Hi everyone,

I have downloaded some .wmv video files (counternoob-moron.wmv at ebaumsworld.com, moron mail) that i want to watch but i can't play them.

When i play them i can hear the sound fine but i am getting a black picture.
(Mpeg files and others play fine so its not my nvidia card)

I have tried this in Xine, FFmpeg player and WMP9 (on XP) but i get the same results across all three. (no video)

My question is, how would I convert the WMV files into Mpeg files so that I can play them?

or what would be a suitable codec for ffmpeg to convert them!
(thus trying to avoid wmvdmod.dll etc)

cheers TIA

go to http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/, download http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/rel...040706.tar.bz2, extract the files, and copy the individual files which you have extracted to /usr/lib/win32. Then edit /home/your_home_directory_user_name/.xine/config and uncomment the line: "#codec.win32_path:/usr/lib/win32" so that it reads: "codec.win32_path:/usr/lib/win32".

No need to convert.
Xine should play them.

wait, i did not read your post carefully. You have .wmv files that even WMP9 won't play them well?
If you search the net you may find something to see what codec they need?.
How do tou expect to convert them when you actually don't have a codec to play them?

Xine will (with wmvdmod.dll in the /usr/lib/win32) but what I want to do is to convert them to MPEG format to minimise the hassle of downloading codecs for all 3 players (ffmpeg,xine,wmp9) and also avoiding micro$oft dll's in linux )

touble is, im not sure which codec I would need to play the WMV files.

i guess i would need a hex editor and read the header or something like that for a string like "WMV2" or whatever. (Gnome identifies all WMV files as ASF files)

i don't think it's gnome's fault. the file command sees wmv as asf.

I can understand the moral issue....
I DID let the great Satan (micro$oft) sneak into my ext3 partitions, (some dll's and some windoz ttf fonts for greek, they are better than the linux ones), SHAME ON ME .

There are many windoz converters but i guess... you don't want to know about it.

i am a bit guilty of that too, i have some fonts taken from window$ (and not just the boring vera sans font) boohoo ;'(

but dont despair, i have linux and window$ on separate hard disks so the bootloaders dont conflict