Mplayer Frustrations - Getting Closer

[Kam Leo]

On 7/9/05, C.Beamer <cbeamer at interlynx.net> wrote:
> Kenny Gow wrote:
> 
> > C.Beamer wrote:
> >
> >> Kenny Gow wrote:
> >> I had no success installing the codecs packages from livna when I
> >> tried.  However, I *did* get the w32codec package from atrpms and that
> >> didn't help any.  I tried downloading the package from the xine site.
> >> This was older than the atrpms package that I got, but I removed the
> >> newer package and installed the older package, just in case it would
> >> work.  No luck.
> >>
> >> So I'm still at square 1 1/2.  But thanks for trying!  :-)
> >>
> >>
> > I'm not giving up that easily.  What I did to figure out what codec
> > the CNN videos wanted was copy down that URL you see when you get the
> > audio but no video, and run it from a command line like this,
> >
> > mplayer
> > mms://wmscnn.stream.aol.com/cnn/nitn/2005/07/08/nitn.edition.12.cnn.ws.wmv
> >
> >
> > If you run that command (it's one line) in a terminal, it will show
> > you what codec it's trying to use and whether it finds it. Could you
> > try running that and posting the output?
> >
> > Also, what's in your /usr/lib/win32 directory? From all you've
> > described with the codecs, it ought to have the right codecs.
> 
> Okay, here we go:
> 
> #1
> 
> I ran your command from above with the appropriate substitution for the
> url.  I did this as 'root' and the output is as displayed below.  I also
> ran it as user "colleen", but the output was a bunch of garbage - it
> said that mplayer couldn't be found and mplayer (the executable is
> definitely in my path.  Anyway, the output as 'root':
> 
> mplayer

[snip]

> #2  A bit of further information.  Like I said, if I open a wmv file
> from within media player, it works.  However, the only way it works is
> with the following settings:
> 
> audio: aRts
> 
> video:  X11, gl, gl2
> 
> Any of the above settings for video work, if I use any other setting for
> video from within Mplayer, I get sound, but no video.
> 
> However, even when I do get video to display (i.e. my video setting is
> gl2, for example, the video plays in Mplayer, but this message displays:
> 
> "ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec  "
> 
> In response to your final question, /usr/lib/win32 contains the sym link
> as follows:
> 
> codecs -> /usr/local/lib/codecs
> 

Your symbolic link is wrong.  Delete the /usr/lib/win32 directory and
relink as follows:

# rm -rf /usr/lib/win32

# ln -s /usr/local/lib/codecs /usr/lib/win32

> And there *is* a 'wmvdmod.dll'  and a 'wmv9dmod.dll' file in
> /usr/local/lib/codecs.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Colleen