Useful guides and tutorials related to codecs and multimedia.

A plain-English look at when a graphical interface saves you time, when the command line is faster, and why most media tools quietly use both.

Work out whether your subtitles are simply late or slowly drifting, then fix either one - with a keyboard shortcut while you watch, or permanently in a subtitle editor.

How DirectX and Direct3D 11 hand video decoding to your graphics card instead of your processor, and what you need for it to work.

Which media players handle EAC3 audio without any codec setup, which one to avoid on a modern phone, and when to fix MX Player instead.

Why there is no DirectX 12 offline installer, how to get DirectX 11.3 and 12 on Windows 10 and 11, and how to read what dxdiag tells you.

Why VLC plays Xvid files without any codec, and what actually fixes playback when an old AVI stutters, shows artefacts or will not open.

Why MX Player needs no Xvid codec, and what to check when an old AVI file stutters, shows artefacts or plays with no sound.

Which MX Player custom codec file to download - AIO, neon64, neon or x86 - and why the version now matters more than your device architecture.

The free, official way to add HEVC (H.265) playback to Windows 11 and Windows 10, plus the fixes for when the codec will not install.

How to tell whether your PC decodes H.265 in hardware or in software, and what to change when 4K playback stutters.