MediaInfo
Possibly the biggest frustration in watching digital video is getting the files to work. Invariably, you download something and your computer doesn't have the necessary codec to play it back. GSpot has long been a favorite solution for identifying issues with AVI files, but it doesn't include any way to resolve whatever the issue might be. MediaInfo ups the ante by providing information about virtually any video file type you throw at it and goes the distance in linking off to a related site where you can download what you need to playback a file. For instance, if you download an OGM video file, MediaInfo shows both the video codec used and the audio codec used, with links to the appropriate site for downloading each. It also shows you any of the descriptive tag information of the file. The only thing that would make MediaInfo better is to make it a Windows Media plugin to trap errors in the player and tell you why a file won't play instead of the cryptic error messages Microsoft provides currently. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]