Storm Codec Review - Most Complete Video Codec?

Recently, Storm codec was introduced by most of my friends and they told me that so far the Storm Codec is the most complete video codec. Let's see how true it is...

K-Lite Codec was used to my best option BUT there are some disadvantages as below:

Disadvantages of K-Lite Codec

• Doesn't support Real Player's files (i.e. RMVB)
• Doesn't support MKV files (Full HD video source).

I'm still okay with the RMVB as I can install the Real Player but definitely not the MKV video format.

Perhaps you may have already some ideas the advantages of Storm Codec which are of course support RMVB and MKV Files but it is NOT PERFECT. Let's see...


Storm Codec is Still Not Perfect

• Not all Flash Players Files (i.e. *.flv) can be played - at least those still can be played with the K-Lite Codec but not with Storm Codec.
  

• It still hangs occasionally - not really hangs but just nothing happen when you double click the video file. To solve this, I will just need to kill the Media Player Classic in the task manager (i.e. mplayerc.exe) and restart the player.
  

• Contains useless start-up command - “stormset" c:\Program Files\Ringz Studio\Storm Codec\StormSet.exe /S /opt”. It was blocked by my Windows Defender every time it starts up. It is no harm but I hate the fact that it slows down my Windows start-up time – you can still disable it through “msconfig” command.

• High possibility contains Virus and Spyware – somehow this fella is full of viruses and spywares. There are many versions out there and a lot of people complains about it. You will need to get it from the reliable site.

• No preview thumbnail and Icon - Perhaps there are the ways to fix this and I don't have a time to figure that out. But still, I just don't like the way no icon is displayed for associated video files. It seems like the video files are not recognized.
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The official website of Storm Codec is "www.baofeng.com" but it is always down and downloading the codec is unacceptable slow. It is a Chinese website and all words are written in Chinese. You can click on the following button to download (but it takes forever):

You can download the Storm Codec which I've already tested free with Virus, Trojan Horse and sSpyware from www.brothersoft.com.

Tips: Always uninstall the previous codec software before you try to install any new codec software to your system.


Summary

The most obvious advantages over K-Lite codec is very clear - support RMVB and MKV. Perhaps Storm Codec is the most complete video codec software, but honestly I'm still very concern on the source itself whether it is completely clean from Virus, Trojan Hourse and Spyware. I have heard a lot of complains either from my friend or online forum which makes me no confident on downloading this codec.

P/S: I'm currently reviewing the VLC (another famous open source codec) and will write about it in my next post. Hopefully it will be a better option. :)

Can’t Open Windows Media Player in Vista

I'm not sure exactly what happen the Windows Media Player is no longer can be opened after I created a new user account in my Windows Vista system. When using the original user account of my Vista machine, it still works fine. It is just that it doesn't work for the new user account that I created.

When I double-click the Windows Media Player, nothing comes out. When I double-click the videos and movies, it usually plays automatically with Windows Media Player but it just nothing happens. At first, I was thinking to reformat my whole drive and reinstall the windows but WAIT... Luckily, I found a solution to that.

To fix that, you need to perform the following steps:

(1) Open “Command Prompt” in Administrator Mode.

(2) Run “regsvr32 jscript.dll”

After the command, you will see the “DllRegisterServer in jscript.dll succeed” dialogue box. Now, you can open your windows media player! :) Hope this helps and works for you too!

Missing Trash Folder in Gmail

It is very funny that I have no idea why Google wants to hide the Trash folder in the Gmail. This is at least wasted me 10 minutes just to figure out where the heck the Trash has gone? I was really frustrated!

If you can’t find your trash folder or all of the sudden you realize that your trash folder is gone, what you need to do is to dig it out under the label “XX more” and just click on it.

For this example in my Gmail, what you need to do is click on the “72 more” beneath the labels. The Trash, Spam and All Mail and Chats folder will be shown.


What is Google mistake?

In my opinion, when you put “More” below the label which is a very common sense that it means “More Labels” because they’re now hiding the labels. The problem now is the “More” includes the Trash, Spam, All Mail, and Chats folders and as well as the labels.

I think this should be fixed. What do you think?

p/s: If you want to hide them, it is perfectly okay but please hide it correctly. :)