Standard Codecs with MS Media Player?

[Jim Ford]

I'm copying a few VHS tapes to DVD and ripping the DVDs to produce files to play on the network at the school where I work. I want the files to be a small as possible, yet play with the existing codecs for the MS Media Player on the school system. Xdiv works OK, but to save me further experimentation, can I achieve higher compression than Xdiv that will work on 'out of the box' Media Player?

Jim Ford

[foxyshadis]

How old? If they're Win98 era, you might be stuck with msmpeg 4. XP minimum is wmv 8, which is somewhat better (and less buggy), but wmv 9 would be significantly better. On the other hand, if they're win98 you can just include the codec on the CD and don't have to worry about permissions problems. >.> If they're Win95 or 3.1, well....

(Xvid, btw.)

[zambelli]

I guess it depends on one's definition of "out of the box". If installing WMP (but no additional codecs) is covered by that definition, then WMV9 is safe because every WMP from v9 on has supported it.

On clean Windows installs, WMV9 is supported on XP SP1 and better, Server 2003 and better, and Vista.