A couple of years ago, using a very old, very out-of-date computer, I used to always run into all sorts of trouble with Linux, especially since I used to use my Linux-box for programming and testing purposes.

But one of the most annoying mishaps I came across was the fact that playing my movies, CDs, or even the occasional video clip was next to impossible, considering my dire lack of memory at the time. Even a 2 MB video clip would cause my system to hang, and force me to reboot.

But now, since I have a decent PC, I'm gradually returning to my beloved Linux-box, and thankfully I don't have the memory problems I used to have. But another problem came up... codec support!

Too many of my movies and DVDs refuse to work, telling me that I don't have the required decoders. Unfortunately, most of the decoders and codec packages I use with Windows don't work with Linux. So my question now is:

How do you guys get your movies to work on Linux? Do you download separate codecs, or do you simply have a media player that has it all? And could you please provide me with links to whatever tool you use?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance .

You need a few tools to watch DVDs and watch MP4/MOV/AVI/WMV.

It is recommended to install the VLC media player because when you install VLC, it'll usually install the libdvdcss (ability to watch copyrighted DVDs.)

You'll also need to install the codecs from http://www.mplayerhq.hu in order to watch MP4/MOV/AVI/WMV.

xboxrulz

Yup, that's exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks a lot, xboxrules .

I always assumed that VLC came with many codecs, which I suppose is true but I can't be sure since I'm not all that familiar with video handling measures. But your link for the codecs site is really helpful. Again, thanks a lot .

no problem, that's why I'm around on the Linux forums. I'm here to share my knowledge of this great operating system!

Happy Linuxing!

xboxrulz

Im Linux, you will find that almost all media players use FFMPEG, ( ffmpeg.sf.net ) or mplayer as a backend.

I usually find that mplayer copes much better with damaged / partially corrupted / partially downloaded video's than ffmpeg.

however, media players such as XINE, which use ffmpeg, has much better DVD menu's support, and ffmpeg is much better at converting between media formats.

and both fully support DeCSS ( which is used to de-crypt copy protected DVD's )

multimedia has coma a long way since 2mb computers were around.

enjoy.

I run Fedora Core 5 which you can say in the multimedia side of things is slack due to them not distributing their system with codecs, etc but you can still grab them and I can say, I've ran all sorts of media clips without any problems, including proprietary formats from Microsoft and protected DVD medias, etc.

There's so many different Media Players for Linux, and VLC is quite good but I use MPlayer as my default Media Player.

It definitely replaces my Window alternatives.

Cheers,

MC

yes, but MPlayer doesn't support ALSA, which is a pain in the neck.

xboxrulz

Thats on my computer, and ive dissabled most mplayuer features that i dont need, including the older OSS sound support, as i use a 2.6 kernel, and therefore the newer ALSA sound.

you must have made some nasty mistakes when you compiled mplayer.. or maybe you are using a very old version.

mplayer has supportde alsa since alsa was introduced the the late 2.4 kernels.

no, I installed Packman's packages.

xboxrulz

well, then packman dissabled alsa.

its not difficult to install mplayer yourself, than youcan have alsa.