There is a strange issue with wmv videos both in OpenSuse 11.1 and OpenSuse 11.2: these videos are regularly played but the olnly sound is some crackling . Other kinds of video like avi or mpg don’t suffer of this behaviour. Changing video player give no results, I tried Kaffeine and Mplayer.
Is there anibody facing the same malfunction?
I do not normally play .wmv files (nor .wma) but after reading your post, I decided to check this out.
I copied a few .wmv files to my Sandbox PC (running 11.2 RC2) which has the latest Packman packaged vlc, xine, and mplayer on the 11.2 factory. It had the problem. I then replaced the “factory” versions of those apps with the “11.2” versions (as 11.2 repos for Packman is now more populated) and it had the same problem. 11.1 running on a different PC does not have the problem (as you note).
I note the .wmv all have .wma as their audio codec. Hence I suspect the problem may be the .wma audio codec.
So I then copied some .wma files to my Sandbox PC and tested those. This has the same problem. So I suspect the problem is more accurately stated as a problem playing the proprietary microsoft .wma codec.
It does suggest Packman have done something different in their 11.2 packaging of apps for openSUSE wrt the .wma audio codec.
Can you raise this issue with the Packman packagers ? (do you know how to do this - ie post on their mailing list ? ). If you do not, I can do it for you.
Try VLC as well?
VLC sometimes solves my .wmv woes.
The problem with a 32-bit openSUSE-11.2 RC2 not playing .wma audio codec exists for VLC, MPlayer, and xine as packaged by the Packman packagers (for both ‘factory’ and for ‘11.2’ packaged versions) .
what about gstreamer?
What about gstreamer? Why do you ask? What has that got to do with neither MPlayer, xine, nor vlc (on 11.2 RC2) being able to play a .wma audio codec?
No I was curious if gstreamer worked for it, me I always get sound for my .wmv’s in openSUSE at least in 11.1 so maybe suggesting gstreamer might help, never know.
Can you be more specific? What application are you using that uses gstreamer with a codec (from where ? ) to play the .wma audio codec?
Well lets say totem-gstreamer, works for me most of the time when mplayer fraks up.
I use all the gstreamer variants, good, bad, ugly so that might be the reason for my success.
Is this on 11.1 or 11.2 RC2 ? Because MPlayer, vlc and xine have no difficulty with .wma on 11.1.
Can you raise this issue with the Packman packagers ? (do you know how to do this - ie post on their mailing list ? ). If you do not, I can do it for you.
I never had the occasion to post on Packman mailing list. If you can do it for me, you are welcome.
OK, I’ll put something to together and post on the Packman mailing list based on the symptoms that I have observed.
In case in the future, you wish to post a query on the Packman mailing list (and checking on our forum to see if others have the same problem, like you just did, is an EXCELLENT idea first) there is guidance here: Packman Info Page
Both actually
Both … so you say you can get .wmv to play .wma audio on 11.2 ?
Yes, I was able to.
Totem with gstreamer worked fine, but this might have to do with all the stuff I do in a fresh install.
Realplayer was fine too.
I do not normally use Totem nor Real Player.
Realplayer is not open source, although it is free as in free beer. Yes, I believe it will play .wma (although its not a player I like - being closed source who knows what information it is sending back over the web - its all hidden).
Packman do not package Totem for 11.2 (the last totem they packaged was for 10.3) , and I believe the Novell/SuSE-GmbH Totem (in the 11.2 RC2 OSS) is crippled for the proprietary wmv/wma codec. I have the Packman packaged gstreamer installed, and they also give no sound for Totem, but then I do not normally use Totem so maybe they are mis-configured on my PC.
Are you certain the 11.2 Totem plays .wmv/.wma?
Anyway, the Packman packaged vlc, xine and MPlayer are broken for .wmv/.wma, possibly due to a packager problem packaging the wma codec for a dependency of libffmpeg0, or of w32codec-all.
Edit - also, does Real Player use gstreamer? I thought it came with its own codec supply?
As you know, the idea behind reporting problems in 11.2 RC2 is so they can be fixed … I am suspicious that gstreamer has the same problem with codecs as xine, vlc, and MPlayer, so it puzzles me that you say you have it playing a .wmv with a .wma audio codec. I just tested the 11.2 KDE3 version of kaffeine (on kde4) and selected gstreamer as the sound engine. It has the same static problem.
Are you running 11.1 packages on 11.2 RC2 ?
Today I made a very interesting experiment: opened a wmv video in Windows running in VirtualBox and sound worked! It seems like a matter of connecting the right hardware interface in OpenSuse, but I was unable to find a solution. Maybe some guru can help.
That should not be surprising.
My understanding is that MS-Windows in Virtual Box does NOT use the codecs that come with openSUSE. Rather Virtual Box being run on openSUSE accesses either the ALSA api, or pulse, or access the alsa sound driver directory (I’m not at a linux PC so I can not check this to be more specific).
So when it comes to codecs, WinXP as a client being hosted in Virtual Box has to provide its own codecs. Well .wmv and .wma are proprietary Microsoft formats, so its not surprising they would be easily supported by Microsoft software … ie not surprising MS-Windows will immediately support them.
I hope the above makes sense to you.
Just an update to this, on 11.2 GM. I note:
- xine plays .wma (audio) and .wmv (video and audio) with no problem
- vlc will play .wma (audio) but not play video from a .wmv (but will play the audio in a .wmv).
- MPlayer gives static for .wma (audio) and gives static for the audio in a .wmv (but it does play the video).
The vlc video problem with .wmv exists in both 11.1 and 11.2 openSUSE.
The MPlayer .wma (audio) problem only exists in 11.2 , and it works in 11.1.