FFDShow right tool for video

How do I … simplify viewing various video files?

Do you ever wish you could deal with downloaded video with just one application, without having to install yet one more codec? (You know all about codecs, of course. Those are the various encoding systems that are needed by a computer program when it tries to display a video file. For instance, the DivX codec is widely used but has to be installed if your media player runs into a file encoded with that system.)

That’s one small reason YouTube and other sites are so popular. On that site, you’re simply watching a version of a movie (in very low resolution) through one’s browser.

But many other sites that involve a download or a streamed video require codecs.

Here’s the Swiss Army Knife tool that takes care of just about any video file — it’s called FFDShow. It can be downloaded for free from http://ffdshow-tryout. sourceforge.net/

You may have to be patient, as the server doesn’t seem to manage traffic easily.

FFDShow works with all flavors of Windows including Vista. There is also a version for Linux.