way much better that most of the equalizers you usually find into a media player. Another nice thing is the downsample filter, very useful if your soundcard doesn't support high sample rates.

The other great thing about this pack is the fact that is under GPL so this means OpenSource, community support and of course mods of this pack that can be way much better than the original one.

Pluses: it's OpenSource software so this has a lot of positive implications, it has support for all DivX and Xvid versions, for Windows Media file formats and for other MPEG 4 subsets. It has support for MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 standards. It uses very few resources.

Drawbacks / flaws: sometimes it won't unload its dlls from the system's memory. This might crash sometimes the decoders.

In conclusion: a DirectShow codec pack that can put out of the business lots of other codec packs. It isn't the kind of codec pack that can mess up a Windows operating system.

version reviewed: rev1281_20070612