solution for playing win32 codecs in mplayer under x86_64
 

Hey everyone

I was struggling for a few days to play some wmv3 files under linux. I was shocked and not surprised to findout that there is no 64 bit versions of these codecs available and also disappointed that 64bit version of the mplayer is not able to play the win32 codecs due to compatebility.

I decided to compile mplayer using gcc4.0.2 which failed big time and i also had some problems with gcc3.4.4 compilation.

so to solve my problem i down-graded my mplayer to 32bit. If rest of you are interested here are the steps that i did:
pre) i have suse10.0 on amd64 CPU and used Yast with packman as one of my installation sources.

1) using yast remove these packages: mplayer, mplayer-plugin, mad, lame,toolame,mad-devel, libdv, mjpegtools.

2) after removing them go back to yast and select each package again BUT this time for each package go under "versions" tab and select the i586. and install all the packages

3) congrats you got a 32bit version of mplayer with support for win32 codecs.

there were some dependency problems which i told it to ignore. so far i have no problems around my system and it is as stable as before.

i hope it helps some people. if you have any comments let me know.

cheers

I would recommend this article:

http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/178/42/

originally i set my suse 10 initial packages using the exact same article. but as you can there is no mention of the fact that mplayer 64bit compiled version can not play win32 codecs.

the only solution to go around that problem is to install a 32bit version of the mplayer to allow playback of win32 codecs on linux box.