Anybody know of a free MPEG2 decoder for Windows?

[MGMorden]

I'm looking for a freeware MPEG2 decoder/player for Windows (not a DVD player, just something to play unencrypted regular MPEG2 files)? Every time I try to find one all I find is Elecard which is a commercial product (one that I can't afford right now).

 

[singh]

When you say 'decoder', are you looking for a full software player that plays mpeg2 video files?

 

[MGMorden]

Yeah. I've got a TV tuner setup that will capture to MPEG2 but then I have nothing to play the files with (I get audio only). I downloaded the Elecard player which seems to work well (even adds MPEG2 support to media player), but it's a shareware product. I'm not sure that it ever expires but I'd rather have a freeware version anyways.

 

[singh]

Don't you have a DVD Player on your system, like PowerDVD?

 

[Furor]

You need a DVD player like PowerDVD, Windvd, etc to install the codec.

 

[NicColt]

There is no such thing as a free mpeg2 player since the mpeg2 codec is a proprietary codec. Every mpeg2 player must pay a royalties to the MPEG2 group, so unless they want to loose money there's no such thing. We were talking about this in newsgroups and it's something like .25 cents per player.

Normally when you buy a video card or a cd-rom they will included a player. They just can't legally give it away.

 

[kami]

install this and mpeg2 files will play in windows media player.

 

[MGMorden]

Originally posted by: NicColt
There is no such thing as a free mpeg2 player since the mpeg2 codec is a proprietary codec. Every mpeg2 player must pay a royalties to the MPEG2 group, so unless they want to loose money there's no such thing. We were talking about this in newsgroups and it's something like .25 cents per player.

Normally when you buy a video card or a cd-rom they will included a player. They just can't legally give it away.

Actually, from everything I've read it's absolutely fine to have a freeware MPEG2 player (Xine and Mplayer are free on Linux and do MPEG2, and Elecard was freeware at one time before it went shareware). It's a software DVD decoder (though DVD is encoded in MPEG2, it's not that part that is charged for) that has to pay royalties for the decryption stuff (and hence why none of the aforementioned software contains or even links DeCSS on their site). IIRC correctly those DVD royalties go to the MPAA; I'm pretty sure the MPEG group is supposed to be an open standards group (hence why you can play an MPEG on just about anything but it's hard to play an avi or quicktime movie on some platforms).