Having Trouble Playing WMV and AVI files in Totem Media Player

Totem Media Player will not play AVI or WMV files. When I attempt to play an AVI file, it tells me I need a specific plug-in then gives me the option to download it. This happens every time. Do I need to install the plug-in? If so, how do I go about that.
Concerning WMV files: I can get picture but no sound other than prodigious amounts of static. What can I do to fix this?

try downloading win32 codecs from mplayer and install them in /usr/lib/win32 .

I can't install MPlayer. That's a whole different story.

You don't need mplayer, you need the win32 codecs. You can find them at that link reddazz posted.

I am having the same problem. I have downloaded the codecs, copied them to /usr/lib/win32 (had to create directory win32) tried running my avi file and still get the same massage. All the files in /usr/lib/win32 have been symlinked to ~/.gnome2/totem-addons too.

I'm only running kde 3.2 do I need to install gnome aswell?

Thanks to anyone who can help.

have you tried playing the same files with MPlayer? Xine (on which totem is based on) seems to play those files fine on my system. You may also need to uninstall the xine-lib package you have and try the one from xine nightly builds page.

I have now, they play fine in mplayer so I'm not too worried about totem.

it seems that there are a lot of problems with totem lately, I think they need to clean up their act.

Totem is the default media player in the Gnome desktop, i want to install plugins for it. How???

I found a solution. Via Apt, one can install "Totem-xine" which is based on the xine codec liberary. It will play any media file

I found another solution. Via http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/, download w32codec-0.52-1.i386.rpm. Use alien to convert to .deb package. Install using dkpg (that is if you are using debian)

Originally Posted by snportal I found a solution. Via Apt, one can install "Totem-xine" which is based on the xine codec liberary. It will play any media file

Um... What is Apt?
(Noob lookin for help playing avi files)

Originally Posted by mortalrage Um... What is Apt? (Noob lookin for help playing avi files)

Apt is the packaging tool thats used in Debian based distros such as Debian itself, Ubuntu and Mepis.