Cool, thanks, I wouldn't have thought about hardware acceleration. I'll check that next time I run into it.

I didn't mean that I had installed multiple (conflicting) codec packs, but rather that I'd installed one a while back (some older version of CCCP), removed it and installed a newer one, etc.

Is CCCP still kind of the best single package, or should I be getting my codec juice from a different bottle?

Like I say I don't use codec packs, if you understand how video gets rendered via DirectShow you can get cleaner results with fewer codecs by hand. I think CCCP is still supposed to be one of the best, the issue in the past has sometimes been that some idiots build codec packs that just install every codec they can find, rather than one good one for each format; or the pack comes loaded with malware, spyware, or adware of some kind that you have to remember to uncheck the box for — if that even works. CCCP had a reputation for doing neither of those.

I've just installed ffdshow tryouts (A codec that supports every video/audio format the ffmpeg library does, i.e. a LOT. It can also load soft-subtitles too) which covers me on the decoding side.

On the splitting side I have Haali which does the best job for Matroska/WebM/MP4 Containers. Realistically the only other container formats you're likely to encounter are AVI (which Windows will have a splitter for anyway) OGM (which Haali can also handle) and FLV (There's a standalone filter in the Media Player Classic - Home Cinema project, or you could just use that version of Media Player Classic which will have it as an internal filter.)

The only format I've ever really have trouble with via DirectShow (and since I generally play audio in Winamp its an almost insignificant problem for me) is FLAC audio and containers. The filters I've seen are either ones that split and decode (where I would prefer them to split and pass the audio onto ffdshow for decoding) or they split, but for some reason will not connect to ffdshow.

Note that you will need to keep everything either 32-bit or 64-bit or install versions for both. A 32-bit Media Player Classic, for example will only be able to load 32-bit filters.

Edit: I will note that it can be worth knowing how DirectShow builds what it calls filter graphs, so if you have a problem with a certain file you can try and work it out yourself. For example Nokia's Ovi suite installs a bunch of filters for playing back video recorded from your phone, and they work for that purpose. Unfortunately they seem to break on every other type of MP4 file out there, and yet have the uncanny knack of getting loaded ahead of any other existing MP4 splitters. When they first started breaking I was able to load the broken MP4 file in GraphStudio, see that unfamiliar filters were being used, and their location on the filesystem (i.e. Somewhere below a folder called /Nokia/ in the heirarchy) and unregister them. Then make sure whenever Ovi suite has to update that I promptly unregister them again.

Cool, thanks for the info.

It always gets difficult when people ask me for advice like that, as I usually go for the hands on route over simple "one-click" (more likely few-clicks) solutions.

The MP3 tagger I used before switching (due to lack of maintenance) to a combination of MP3tag & Foobar fell into that category. XNview works for converting images and resizing/cropping them for uploading, but it's hardly a friendly way of doing it. And when it comes to simple video encoding (I just want it to work on my phone/DVR/whatever) I'm well out of touch there — I roll with AVIsynth (yes there exists a scripting language for editing video files), VirtualDub, and MeGUI; very nice if you know what things like quantisation mean…

Stupid wi-fi tech question: There's a wireless router I'm trying to connect to, but it's a bit far away, and thus, has a really weak signal. Is it possible to improve this situation from my end (i.e a different/better wi-fi adapter for my PC) or is the only solution to improve the router itself?

You can get a wireless repeater to boost the signal. But that would need to be somewhere between your PC and the "router".

In this case, "between PC and the router" would be the middle of a road

Ah, well. Then I don't know of a way to boost the signal.

A better external antenna will help, too.

Is that a thing for the router itself or is that something for my PC?

Well, both, but I was specifically thinking about your PC...

Tell me more. What is one of these, how do I install it and how does it work?

Come now. Search Amazon or whatever for a high gain antenna. You may have to ask your wireless card manufacturer for options or look on their website for compatible options.

Hmmm, it seems like most of the products I was able to find were replacement antennas for the router itself. But then I found THIS, would something like this be able to get a stronger signal without upgrading the router?

Hmmm, it looks like my wireless router can function as a repeater. Assuming I'm able to get this working, would it then be possible to route the internet it's receiving via a LAN connection to another computer on the network, but ONLY this one computer and none of the others?

Or maybe the best option would be to get a wifi adapter with a high gain antenna, then use interent connection sharing? Wait, does that program even have the ability to share with specific PCs?

Long story short, a guy who lives in the same building as me, knows the guy across the street who has an unlimited internet connection. He's willing to share it with us, so we need to work out some way of:
1) Actually receiving it
2) Getting it to both our PCs and ONLY our PCs.

I'm the closest to the neighbor's router, so I would probably be the first step in the chain.