FC4: Codecs in xine and totem-xine

SimonJW · #1 8th July 2005, 12:04 PM

Hey guys, hopefully someone with a better knowledge of codecs on linux can shed some light on this mystery for me! After intalling my new FC4 (overwriting, not upgrading, my FC3 installation) I noticed that some .avi, .mov and particularly .wmv files were not playing in totem. "Aha!", I thought, "I forgot to install the codecs!"

So I go to the mplayer website, and grab their "all linux codecs" tarbell. I put it in /usr/lib/win32, but make symbolic links from this folder to /usr/local/lib/codecs/ and /usr/local/lib/win32/. I now uninstall totem, and install totem-xine. Nothing - it won't play them still. So I install xine, which also won't play them. I make sure the settings in xine are pointing to the right folder (and they are), but still it doesn't play. Bear in mind, these are files I could play in FC3, after doing (if I remember correctly) the same step with the codecs from mplayer.

I look in Totem and notice an "add proprietary plugins" folder, which has symlinks to some, but not all, of my new cocdes, so I wipe them and create new ones to ALL the codecs (yes, I backed em up). Nothing.

I install and reinstall totem-xine and xine, but nothing doing. I install mplayer, which can play every kind of file fine, straight from installation - so I think "Maybe Mplayer has changed something, and now xine will work!". No. xine and totem-xine still do not work.

Please help, as I much prefer to use totem-xine than mplayer on a daily basis, but it looks like that might not happen. I really can't see where I am going wrong here, but I know I've had it working before, so it's got to be able to work again!

Simon

bitrain · #2 8th July 2005, 12:22 PM

Quote:

I noticed that some .avi, .mov and particularly .wmv files were not playing in totem

Not all wmv's wil play unfortunatly.
What I did was install mplayer and mplayer-gui and to extract all codecs is /usr/local/lib/codecs. I don't know if xine and totem use these codecs too, but neither mplayer nor totem want to play some wmv's.

SimonJW · #3 8th July 2005, 12:41 PM

As I say, these have all played before under linux, under xine, in FC3.

And, as I also said, they work in mplayer now, after I did more or less exactly what you did. But I want them to work in totem. Call me fussy, if you must!

bitrain · #4 8th July 2005, 01:19 PM

Sorry, I wasn't completely awake

Turns out I put my codecs in the wrong directory for mplayer. I also have problems with totem, it just crashes if it can't play the wmv.

SimonJW · #5 14th July 2005, 02:31 PM

In case anyone else is having this problem, here's how I ultimately fixed it - I uninstalled the xinelib package, and reinstalled it from the RPMForge repositories (dag, dries, newrpms, etc). Then I removed these repositories once more, and took xine and totem-xine from Fedora Extras/Livna. (Note: I could find totem-xine on the RPMForge repos, which is why I took totem-xine from a different repo).

Note that usually it is a very bad idea to mix repos like this, but since it wasn't working anyway, I did it. It hasn't resulted in any noticeable unstable-ness, but I didn't use it for long before wiping Fedora and deciding to try Ubuntu as my main distro, which leads me nicely to my next point:

Why can't Fedora distribute things that are of "questionable" legallity, like the Win32 Codecs and packages to enable MP3 playback and DVD playback, in a "Restricted" repository, like Ubuntu and Debian do? This takes the legal onus off of the distro as to whether these packages are installed, and gives it firmly to the user. This is also more user-friendly, as any beginner to Linux starting with Fedora more-or-less has to edit a text file, and run a command line application (yum) to enable MP3 and DVD playback...

This isn't a rant, honest, but a genuine question. Why can't Fedora provide a "this might be illegal, you're responsible for working that out yourself" repository, and why is it the Debian (I think) and Ubuntu can?

tejas · #6 14th July 2005, 03:12 PM

And why on earth would anyone sue McDonald's because they say burgers are making the American Population too fat.

And why was StarBucks sued for making coffee too hot????

Same reason. Anyone is open for $ueing.

Oh, and you problem in the beginning was you got the linux codecs, not the 'everything' codec package

SimonJW · #7 14th July 2005, 04:29 PM

I wasn't asking why Fedora doesn't do it - I was asking why they don't do it, given that Ubuntu and Debain can. As big-anem distributions, are they not equally worried about being sued? That's all I'm wondering

Does anyone know why the two organisations took different desicions?

Oh, and that wasn't the problem, as not only do I remember installing the "all" tarbell, which contains all the codecs including, but not limited to, the "essential" package, but also after installing the new xinelib package it did work. Without changing the codecs I install. So they were definately the right codecs!

agds · #8 4th August 2005, 09:29 AM

You're right; they do worry about lawsuits. As I understand, none of the repositories that contain proprietary codecs like WMV are officially supported by Ubuntu. In addition, they are not available by default when you install the OS. The end user can add the Universe (community maintained) repositories to the sources list if s/he chooses, but Ubuntu does not endorse it.

Sorry, but I don't have a solution to the problem discussed above. I was looking for one myself. I just wanted to clear up any confusion on the topic of proprietary codecs.