MPlayer, WMV audio, and urpmi
 

Is it definitely the case that some wmv audio files just won't play in MPlayer (or any other Linux media player)? I urpmi-ed (new verb?) Mplayer the other day, shortly after installing 10.0 official. Figured that would be the easiest way to get all the codecs and everything. But when I tried to open a particular URL to play an audio file, I got a "Unable to open URL" error. I don't think there's a DRM issue--the same site had no problem letting me open a video. Another site I visited also had problems opening an audio file. I tried the same URLs with XMMS (also urpmi-ed), and had the same problem. Is this just a known insurmountable problem at present? Or is there something else I'm missing?

Thanks.

go to EasyURPMI & set up a PLF & a CONTRIB source for yourself. you'll need both because PLF stuff sometimes needs contrib packages as depends. then use MCC (MDK Control Center)->software installer & type mplayer in the search. get the PLF mplayer packages & all the PLF codecs.

the mplayer packages you'll need to install are as follows........

(all of these will be followed by their particular version numbers. this list is just the main name of each package)

mplayer (plf)
mplayer-gui (plf)
mplayerplug-in
mplayer-skins
real-codecs (plf)
win32-codecs (plf)
xanim-codecs (plf)

once it's installed, you may need to go to mplayer preferences & choose the applicable audio & video drivers for your system. you should then be able to play audio or video files with any type of extension, .wmv included.

otis

I did all of this already. Only difference is that I ran urpmi instead of using the graphic installer, but that can't make any difference, right?

I suppose it's possible that I missed checking a box or something when I went through the easyurpmi stuff. Can I/should I do it again, and type in the code it generates all over again, followed by "urpmi mplayer"? Will doing this screw up anything for me?

Currently when I enter "urpmi mplayer", the output is that everything is installed, so it's found everything it can at present.

if you're sure you have all the above apps that i mentioned & you got them from PLF, then it might be a file association problem. or, it could be the particular site your trying to access. if you're having the same problem with multiple sites, then try the following as a test. download a .wmv file (or any file type you're having trouble with) & try playing it directly from your hard drive. if things are set up correctly, Mplayer should be the default player & open up & play the file. if it doesn't open, then it's a file association problem & do what i suggest below. if Mplayer opens but doesn't play the file, then, instead of using urpmi from terminal, try using the graphical MCC->software installer & type a search for all the above mentioned files to make sure you didn't miss anything. the codec files are the ones that let you play all of the assorted file types. if you missed one of them, that could (& probably is) the root of all your troubles.

if it's a file association problem & you're using KDE, do the following............
(if you're not using KDE, then just replace the KDE info with where ever you go to change file associations)

go to kicker->system->configure your desktop->components->file associations. in the search box type wmv (or the file extension you're having trouble with). in the "general" tab, look in the "application preference order". if Mplayer is listed, but not at the top of the list, move it to the top. if it isn't listed, then use the "add" button & add it through the pop up box that will appear. after that, go to the "embedding" tab & make sure "use settings for 'video' group" is checked. click "apply". try playing the file.

another file association place to also check is in the web browser you're using. since different browsers have different settings for that, i won't try to guess as to what you're using at the moment. if you need info about that & none of the above helped, please post which browser you're using & i'll help you with that.

otis

ok, I re-checked and it appeared that I was missing some of the codecs. They weren't showing up when I searched for them, either. I figured I must have done something wron when I first setup urpmi. So I once again set up urpmi from scratch, using urpmi.org. I then went to the graphic installer, and let it do its thing when I searched for mplayer. It STILL didn't find the win32-codecs. Even worse, I now can't launch mplayer at all! It crashes immediately upon being launched, so quickly that I can't even read the error message. I can still launch it from a prompt by entering "gmplayer", but that's about it.

There must be something I'm doing wrong with my setup of urpmi in the first place, I think, in addition to whatever other problems I'm having. I'm just supposed to select the sites that are geographically closest to me in each field, and then enter the code, right? This is getting worse and worse. Any other ideas?

OK, I also tried this: I went to ftp://ftp.lug.udel.edu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ I copied the codecs, untarred them, copied them to my /usr/lib/win32 directory. For each codec, the system asked me if I wanted to overwrite the file, which leads me to believe that I did have them all along, despite my ongoing problems with PLF and urpmi. Then I tried to play the file in question. I got the same error. I also got the same error when I tried a URL from another site. Here's the output in the terminal window from when I tried to open the URL with gmplayer:

Playing http://stocktrading.com/multimedia/a....wmv.Resolving stocktrading.com for AF_INET6...
Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: stocktrading.com
Resolving stocktrading.com for AF_INET...
Connecting to server stocktrading.com[192.82.3.231]:80 ...
Server returned 404: Not Found
Unable to open URL: http://stocktrading.com/multimedia/a...026%202004.wmv

I still can't open plain old mplayer, though; I still get that same thing where it crashes immediately. So now I have two problems for the price of one. Gotta love Linux sometimes.... Any help is appreciated.

I have all the plf stuff installed correctly and though it will play some wmv files it won't play the one you linked to. The codecs that file used aren't recognized. You might want to analyse the file using gspot in windows and compare the results against the mplayer docs to see if these codecs are too new to be supported.

Another thing I'm wondering about reading your posts is if you have the plf version of mplayer installed. Adding codecs and using the mandrake mplayer won't work. Unlike windows mplayer has to be linked against the codecs, you can't just add the codecs and expect things to start working.

I don't think it's a matter of the "newness" of the codec--the site in question has an archive of audio files going back to summer 2002, and even the early ones can't be played successfully. I would assume that whoever is handling this stuff for that website just has never bothered to make the audio files Linux-friendly. If that's the case, so be it, nothing I can do about it.

