question about codecs packaged with mint

[iamclueless]

one of the things i initially liked about Linux Mint was it was out of the box easier to set up than Ubuntu... detected, mounted and dual-booted the WindowsXP hard drive, and the codecs where included - allowing me to play almost everything ive thrown at it.

my question now is: What codecs are actually included with mint and what does each one do? is there a list somewhere?

thanks

[iamclueless]

is there a package list of mint vs mint lite???

i would like to know which packages are packed with mint and what each package is actually for.

[iamclueless]

oops ill be specific

the packages in mint that are not in mint lite...

[iamclueless]

linux for me has been about having choices or at least the option of changing what is prepackaged with a system...

I know Mint comes with the codecs pre-packaged.. but do i necessarily want ALL the codecs???? If i was to start say from Mint-lite... i am aware that i could just grab the metapackage for gstreamer or xine and w32codecs and libdvdcss2... that would more than likely allow me to play anyhing i want. But again do i need all of it???? On old computers with no DVD drives or CD-RW or tiny hard drives these things matter. Why have codecs you dont need (or cant use).

if you do a Debian or Ubuntu (maybe a Mint one will come in the future) base install - you dont have these multimedia packages installed... To simply drop a codec metapackage that gives you everything defeats the purpose of a minimal install where you control what goes into your system.

Mint has been good in that it has allowed me to play 99% of media formats without doing anything to it. id like to see why...

I could dpkg -l and go through every package... but i know I WILL miss a few things.

Hence i am here asking if there is a list... hopefully someone from the development team can help out.

[iamclueless]

ok let me be exact...i dont want to be misunderstood

its not necessarily each and every codec....its more the packages im concerned about