That’s fine and often works, but it does not always resolve the underlying problem. Codec Toolbox is a free beta program for Windows that can check the system for codec problems.

All that a user needs to do is to start the portable program and select the Check problems of codecs option in the pull down menu in the main interface.

codec problems

The program scans all installed codec information and displays errors related to them in the text box on the same screen. It will for instance notify the user if a codec is missing on the hard drive that is referenced in the Windows Registry.

At this time, there is no option to automatically resolve the codec problems from within the software. This means that the user has to repair the problems manually. For a missing file and reference in the Registry this would for instance mean to delete the entry in the Registry.

codec Toolbox can do more than just scan the system for missing codecs. It can create a list of all codecs installed on the system, and read and change the merit value of codecs. The merit value is used by applications to select a codec if multiple are able to play a media file. The codec with the highest merit value is picked automatically by the applications.

Codec Toolbox comes with command line parameters as well to perform the supported operations. The program is still in development, and users will likely notice that in one form or the other. It is for instance not possible to change the size of the program interface, which makes it incredible difficulty to read the outputs of the program.

The portable program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows. A download is provided at the developer forum. Alternatives are Codec Sniper, Codecinstaller or G-Spot.

Users who swear on video players that rely on system wide codecs on the other hand can use a software program like Video Inspector that analyses video codecs and displays the information needed to play the video on the computer system.

The tool can be integrated in the Windows Explorer context menu to display information about the current video file directly. The alternative is to use the interface to browse the computer system for supported video files. It covers the popular AVI, Matroska, MPEG I, MPEG II and QuickTime containers which means it cannot identify other video formats like wmv.

Information about the video codec and audio codec are displayed immediately after loading a video into the software program. Various information about the video are displayed including the codecs used. Probably more important than that is the visual aid that is telling the user if the proper codecs are installed to play the video. A download button is present in case they are not to immediately download them to the computer system (using codecsdb.com).

Video Inspector comes with a few extra tools and options that include displaying all installed audio and video codecs, burning or converting the video to DVD, extracting the audio, splitting the video or changing the FourCC.

There has been some bad blood lately about products published by KC Softwares as they started adding Relevant Knowledge to their software programs. Relevant Knowledge actively monitors a user’s browsing and purchasing on the Internet. Many spyware and antivirus companies therefor classify Relevant Knowledge as spyware.

It has to be noted that Relevant Knowledge is only included in the full builds of the program. A lite version is provided on the same download page that does not include this component.

Viable alternatives to Video Inspector are G-Spot, AviCodec, Media Info or Codec Installer.