Now however, I have to fix my other problem, which is that I can no longer launch MPlayer successully. Any ideas how to fix this? Should I just try uninstalling with RPMDrake and then urpmi'ing again from scratch? I really don't know what else to do from here, so my next step may just be to re-install the whole OS (again!) and start over.

sorry i didn't post back sooner............

i tried your link(s). they don't work for me either. nor do they play for me when saved to hard drive. i can play various other .wmv files that i have saved or on the web, so i think your assumption is correct, that something is screwy with the files in question at that particular site.

don't reinstall Mandrake because Mplayer won't load. open a terminal & try to run Mplayer as both user & root & see if it gives you any error messages. to be root, type su at the user prompt then your password. to run Mplayer from a terminal type gmplayer (hit enter). post any errors you get, both as root & user. if you don't get any errors, then do the following...........

use MCC->remove software. do a search for each of the apps i listed in the first post, uninstall them, then use software installer & reinstall each one. just to be clear.......... you are using the PLF rpm's & you do have a contrib mirror as a source, correct? just make sure of those 2 things. all PLF apps will have a .plf at the end of the package name. the "skins" & "plugin" packages are from contrib, all other are from PLF. a contrib mirror is important because a lot of PLF apps rely on some contrib apps as depends.

post back with results, please. i have to go to work shortly, so i won't be able to respond until later this evening.

otis

Just to be orthogonal -- are you sure you want to keep those WMA's? I'm asking because there's not too much support for them in Linux, and you might end up painting yourself into a corner (as is evident as per the above).

An alternative is of course to use another format. I'm NOT saying this to evangelize against MS or for <insert audio format here>, but merely to perhaps broaden your options.

On Linux it's hard to convert WMA to anything, but in Windows you can do it with http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/.

However, converting a lossy format to another will not get you the best sound quality -- after I switched to Linux, I've re-ripped all my cd's to high-quality Ogg format. Tedious? Hell yeah, but I feel it was worth it in terms of both audio quality and what I can do with my audio library.

Just my thoughts. Good luck with your project!

Oh btw, I used Grip (with its built-in cdparanoia) to rip and encode, and I'm using SnackAmp to manage my music library. Check them out if you will.

Here's the output of trying to launch mplayer as user:

MPlayer 1.0pre4-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon MP/XP Thoroughbred 1201 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /home/mike/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/mike/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/mike/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 66 audio & 176 video codecs
Usage: mplayer [options] [url|path/]filename

Here's the output of trying to launch gmplayer as user:

MPlayer 1.0pre4-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon MP/XP Thoroughbred 1201 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /home/mike/.mplayer/config
[cfg] read config file: /home/mike/.mplayer/gui.conf
Reading config file /home/mike/.mplayer/gui.conf
vo: X11 running at 1024x768 with depth 24 and 32 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
Reading /home/mike/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/mike/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 66 audio & 176 video codecs
Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Using usleep() timing
Can't open input config file /home/mike/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0 : No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.
SKIN dir 1: '/home/mike/.mplayer/Skin'
SKIN dir 2: '/usr/share/mplayer/Skin'
[skin] file ( /usr/share/mplayer/Skin/default/skin ) not found.
Skin not found (default).

Here's the output of trying to run mplayer as root:

MPlayer 1.0pre4-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon MP/XP Thoroughbred 1201 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/config
Reading /root/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/root/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 66 audio & 176 video codecs
Usage: mplayer [options] [url|path/]filename

Here's the output of trying to run gmplayer as root:

MPlayer 1.0pre4-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon MP/XP Thoroughbred 1201 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/config
[cfg] read config file: /root/.mplayer/gui.conf
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/gui.conf
vo: X11 running at 1024x768 with depth 24 and 32 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
Reading /root/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/root/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 66 audio & 176 video codecs
Using Linux hardware RTC timing (1024Hz).
Can't open input config file /root/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0 : No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.
SKIN dir 1: '/root/.mplayer/Skin'
SKIN dir 2: '/usr/share/mplayer/Skin'

Exiting... (Exit

Thanks for help, Otis:)

Thanks for suggestion, Klaymen. Truthfully, it doesn't really matter to me all that much whether I can or can't play audio from these web sites on my MDK 10 setup. I still have a separate windows machine; I was just trying to see if I could. It's not even music in this case, just a radio show about investing, which is archived on the web. I listen to it every week, just wanted to see if I could listen to it on my Linux box.

Eventually, I hope to run MythTV on my Linux box, so I figured I would see what other multimedia apps I could get use successfully as I worked my way up to the eventual goal. Obviously, here I fell short, but it seems largely to be a situation I can't do anything about. Now if I can just get my mplayer working correctly again! :)

i think Mplayer isn't opening because of a conflict with skins. to have the Mplayer GUI run, you need a skin (as crazy as that sounds). either try urpmi mplayer-skins or use MCC to install them. try it, even if you think you have them installed already. also, it could go deeper than that because you installed the mplayer tar'd codecs (possibly) over top of the PLF ones. PLF makes their stuff specifically designed for Mandrake. the Mplayer people make the source files to try to fit everyone's needs. it could be at this point you have bits & pieces of various Mplayer & codec parts installed which is causing undesirable effects. if the skin theory doesn't work, i'd advise taking my earlier advice & uninstalling all those packages, then reinstalling via the PLF/contrib method in MCC. try those suggestions. if neither works, then i'm sorry to say but i'm running out of ideas.

otis

Thanks, but neither of those suggestions worked. I'm sure a real guru could easily solve this for me, but there's just never one around when you need one, is there? Oh well, this is why I set all of this up on a separate box, so I could just start over from scratch whenever I needed to. I'll try mucking around with a few other things first. Maybe someone else has an idea or two. If not, I'll just start over.