free multimedia viewer - are there ANY that work?

[Pierscoe1]

I used to have a full version of ACDSee5, that would play absolutely ANY video file no-matter what format, it would display ANY image, etc etc etc....

I've just got a new PC with Vista, and am searching for something to do the same (don't have the old acdsee any more)..

nothing I've tried seems to be able to play/view all file types/formats/codecs etc.. and it's driving me up the wall..

Do any of you know of any good freeware viewers (just viewing.. I don't want it to convert/compress/tag/wash the dishes etc) that will deal with any format you throw at them??

thanks all...

[NewNameNeeded]

VLC Player seems to play everything I've ever thrown at it. Never used ACDSee though so no idea how they compare.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ 

edited to add .... above probably doesn't do images though .... just video files ... so not the total solution you seek

Edited by NewNameNeeded on Tuesday 25th December 00:01

[buggalugs]

For video it's the codecs you need more than the player, check www.free-codecs.com for some good codec packs.

[NWMark]

yes i can recommend the k-lite pack or the CCC pack from the above site.

[Pierscoe1]

A bit of confusion here... I want a viewer that displays thumbnails of all your videos.. such as ACDSee, IfranView, Etc Etc....

not just a media player, like VLC, MediaPlayerClassic,GomPlayer etc...




>>>>>edited to ad:

Having tried:
XNView - unable to zoom videos, so youtube/PHTV vids are tiny on screen
IfranView - lots of thumbnails come up as media icon rather than a frame from the video
ImageWalker - just crap
FastStone - no video, just jpg

I finally managed to dig out my old copy of ACDSee... which views everything, and works great!!
Why is this so difficult to find?? Seems crazy to go back to 5 year old software for such a simple task!

Edited by Pierscoe1 on Wednesday 26th December 16:49

[Scraggles]

got some free version of old acdsee, use that for images and vlc for movies,with winamp for music, that combo seems to wotk ok