Keilaron

For audio, Foobar2000, hands down. For video, a mix of gplay, mplayer2 (the "old" windows media player), and MPC. As for my choice of codec pack, the CCCP. Hasn't let me down. You mean the one in the statusbar? It's kind of weird that they hid it there, but yes, there is one. Just click where the volume is currently shown (the x.xxdB part of the statusbar). Also, I think (but don't quote me on that!) you can get one elsewhere if you use a different UI plug-in.