Free movie player

My Windows Media Player is screwed up, it won't play wmv or avi's anymore.

Could somebody post a link to a free movie player with it's own codecs (that it's not messing with windows in any way, codec-wise), capable of playing wmv's and avi's?

When a codec-packed multimedia player is mentioned VLC Player comes to mind first.

Other than that, Democracy Player (bundled with interesting features) and Media Player Classic are some of the alternatives. Not sure about Democracy but Media Player Classic should not be coming with its own codecs.

I'll second what LEN said about VLC Player - it's quickly become my player of choice.

Started using vlc player a few weeks ago and it played wmv files just fine. Now whenever I try playing files I've downloaded starting a few days ago the image is all scrambled - I can vaguely see what's going on in the movie but the image consists of hundreds of large "crumbs" in green, red, blue and purple colours.

I get this a lot less and only during the first few secs of a wmv movie on the movies I've downloaded a week ago and before that. Mpegs are completely fine.

I've tried deinstalling and installing vlc player again but nothing changes.

What is this and what do I do?

That sounds like a grapics error - try uninstalling your current graphics drivers and replacing them with the latest version.

VLC had such issues with my machine as well some time ago, however some other players such as BSPlayer and Media Player Classic were running them just fine.

Having a set of media players doesn't hurt. (Try Crystal Player. Google it.)

You can take a look at mplayer, as well.

No, I still have the original problem (from the first post) - my win movie codecs are screwed up so media player won't play avi's or wmv's... only mpeg's. I was looking for a player that came with it's own codecs, so that it would be independent from the windows ones and thus able to play avi and wmv movies...

And now VLC has failed me! So once again I can't watch avi's or wmv's... and it's damn 2007!

Is there a way to reinstall xp movie codecs without making a fresh install of xp itself?

Then it's one of those issues that sometimes happen with certain sets of video drivers.

I'll recommend up/downgrading your video codecs with a clean re-install.

Remove your current drivers,
Get rid of the remnants by Driver Cleaner Professional in safe mode,
Install the new/older drivers.

What's about PowerDVD?

DVD player software, edzy ?

Download & install the latest FFDShow, direct show players (like media player classic) will use its codecs rather than the original wmv, divx, xvid codecs, and its easier on your CPU .In fact everyone should be using this.