The Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP), which covers 90% of the videos out there. This includes Media Player Classic.
Unfortunately, it doesn't quite cover everything. It doesn't integrate with the browser as far as I can tell, and it doesn't play Real files. So I installed the lite versions of Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative (the full versions redundantly include Media Player Classic). This allowed MCP to play Real files, and also added browser embedded support. Windows Media support was in Windows already, and augmented by CCCP.
And so, every video works without Quicktime/Real running in the background pestering and using up resources




