Xine and win32codecs problems
 

Hello all (and sorry for a rather long post).

I am struggling a bit with the Xine video player... I'm using Debian Woody (stable, yes) and I haven't got Xine to play WMV files yet, and I have also problems when playing AVI files. I got one AVI file working though.

I tested the same files under Windows XP and they work fine there. 10 points to Microsoft from that.

(Please do not instruct me to change to MPlayer, I don't like it. It ruins my "I-like-my-Debian-as-stable-as-possible" philosophy completely. And I remember trying to install it once and got so annoyed back then that those bad memories have not faded yet.)

System specs:

- NVIDIA 6600 GT 128 MB AGP graphics card (Asus)
- NVIDIA's latest graphics card driver for Linux
- Xine is using OSS audio driver

This is what I did:

As root: apt-get install xine-ui

All fine for now, it plays MPEG's just good as a normal user.

After learning that I have to install w32codecs to get Xine playing WMV and some other file formats, I decided to download those codecs from the MPlayer site.

1. user: downloaded codec file essential-20050412.tar.bz2 (all codecs without free alternative, for Linux x86)
2. root: copied all files from essential-20050412.tar.bz2 to /usr/lib/win32
3. user: tried Xine with WMV, no luck... didn't work
4. user: checked that Xine points to the correct directory... yes it does
5. root: tried Xine with WMV, no luck... didn't work

This is the output Xine gave at this point to the console:

OK I know how to read from there that it doesn't recognize the video format and I am still missing some file (divxa32.acm) from the /usr/lib/win32 directory. I head back to the MPlayer site to download the file all-20050412.tar.bz2 (all codecs for Linux x86 (Win32 .dll and Linux .so)).

Second method:

1. user: downloaded codec file all-20050412.tar.bz2 all-20050412.tar.bz2
2. root: removed all previously installed files from /usr/lib/win32
2. root: copied all files from all-20050412.tar.bz2 to /usr/lib/win32 (and the missing file (divxa32.acm) from the previous attempt is now in the directory, looks promising...)
3. user: tried Xine with WMV, no luck... didn't work!

This is the output Xine is now giving to the console:

I can hear sound playing now but there's no video.

I tried playing with all of the "demuxer selection strategy" options in Xine but it didn't help. I left it at the "default" setting.

I can see that this line appears in both listings:

demux_asf: unknown video format WMV3

Somewhere from the MPlayer site I can read that files:

- wmv9dmod.dll
- wmvdmod.dll

are needed for WMV3 and I have them but yet I do not get it to work.

I also tried an older codec package (win32codecs-20040703.tar.bz2 from MPlayer archives) but it didn't work any better, gives the same error.

What do you think about this, what should I do to fix the problem? Reboot into Windows XP?

:)

I would try adding the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:
Then do: Hope that works.

Hmm.

No it does not help.

And I am sorry I forgot to mention that I already tried the same method at the very beginning, just from another site and it didn't help either. That's why I ended up in the MPlayer site.

It looks like there are same files in those packages compared to what I got from the MPlayer site in the all-20050412 package.

Still just sound, no video.

I am now pretty confident that I have the needed codecs but Xine just gives the error "demux_asf: unknown video format WMV3" and doesn't display the video.

What could be wrong?

If you have the codecs in the /usr/lib/win32 try checking the xine config file

cat ~/.xine/config

check the path to the codecs under
codec.win32_path

Here's some good information on Xine anyway.
http://linuxreviews.org/man/xine/

Hope you can get it working.

KC

I know that with mplayer and kaffieine after installing a plug-in the whole application needs to be re-installed/upgraded, and I think you'll find that mplayer is based on Xine (or kaffeine, cant remember), so it should be the same.

All in all, I would try re-installing/upgrading Xine

Mplayer and Xine were developed completely separately. However, they should both work with w32codecs in Debian, see: http://www.mepis.org/node/4248

It may be a good idea to reinstall xine though, to remove any traces of the manual configuration/installation you tried. I would try:

Hmmm...

No, it doesn't work.

I didn't do any manual installation for Xine, just for the codec package after trying it first with apt.

But I tried to reinstall Xine (again). I have checked the win32_path many, many times and yes it is pointing to the correct directory. I have tried running Xine as root and as normal user with no luck. I even tried to change file permissions in the /usr/lib/win32 directory but no, that didn't help either.

But I appreciate all your help and maybe some day I will get it working.

Maybe testing some other program would be a good idea just to see if I get WMV's and AVI's in general working in my Debian with those w32codecs.

I never had any luck with xine either try installing kaffeine which uses the xine engine ironically and works perfectly for me or since you have the line in there for it mplayer (-386,-586 or -k6, that should work as well.

Odd...I installed w32codecs and xine-ui. I can play quicktime movies in xine with no problems and I did not configure anything from the default configuration. In the xine preferences, it has the path to w32codecs as /usr/lib/win32, but I did not have to set it up myself. :confused: I also like mplayer a lot better. I think Kaffeine and Gmplayer are both easier to use than xine-ui.

Then install the all-codecs package. The directory on my system is /usr/local/lib/codecs it contains alot more than just the win32codecs.

Don't forget to point Xine to your win32 plugin directory - the default is usually /usr/local/lib/win32. I believe you can share the Mplayer win32 plugin directory , but have never tried. It shouldn't be necessary to reinstall , just restart Xine.

edit: corrected spelling

Here's something to try.......
Add the following sources for update....

deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ stable main
deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sid main
deb-src http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sid main

Now assuming you have done that type in the following from console (logged in as root of course)
apt-get update && apt-get install wxvlc libdvdcss2
The WHOLE thing...all of it.

I did this and now all of a sudden my Xandros distro's Xine now plays dvd movies (it didn't before) , and I've never been able to load MPlayer.....keeps saying broken packages (even after it was JUST installed!)
Misfit

Another thing you might try is adding the line
/usr/lib/win32
(or whatever your path is) to the file /etc/ld.so.conf. After that, reboot or run /sbin/ldconfig (as root).

Good luck.

Re: Xine and win32codecs problems
 

Okay ... I am really going to embarrass myself here but ... here it goes.

I had the same exact problem you have and it took me forever to fix the problem. I downloaded the "all" option [all-20050412.tar.bz2] from Codec Packages at the MPlayer site and installed them, and to nothing worked. I did everything everyone here recommended and nothing happened. I did, however, overlook the obvious.

When I placed the unzipped folder [all-20050412] containing the necessary files in the usr/lib/win32 folder I kept all the files in the folder they came in ... I did not transfer the files from that folder into the usr/lib/win32, so when Xine tried to find the files it couldn't because they were technically not there ... they were in usr/lib/win32/all-20050412. I know that this was a stupid stupid mistake ... but maybe you this is your problem ... everything is now working like a charm and I could not be happier!

Sometimes we overlook the obvious in haste ... hope this helps.

btw ... I am running Xandrose, I don't think that matters though.