difference between playing multimedia files on different players, some works some not

markotitel · 04-14-2010, 07:17 PM

Hello, where is the problem with playing some files in mplayer and lets say xine.

For example, mkv file mplayer can play and xine wont. Im using debian lenny distro now. in ubuntu xine could play mkv-s too.

RockDoctor · 04-14-2010, 07:26 PM

It's not the player, it's the codecs you have installed. Did you install the codecs from Ubuntu's restricted repositories?

petern2 · 04-15-2010, 02:57 AM

In Debian, you have to download 'Debian multimedia codecs', or something similar. It's a .deb file, so just install that.

Or you could just use vlc player instead.

joachimjacob · 04-15-2010, 03:52 PM

I am currently having the same issue.

OS: openSuse 11.2 64 bit

m4a files (recently imported from iPod) can be played by Mplayer and VLC, but by Banshee, Rhythmbox or Totem. I find this very very strange.

For openSuse though, I have found this nice tutorial for multimedia in suse which seems to work for other people, but not for me (all required packages are on my computer).

Thanks for any hint...

RockDoctor · 04-15-2010, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joachimjacob

I am currently having the same issue.

OS: openSuse 11.2 64 bit

m4a files (recently imported from iPod) can be played by Mplayer and VLC, but by Banshee, Rhythmbox or Totem. I find this very very strange.

For openSuse though, I have found this nice tutorial for multimedia in suse which seems to work for other people, but not for me (all required packages are on my computer).

Thanks for any hint...

I may be way off-base here, but don't totem and rhythmbox require gstreamer plugins? There is (or was) a xine-based version of totem
available; don't know if that would help

axobeauvi · 04-15-2010, 06:33 PM

it could be the player, some build in some codecs and some use system ones
also, they are written by different folks and handle things differently.
I have xine, mplayer, and vlc install since some odd files either don't play at all (on one or the other), or one will do a better job than the others.

axobeauvi · 04-15-2010, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joachimjacob

I am currently having the same issue.

OS: openSuse 11.2 64 bit

m4a files (recently imported from iPod) can be played by Mplayer and VLC, but by Banshee, Rhythmbox or Totem. I find this very very strange.

For openSuse though, I have found this nice tutorial for multimedia in suse which seems to work for other people, but not for me (all required packages are on my computer).

Thanks for any hint...

i think all those players that don't work are just front ends for xine or gstreamer.
kaffeine, totem, etc... = xine

chenxiaolong · 04-15-2010, 10:02 PM

Most Gnome based multimedia players use the Gstreamer backend to play files. Totem has a version that uses a Xine backend. Gstreamer generally plays files very well. To play Windows based files, like WMA, WMV, etc., you need the Win32Codecs from the MPlayer community. You can install by running:

Code:

cd /tmp
wget http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
tar -jxvf all-20071007.tar.bz2
su -c 'mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/codecs'
su -c 'cp all-20071007/* /usr/local/lib/codecs'
rm -rf /tmp/all-20071007*
su -c 'ln -sf /usr/local/lib/codecs /usr/lib/codecs && ln -sf /usr/local/lib/codecs /usr/local/lib/win32 && ln -sf /usr/local/lib/codecs /usr/lib/win32'

Most KDE based multimedia players use the Phonon backend, which is separate from Xine and Gstreamer. It's designed to support Linux, Mac, and Windows. I'm not sure if the Win32Codecs work with KDE applications.

VLC Media Player and MPlayer both come with their own codecs, which is why both of them can play DVD's with out libdvdcss. They don't rely on the codecs installed on the system. VLC and MPlayer come with almost every codec out there and are able to play most files.

Hope this information helps

.