Formatted the HD and reinstalled OS, lost all old CODEC where to get new?

[white_hew]

Very dumb on my part - but I formatted the harddrive in order to do a fresh reinstall of my OS (WINXP).

Anyhow, I did not save my old CODEC and now I cant play my old movies.

Where is the best place to get codec. The guides/faqs are kind of out of date.

[mitsubishi]

Careful now, "best" is a frowned upon word here.

You might want to start with ffdshow http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/

and Haali splitter http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/

Get the latest build of MPC on the forums and maybe AC3 filter. Also install all software you might have which comes with commercial codecs (such as any cyberlink/Nero stuff etc)

Or you may want to opt for a codec pack like CCCP

[Dark Shikari]

The CCCP is probably your best bet assuming you have no unusual needs in terms of encoding/decoding.