Recently I purchased a Dell laptop that comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit. As you know, Windows Vista Home Premium edition comes with a media center software installed, called Windows Media Center. As great as Windows Media Center is, just like Windows Media Player, it is not able to play AVI and MKV (Matroska) files straight out of the box. You need to install some AV Codecs in order to play those files in Windows Media Center. The problem is that there are gazillions AV codecs out there, which one works? Here are the breakdown of all the codecs I’ve tried:

• DivX Codecs: This one works, but only for Windows Media Player. It does not work for Windows Media Center.
• FFDShow Tryouts: This one apparently does not work. Maybe I had to configure it to work in Windows Media Center, but straight out of the box it does not work for me.
• Media Control Plugin: This one uses FFDShow Tryouts. Doesn’t work.
• Shark007 Codec Solution: This is THE ONE, this one WORKS. It seems to use FFDShow Tryouts to do the job, but it works straight out of the box. NOTE: if you’re using 64 bit Windows Media Center, you need to install the 64 bit component as well.

RWendi