okay, so i know enough about computers to be dangerous. mostly, i know general maintenance and what questions to ask.

i use primarily use windows media player, but really only for music. the library organization makes the most sense to me and i like the way i can rate the songs. i have my annoyances with it, but i know it and am comfortable with it. i've used real player in the past but prefer media player.

when it comes to watching videos, i generally just click open the file and watch it in whatever player opens it. in addition to windows media player, i have divx, vlc player, and quicktime on my computer. most of my video files open in windows media player, but i have at least one avi file i downloaded that opens in divx

i've never really had enough videos to care about organizing them in a library before. they're in their files and that enough, but my collection of family videos is growing, so i'll probably be handling it a bit differently.

i've downloaded mp3s that automatically open with the vlc player from their file location, but i figured out how to add them to my windows media player library.

also, in the interest of watching/downloading tv from the internet, i've collected k-lite codec pack 5.2.0 basic with ffdshow [rev1723]; media player codec 3.9.1; tvsersity codec pack 1.2 (which came with tversity media center that i've never used); and openmg secure module 4.7.00

i had applian flv player, but i removed it when i realized that vlc player played flv files.

i have mp4 to mp3 coverter 6.2 from maniac tools to play itunes music in media player (though it didn't convert some files, the m4p and m4a files)


my question is this: do i need all this? i don't need two media players. i don't want two media players. i want my computer as clean as i can keep it. can one of my players convert the mp4 files? do i need all the codec packs or is there one that covers the others? ffdshow has codec settings that i don't understand, should i enable it to decode formats that are disabled by default or would that have negative effects for some reason (i don't understand why they are disabled by default)? i want to be able to watch most videos i find online and any that i download. do i need quicktime player on my computer to watch quicktime videos online (even though i'm not running into them as much as i used to)? i have no idea what microsoft silverlight is but i have it. do i need it? i don't build websites, i view them.

for that matter, do i need hp dvd play?

and i have cyberlink dvd suite for editing and burning discs (i've never used it, because i've never done anything more complicated than photo editing and straight file transfer to discs, but it looks friendlier than muvee reveal, which i had and removed, also never used, or the hp programs that came with my computer, and all i'll really want it for is rotating my videos 90 degrees) so do i need windows dvd maker or windows movie maker?

and what's the difference between windows media player and windows media center?

have i asked too many things at once?