the built in media players from Microsoft are basically crap...
i recommend this for video playback on a computer... http://www.videohelp.com/software/PotPlayer ; i have been using that for years and it plays video files well.
VLC, as mentioned above, is a popular video playback program on the computer but i personally think Pot Player x64 is better as it's the little things that make it better as it supports hardware accelerated video playback by default (i.e. uses less CPU since your GPU does nearly all of the video decoding work for h264 video) where as VLC does not the last i knew and things just seem more responsive with Pot Player when fast forwarding or rewinding etc. if i want to go back maybe 5 seconds i just tap the left arrow key and to go forward tap the right arrow key or you can hold it if you want in Pot Player.
as far as audio conversation (AUDIO CD to .FLAC or MP3/AAC etc) and playback... i use http://www.foobar2000.org/. here is the encoder pack for it... http://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack . for AAC encoding you will need to extract a file out of the iTunes or Quicktime installer and install that so Foobar's QAAC.exe file can make Apple AAC (.m4a) audio files. but unelss you really want/need AAC i would just stick with MP3 @ v2(192kbps average) or v0(245kbps average) personally as it's less work and at higher bit rates pretty much all of the major encoders work about the same as it's the lower bit rates (say roughly 128kbps or so and lower) where AAC beats MP3.
i generally use MP3 @ v2 (which means bit rates typically float around 190kbps on average as it's using the LAME encoder which is the standard for MP3) as that seems to be the sweet spot for trying to keep audio quality high enough but keeping the file size down a bit. but i guess with storage space being quite cheap nowadays FLAC is not a bad option for those who are obsessed about maximum audio quality. but the truth is, most people(probably vast majority), won't be able to tell the difference between a MP3 @ v2 compared to the actual AUDIO CD when they do a blind test which you can do with Foobar2k if you want with a ABX test (i.e. here is the plugin for Foobar... http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx) which basically has you insert the FLAC file and then your lossy MP3 (or AAC) and then purely by listening to the sound samples you have to determine whether sample A matches X or Y and B matches X or Y and do that say 15 times and if you don't mess up chances are you are hearing a difference otherwise your not. if you low the bit rates far enough on your lossy files you will begin to notice a difference but it will vary a bit from person to person depending on how good your hearing is etc. but that MP3 @ v2 is a safe choice to where it's high enough sound quality to where i am willing to bet you won't be able to tell the difference between the FLAC. even if you could, it's very minimal.
also, if you got a lot of hard drive space i recommend you rip your AUDIO CD's to FLAC format as this way it's like having the AUDIO CD on your computer and then you can use that to convert to other lossy formats in the future like MP3/AAC etc. NOTE: FLAC is a lossless audio format which means it's sound quality is identical to the actual Audio CD (assuming you made it from the actual Audio CD) but with FLAC it takes up about half of the storage space of the typical AUDIO CD. so a full 80 min Audio CD would be roughly 400MB give or take in FLAC format.
p.s. everything i mentioned above are free programs.
My Top 100ish Movies = http://goo.gl/EYFYdz My Favorites = http://boxd.it/UkLa
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