Download K-Lite Codec Pack 8.6.0

Just as drivers are necessary for hardware to work properly, audio and video files need something to play properly. One swears by a media player that solves it internally, such as VLC Media Player, the other by an ffdshow filter. It is also possible to install separate codecs, such as the K-Lite Codec Pack. This one is available in the flavors basic, standard, Full and mega. The first contains only what is necessary to play files. Standard also includes Media Player Classic – Home Cinema and handles DVDs better. Finally, Full and Mega contain even more codecs and make it possible, for example, to encode files yourself. Version 8.6.0 of K-Lite Codec Pack has been released as successor to 8.4.0 and the changelog of this release looks like this:

Changelog 8.4.0 to 8.6.0

• Updated Media Player Classic Home Cinema to version 1.6.1.4170
• Updated ffdshow to version 1.1.4399
• Updated LAV Filters to version 0.49 build 2012-03-22
• Updated madVR to version 0.82.5
• Updated Codec Tweak Tool to version 5.3.0
• Updated Win7DSFilterTweaker to version 5.2
• Updated MediaInfo Lite to version 0.7.54
• Compatible with Windows 8 Consumer Preview
• Added Icaros 1.3.2
  Icaros is an Explorer shell extension for video thumbnails. It should provide better thumbnailing functionality than Microsoft’s shell extensions.
  Icaros requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4. This is part of Windows 8 by default. Vista and Windows 7 users can install it through Windows Update. Icaros is not available on Windows XP.