.NET or ActiveX component for playing common video formats

I'm looking for any reliable, commercial or freeware component to add video playback support in .NET application.

Tried numerous options and packages and none of them seem to handle playback o开发者_开发知识库f common formats.

The most common option - Windows Media Player ActiveX - is quite good, but requires WMPlayer to be installed on user's machine.

MediaFoundation doesn't seem to work on XP.

DirectX AudioVideoPlayback API is very buggy. It works perfectly on one machine or completely fails on another (with the same codecs being installed).

Something SIMPLE and RELIABLE would be great. I've also tried FFOSX which claims to support the required functionality. While it works perfectly in VB6, it completely crashes in .NET environment.

It's really confusing that everything works partially or doesn't work at all.

Any suggestions regarding possible alternatives I haven't tested so far would be appreciated.

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Have you tried VLC (VideoLan Client)? It is a self-contained, open source media player that you can use in .net applications as an ActiveX control. You will need to verify the license though, but I think it is safe to redistribute the official binaries.