i still say codec packs are about useless. ffdshow ac3 i263 w/audio (for really old indeo stuff i've found) real alternative and quicktime alternative if you want those too. if you encode toss in your fav Xvid or Divx encoder. and thats all you should really need. this combo has worked for me in 2k very well. i never come accross a video i cant play, and i dont have to install some pack that might actually break as much as, if not more than it fixes. a word of advice, there seems to be a prob with the current build of ffdshow and playing xvids, either revert to an older build of ffdshow, or configure ffdshow to allow the xvid codec to decode (playback) xvids.