Video Playback, Windows 7 FTW

If you've ever tried to set up a computer to play the varying forms of videos you can get on the internet these days then you probably know how much of a headache it can be. Codec packs have been the answer for a few years now (I'm currently using K-Lite for my home theatre PC) but news today may make them a thing of the past.

On Long Zheng's blog, I Started Something, he has posted an item detailing the Codec support found in Windows 7 and how Microsoft's "Vista 2.0" will play almost everything out of the box. Great news for those of you who "acquire" TV episodes or "backup" your own DVDs as most MPEG4 formats are supported (XVID/DIVX/MP4 et al) plus those whacky 3GP Codecs your mobile phone is so fond of.

What interests me the most is the support of the H264 (MPEG-4 AVC) Codec, which is the current standard for high definition video encoding, and the total lack of support for the Matroska (MKV) container format (just like the Xbox 360/PS3) which appears to be totally intentional on Microsoft's part.

I'll keep my eye on this one and props to Microsoft for at least making our Codec Pack horrors slightly less painful.