What software do I need?

I was hoping that someone could take the time to help this computer challenged guy. I have the usual Windows video player and something called VLC, but it seems that there are still a lof of formats that I'm having difficulty viewing such as .mov and .mpg and a few others. I also don't get the .rar stuff, what do I need to install to view those movies? Free software downloads would be nice, but I'm not hesitant to go out and buy some software if it will give me the ability to watch all of the various movie formats on this awesome site. Is there one all encompassing software program that will allow me to view all these various programs, or do I need a mixture of several different ones?

Thank you so much for the assistance.

TrF2

if you have VLC, it will play ALL video formats, including files that have been corrupted.
J

Most of what you need is free downloads.. If you download GOM Player,VLC Media, 7-Zip , and HJ split you will be able to negotiaate most files you encounter on this website. You can find those on a web search. Good luck!!
G.........

Rar and 7z files are compressed files. Zip files are also compressed but are managed by Windows internally. You need the appropriate software to handle those files before you can play the contents (normally a regular avi, mpeg, wmv or mov file). 7zip is free software (download at The hyperlink is visible to registered members only! and handles most compressed formats. Once you have it installed, right click the compressed archive and extract the contents (extract here, if I recall correctly). After that, your new extracted file will be available to play in the same folder. I agree with dom_joe_hfd, VLC should play most files. Alternatively, download and install a codec pack (search google for codec packs), that will install some software required to play even the most rare video formats.
Cheers!

So when you see a video that has the .rar format, you just have to download all the segments of the video and then somehow unzip them and join them together? I downloaded something called RAR Extract Frog a while ago, but could never figure out how it worked. Is the HJ Split along the same lines with the .rar format? I think I'll give the 7-zip software a try. Thank you.