Hi, all!
Brand new PVD user here. Found it through Google after finding that my old software, Movie Library, was now completely abandoned by its author, and none of the APIs worked anymore. So far this does nearly everything that program did, and a lot it couldn't do, which is awesome, since I actually paid for that one.
Anyway, just thought I'd chime in on this topic, also my first post to the forums...
Having digital files in a large number of different formats, as many do, I eventually found my way to VLC, until it stopped working right, and then BS Player, but I also had problems with that. (Dunno, could be an odd combination of codecs, but I got tired of trying to figure it out, when nothing I tried solved the problems with either piece of software.)
Right around that same time, however, I decided to buy the Nero suite, mainly because I loved their burning software, and also, Nero Vision was the only DVD creation app that could transcode any video file I threw at it to DVD format. Then I gradually discovered that their media player, Nero ShowTime, played EVERY type of video (and I believe nearly every type of audio file) that I had.
Fast-forward a few years later, and I'm still using Nero ShowTime. I know Nero doesn't get much respect, and I can understand the claims that it's a bloated software. It also takes longer than similar types of apps just to load. But I've found it to be really robust and reliable, and I use it pretty much every day.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Going off-topic, thanks for keeping the PVD forums lively, since I've already found answers here to a dozen or so questions that I've had since installing it last week. Looking forward to interacting more with y'all in the future, as I continue to expand my movie database... about 1,000 down and only about 6,000 to go!