VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
It doesn't need any external codec or program to work.
Great resources to add to my reading pile. Now I just need to find the time to read and apply the mountain of information I've accumulated. Sometimes I feel I need to quit the job so that I can get on top of all the streams of information.