Ok, so you have decided that you are going to try and buy into the whole concept of Home Media PCs, but you can’t play a movie or MediaPlayer crashes when you double click a file your buddy told you works on his machine. Well, you most likely do not have the right codec installed on your computer. In a nutshell, a codec is a device or piece of software that converts analog video and audio signals to digital signals, compresses them and also converts the other way around, decompressing the signals in the process. Compression is really what makes transferring movies and audio files (ie: MP3) easy and fast. Without compression, the video files would be humongous and most people would not be able to put them on their computer let alone download them.

One of the first things you will want to do if you purchase or buiild a home media pc is to install some basic codecs that will allow you to play the most common video and audio files you will come across on the web. But, which ones should you install? Well, since I am not sure when you will read this, the best thing to do is refer you to a specialist. The people over at GSpot have an installer and codec manager that will allow you to see what codec a particular video/audio file requires, what codecs are installed on your computer and will also install just about every codec you will ever need. There are other benefits to using their installer as well. You will not have to install the players that you will have to install by going to each codec maker’s website. You may not know what this means, but basically it will keep your computer less cramped and running faster and more safely in the long run.