As far as K-lite, I read about many people seriously screwed up by this "codec megapack"; nothing touches my main editing machine other than the actual editing software.

For this dts conversion and any other "side" projects I use another computer. For now VLC stays on this computer, but so far I have not encountered any audio or video file that my trusty MPlayer Classic could not play back, so I keep it as my preferred player (by the way, it does play dts audio (and video with dts audio), it's just not meant to transcode it).

Well, I looked into my crystal ball and I didn't see any other dts projects coming up... so for now the case is closed.

Thanks for the help, everyone!