XC on TV---is good footage possible?

OK, I tried getting a torrent onto my unused PC laptop Win98. I
downloaded a couple different ones. They are .AVI format. I get the
"Class not registered" error. I spent hours trying to sort that out.
No luck. I reinstalled WMP9. Reinstalled codecs. Ugh! (I tried
RealPlayer, WinAmp, AceMP, DivX...nada.

I even did a tip I found online of doing a Run to activate(?)
Quartz.dll, plus I also reinstalled Quartz.dll --- several folks
seemed to blame that error on that file.

I guess I'll try another PC WinXP in the house and see if that works.