I'm trying to install the "essential codecs package" thats available on the Mplayer homepage but im completely lost.. It doesnt come with an installer and I cant seem to find the codec directory. Any help appreciated .. thanks..

What distro are you using. If you're using Redhat/Fedora, Look in download page and go to rpm download site. Scroll down a bit then you'll find the codecs in rpm format.

Installing the codecs manually needs some extra effort. Take a look here:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html

THANKS! I got the RPM, buuuuttt, I installed it and now my Mplayer FREEZES when I try to play WMV files.. Any idea why? or if there are any better player/codecs for these types of files? thanks!

You have to re-compile mplayer to use the extra codecs because it will not compile the library that is used to handle windows codecs if it can not find it.

I suggest just downloading the codecs and extract them to the directory where mplayer can find them.

Using RPM files can be a real pain to install and fix. I suggest copying the codecs to the directory and manually installing mplayer through source code.

hmmm, i hate to sound like a COMPLETE nOOOOOOOb, but I dont eve know where to begin doing that..I was looking for the directory for Mplayer before with no avail..

Any way you can expand a lil on that? or just point me in the right direction or something??

Thanks..

So I assume that you use the 1.0pre4 rpm from the site. I myself have problem playing wmv file with that version of mplayer. To play wmv file you'll need mplayer-codecs-win32-dmo package. But the ones supplied from the site seem conflict with each other. I suggest downloading the older releases following from this site: http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/linux/...3/RPMS.stable/

These packages will do:

mplayer-codecs-extralite-1.0-1.i386.rpm
mplayer-codecs-win32-1.1-1.i386.rpm
mplayer-codecs-win32-dmo-9.0-1.i386.rpm

And also try looking for rpm for mplayer 1.0pre3try2.
This site:
http://luna.cs.ccsu.edu/dominik/apt/7.3/RPMS.testing/

I've that working with wmv files (I seem to get segmentation fault every time I tried with the later version.

But if you want to try compiling the program yourself, get 1.0pre5 tar.bz2 package from mplayer site. I have it work with wmv, and it plays wmv files better than the previous versions. But I'd rather install the rpms though.

ok, how do i uninstall the version i have now?

it wont let me install any older versions with the newer one already installed

You install rpm files with:

rpm -ivh package-name

right?

so uninstalling:

rpm -e package-name

if you got problem try:

rpm -e --nodeps package-name

Emanon247, compiling is pretty basic so do not think it is hard. After you download mplayer's source code, you have to extract it or decompress it. Usually files that you download comes it different formats such as tar, gzip, bzip2. Mplayer's file ends with tar.bzip2, so to extract it type "tar -xvjf MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bzip2". The x means extract, the v means print what is going to do, the j means use bzip2 extract library, and the f means file. The f have to be come after all the options that you want or tar going to complain. It will extract file in the same directory where you extract it from. You can add -C/tmp or --directory=/tmp to the line to extract it into /tmp. Some users might tell linux to empty /tmp every time you boot, so if you want to uninstall it you can not unless you put it some where else. Go to mplayer's directory. Read the README file. It will tell you how to compile. Most all programs comes with documentation how to compile the program. Usually the steps are "./configure", the second step is "make", and the third step is "make install". You can combine those steps using &&. For example, "./configure && make && make install". There are some programs like WINE that needs an extra step like "make depend". When you run ./configure, it will tell you what options the program will going to have and what libraries or devel packages you need to install. The ./configure plows and plants seeds. The make is when mplayer or the program is compiling. This can take for a few minutes to several days depending on your system. When you enter make install, the installation process begins. It copies the files to the apporiate places that was pre-written by ./configure. I'm not going to explain about how to download the ffmpeg code from mplayer's cvs directory, because the documentation is pretty basic.

If you want mplayer to use windows codecs, you have to first extract them and copy them to where mplayer will see them before you begin compiling. You will also need to install the devel packages, gcc (C compiler), and maybe the kernel source code.

wow, electro and everyone else that was SOOO helpful, thanks for explaining all that, I appreciate it.

I'm gonna try that now, Ill keep ya posted

I you're going to compile the program yourself, take a look at this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=45094
Good luck.

If you have any problems with the RPMs, you should report them to the maintaner.
The segfault problem is a known Fedora issue related to library prelinking. See MPlayer FAQ: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/faq.html#id2894874