I installed Mplayer some time ago witht eh hope that I could watch WMVs. When I saw I needed codecs, I downloaded the essential package and installed them under /usr/lib/win32. Mplayer still didn't play them. I installed Xine, and it won't play them either.

Anyone know what the problem is? I have no idea.

Could you post up the output when you try to play them? Or could you elaborate on the result of the effort?



Thanks!

Cool

In Mplayer I click play, 1 second goes by, and it goes back to the Mplayer screen.

In Xine I get an error message:
-xine engine error-
There is no demuxer plugin available to handle 'home/---/Desktop/Stuff/---/---.wmv
This usually means that the file format was not recognized.

Oh I see

Can you run mplayer from the command line and post up the output:
mplayer -vo xv filename.wmv

Be sure you are in the directory where the file exists first.

Cool

[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ mplayer -vo xv Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv
[1] 4224
bash: 802: command not found
[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ MPlayer 1.0pre3-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon 4 /Athlon MP/XP Palomino 1467 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with Runtime CPU Detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /home/---/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/---/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/---/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 61 audio & 169 video codecs
font: can't open file: /home/---/.mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can't open file: /usr/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Using usleep() timing
Can't open input config file /home/---/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0 : No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing Stargate.
File not found: 'Stargate'
Failed to open Stargate


Playing SG1.
File not found: 'SG1'
Failed to open SG1


Playing -.
Reading from stdin...

Is that what you wanted?

did you install from source? If you did you will need to recompile with your /lib/win32 directory with all the codecs so it can find them. When you recompile it will automatically locate and use the codecs there. When you compile without that directory it won't compile in support for the codecs. When compiling use configure --help to see the options you have and to give you an idea of what codecs you really want.

I'm still new to linux. How do I compile the directory?

Whoa, you might not need to worry about that... yet

Ok, for the filename, use 'auto complete' which is done by pressing TAB a couple of times after typing the first couple of characters in the first word of the title of the video.
mplayer -vo xv Star{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}

Should work.

Then post up the output, thanks!

Cool

[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ mplayer -vo xv Star
Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv Stargate SG1 - 806 - Avatar.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 803 - Lockdown.wmv Stargate SG-1 - 808 - Covenant.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 804 Zero Hour.wmv Stargate SG 1 - 809 - Sacrifices.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 805 - Icon.wmv
[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ mplayer -vo xv Stargate\ SG
Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv Stargate SG1 - 806 - Avatar.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 803 - Lockdown.wmv Stargate SG-1 - 808 - Covenant.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 804 Zero Hour.wmv Stargate SG 1 - 809 - Sacrifices.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 805 - Icon.wmv
[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ mplayer -vo xv Stargate\ SG
Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv Stargate SG1 - 806 - Avatar.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 803 - Lockdown.wmv Stargate SG-1 - 808 - Covenant.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 804 Zero Hour.wmv Stargate SG 1 - 809 - Sacrifices.wmv
Stargate SG1 - 805 - Icon.wmv
[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ mplayer -vo xv Stargate\ SG
MPlayer 1.0pre3-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon 4 /Athlon MP/XP Palomino 1468 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with Runtime CPU Detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /home/---/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/---/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/jared/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 61 audio & 169 video codecs
font: can't open file: /home/---/.mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can't open file: /usr/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Using usleep() timing
Can't open input config file /home/----/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0 : No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing Stargate SG.
File not found: 'Stargate SG'
Failed to open Stargate SG


Exiting... (End of file)

I didn't realize you had more than 1 file... You have a few options, use quotes around the entire filename, case sensitive if you type it. Or, use the auto complete, but continue the next few characters to give it more to autocomplete after it finds the matching characters. Here's what I'd do:
mplayer -vo xv "Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv"

To keep it simple.

Cool

Or you could rename the file so it didn't have any spaces. It's the spaces that are confusing bash. Try using _ instead

I typed that and I got more errors.

[---@ Stargate SG-1 #8]$ mplayer -vo xv 'Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv'
MPlayer 1.0pre3-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon 4 /Athlon MP/XP Palomino 1467 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with Runtime CPU Detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /home/---/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/---/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/---/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 61 audio & 169 video codecs
font: can't open file: /home/---/.mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can't open file: /usr/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Using usleep() timing
Can't open input config file /home/---/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0 : No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing Stargate SG1 - 801 & 802 New Order.wmv.
Cache fill: 0.00% (0 bytes) LMLM4 Stream Format not found


Exiting... (End of file)

Looks to be a mpeg4 format, something about linuxmedialabs Looks like you are probably going to have recompile mplayer after installing all the codecs from http://mplayerhq.hu as was suggested earlier. Too bad distros ship broken mplayer's with their distros, it doesn't make sense. Who doesn't watch videos on their computers?

Anyway, good luck!

Cool

How do you recompile Mplayer?

That's quite the bag of worms, but luckily for you it's been answered several times on the forums, run a search and the answer will appear.

Cool