First, And I have tried them ALL, the best player I have found is KM Player (it's free), if you just want to watch a video in .mov, .avi, mpeg etc. My second choices are VLC Player or BS Player. It seems to me that Quick Time, Real Player, Windows Media Player are more interested in you buying movies than actually watching them.
I think the real question you are asking is "why is your video playing choppy"? I will tell you what I don't think it is first.
1. If your cam can play back the video on it's little screen OK, then probably it is not your cam.
2. It is not your video card. Playing Videos don't require a lot of resources. The expensive Video cards are more for gaming than just watching a video. It would have to be a really old video card to effect watching a video.
3. I don't think it is your Player software that you are using. Any player will play a mov or avi video.
Things I would look at first or just do anyway.
1. Download and install KM Player and VLC Player. They will come with their own codecs and will play 99% of the video files correctly. And they are free.
2. Do a search of codecs packages, find a couple that come up first on google search or CNET.com would be a good place to find codec packages (and they give reviews) and install them. You can never have too many codecs, but don't go nuts with it. The codecs you do want are divx, xvid, mp4 for sure.
3. Don't forget the audio codecs. AC3, mp3, wav. Keep in mind that when you watch a video you also listen to it. A bad audio compression can do what you are talking about. The player is having to figure out the audio so it slows down the playback.
4. Probably the converting software you are using is the trouble. A decent converter that gives a free trial would be Aimersoft. I personally use Xilisoft to do simple things such a converting from mov to avi. If you really get into it Cyberlink is my choice. But that is hard core conversion.
My first thoughts to fix your problems is use good converter software, which should also handle the audio if that is the problem. What you are trying to do is not rocket science. If you have the codecs and use decent converter software you should be good to go. Any player should play the file then.
I disagree about AVI being outdated, DivX is a perfectly acceptable codec for what you are trying to do, not great for Ipods and the such, but to just play home movies on a computer it is fine. Xvid is slowly taking over from DivX, but DivX is tried and true.
If you convert your video to DivX with AC3 or Mp3 audio and the file is around 600 Mb per hour of run time and it still does not playback well, then punt. I would then say look at your cam or hardware that is getting it on your computer.
Hope this helps,
Oy
