Yesterday Microsoft released a small utility for Media Center Edition to warn users of potential issues with, or switch their preferred MPEG2 Codec (DVD Decoder) if more than one is installed on their systems. The MPEG 2 codec is used by Media Center for viewing Live TV and DVD's, the playback of DVR-MS, MPEG and some AVI videos. The utility warns users about potential compatibility problems for their MPEG2 codec such as, is it Media Center compatible? Is there likely to be an issue playing DVD content? or issues surrounding synchronizing TV content from the Media Center PC to a portable Media Center device.

This utility:
• Lists all the MPEG-2 video decoders that appear in your Windows registry (a database that contains information about the hardware and software installed in your computer).
• Indicates whether each decoder listed in the registry is marked as compatible with Windows XP Media Center Edition and whether any decoder listed in the registry is marked as the preferred video decoder.
• Indicates whether each decoder listed in the registry is marked as compatible with the synchronization feature of Windows Media Player 10.
• Lets you designate which installed decoder that you want Windows Media Player 10 to use when synchronizing DVR-MS files to a portable device. This is known as the preferred video decoder.
• Lets you undo any changes the utility makes to your Windows registry.

Download the Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility (163Kb):
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/b/2/9b276571-80d5-43ca-806f-d68fca4b4e89/DECCHECKSetup.EXE

Microsoft Download Center Refrence:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=de1491ac-0ab6-4990-943d-627e6ade9fcb&DisplayLang=en