#klcp

No sob story, no sad justification, she is just Like That™. Would make her an immediate legend in my book.

Well this is new.

I've been using K-Lite Codec Pack (Mega) for years and have never really seen them deploy a BETA version for testing.

Anyone familiar with K-Lite will also notice the same strange behavior. And will know the following site to be the number one to check for official releases. Codec Guide.

MajorGeeks is also another site to check for official releases/updates.

Although... If you follow the Doom 9 forums, you will constantly see that avid followers of the provided codecs (yes, each codec is developed by different people). Following Doom 9 forums on a relatively daily basis, I sort of pick up when Codec Guide is going to make an update release of their K-Lite Codec Pack. It's usually after 4 or more codecs have had major releases.

Following the Doom 9 forums, it's quite easy to keep up to date and generally know when a K-Lite release is to be expected. Each codec has it's own topic in the forum, and avid followers will always report conditions or scenarios where the codec seems to have problems. Of course, these are not common to the average end-user. But still worth a look, just in case. Different people, different needs.

It's quite normal to see beta testing in Doom 9. As well as quick patches for the codec/program in general concern. After all, there's only one way for the devs to find out if an update is needed: testing.

This can be Alpha, Beta or Release Candidate testing. This is very crucial for devs to keep their work going and pushing for more major releases with updates, new features and bug fixes. Without these testings, the devs have no idea if anything works. If they get no feedback, they assume that anyone who uses the program is happy with the current release, abandon it and move on to their next project. This is also quite common in the Doom 9 forums.

As most end-users generally are quite happy with anything that works, they're not too focused on the potential of the program they're using. So no reports are made, no gratification, no suggestions for extra features. No future for the program.

I strongly recommend that each person gets involved with the programs they're using, whether it be freeware, shareware or paid programs. Any type of involvement is enough for a dev to feel compelled to keep up with standards.

After all, they are doing this mostly for your benefit, the end-user.

Which brings me to question why Codec Guide is posting a BETA testing of K-Lite Codec Pack. It's quite unusual. The most popular codecs involved (LAV Filters, FFDShow, 

I understand the need for BETA testing, but usually KLCP waits until the official codecs pass the BETA testing.

In the most recent release of KLCP (8.5.6 BETA) there is one new feature added to the pack, which is my guess why they pushed for a BETA release:

Added Icaros 1.3.2Icaros 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 7/8 by default. Vista users can install it through Windows Update. Icaros is not available on Windows XP.

I suppose, before they make it part of the official stable packs, they want to know if anyone who uses it... well, uses it.

Not quite sure I've seen this as part of a topic on the Doom 9 forums, but devs don't always have to participate in there. Some have their own websites for their updates, news and support forums.

One in particular that comes across my mind is the Sharpya updates of the ffmpeg binaries that are used in MrC's "AVStoDVD" freeware program.

Sharpya has an independent site with updates and news for custom binaries.

The current state seems to be a recovering state of a major hard disk failure...

[02/24/2012] Slowly reconstructing setup (yes I'm almost ignoring tracker reports for now, sorry), github repository of FFmpeg with my patches

[08/01/2012] Sorry guys, I lost the whole content of my hard disk, so I need some time to setup again my build scripts

This news saddens me, as I use AVStoDVD a lot. But, there is still hope :)

Well that's all for now, that's on my mind.

Who uses K-Lite Codec Pack (any version, including x64)?

What are you opinions/thoughts on the Codec Pack?

Do you prefer another Codec Pack over KLCP? (CCCP, Shark007's packs, WinXP/Vista/7/8 Codec Packs, etc)

Are you also interested in the sudden BETA release?

Related Sites: Codec Guide Website: http://www.codecguide.com/  Forum: http://codecs.forumotion.net/

Sharpya ffmpeg http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php  Doom 9 Forum http://forum.doom9.org/