What third-party codecs are not needed?

[Alan Mintaka]

Hi,
I've been having problems capturing with MF6+. My posting here went unanswered, so I submitted a message to tech support. One of the things they told me to try was to delete/uninstall all third party video codecs in case there was a conflict somewhere.

The only problem is I don't know which codecs to save and which ones to tank. I used CodecInstaller, a freeware program that analyzes installed codec info, and found a mountain of installed video codecs on my system.

There are codecs that identify Ulead and Intervideo by name, and I assume those are the ones I'm supposed to keep; but which of all the other ones are safe to delete/uninstall and which ones aren't?

I'm posting this question to tech support as well but I wanted to hear from other users who might have some of the same third-party apps installed that I do.

Specifically, I was wondering:

1. Should I trash everything that's not Ulead or Intervideo by name?

2. Should I keep everything that has Microsoft in its name (for Media Player, Movie Maker, etc?)

3. What about Nero Ultra 7? I have that on my system and many codecs identify it by name. If I uninstall those, won't that break Nero?

(NOTE: I have Nero InCD and Nero Indexing Service DISABLED)

4. I have various other applications for MPEG editing, capturing, and so on. Provided I can figure out what codecs are associated with them and uninstall them, this might cripple them. What the.... Is tech support telling me that MF6 just won't play with these other programs?

5. Lastly there is DVD Workshop 2. I'd like to keep this running if I can, in the event that MF6 doesn't work out. It looks as though Ulead is going to dump DVD Workshop but if MF6 doesn't work as a supported alternative, I may have to move on to other products.

The problem is I can't tell if some of these codecs are unique to DVD Workshop 2 or MF6. If I have to delete/uninstall DVD Workshop codecs just to get MF6 to work, then MF6 is history. Is this the case? Are DVD Workshop 2 and MF6 incompatible because of their codecs?

Thanks to all for your time in reading this long message. Have a good day!

Big Al Mintaka