I’m new to openSuse. I’m a avid fan of Debian and Debian based distros… My previous experiences with .rpm packages & all were with Redhat and Fedora about a couple of years ago and I wasn’t a fan of them.
So far my experience with Opensuse has been quite good until the point when I installed VLC and tried to play a video. VLC plays the videos just fine on Debian, but not on OpenSuse. Am I missing something??? I installed it correctly as the VLC site suggested for opensuse.
Any ideas???
Follow the directions in the multimedia forum to get started playing your videos.
You can remove the VLC repository. This is available in the Packman repo and having both can lead to conflicts.
Thanks for this… I wanted to like OpenSuse so much but couldn’t enjoy my fav movies with it… 
Now I can enjoy the distro. So far its been pretty amazing. I wonder why it isn’t as high up as Ubuntu. Certainly better than Fedora and Ubuntu.
I’m glad it’s going well for you. openSUSE by my experience is the best distro out there, and I think you will continue to enjoy yours. Keep asking questions here if you need help. You sound like an experienced Linux user but there will be subtle differences.
Well I think you’re over estimating my knowledge of Linux. Most of my experience comes with Ubuntu and Debian which means the installations were done using ‘apt-get’ packages, etc… which makes it as easy as clicking next on a Windows installation.
Recently though when I installed Debian and installed Google Chrome, for some reason it never appeared in the main menu, making it impossible for me to launch the program. I thought it was a problem with my installation, but after reinstalling it a couple of times, I was ready to try something else. Tried Fedora, but didn’t like the Gnome3… Tried the Gnome3 version of opensuse and found it slow.
I came in from a Mac… And I’m desperate to go back, but for as long as I’m using a PC, I’m determined not to use Windows (too many bad memories); even though Windows7 has proven to be extremely stable.
Anyways, so far with all the Debian and Ubuntu installations, I never had to install codecs, etc… VLC was all I needed and frankly should be the case since VLC claims that its player can play most vids without needing codecs. I sincerely hope this helps VLC play the videos…
The Codecs dont work… VLC still doesn’t play the videos. However KDE’s own player does play them, except for the .mkv files. Is there anything else I’m missing???
What codecs are needed ?
Can you either (1) put a short clip from the video that won’t play on the web where it can be downloaded and tested, and/or (2) download and install (from the packman packager repository) the application ‘mediainfo’ and then send the command from a terminal
mediainfo yourvideo.something
where you need to substitute the exact name of your video for ‘video.something’ in my example. That will give you a terminal output, such as:
oldcpu@corei7:~> mediainfo hugo-trailer.mp4
General
Complete name : hugo-trailer.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 43.7 MiB
Duration : 1mn 58s
Overall bit rate : 3 103 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-10-25 19:41:10
Tagged date : UTC 2011-10-25 19:41:10
Writing application : Lavf52.62.0
Comment : FlixEngineLinux_8.0.17.2 (www.on2.com)
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1mn 58s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 972 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 692 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.850
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Minimum frame rate : 23.810 fps
Maximum frame rate : 24.390 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.140
Stream size : 41.8 MiB (96%)
Encoded date : UTC 2011-10-25 19:41:10
Tagged date : UTC 2011-10-25 19:41:10
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1mn 58s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 1.80 MiB (4%)
Encoded date : UTC 2011-10-25 19:41:10
Tagged date : UTC 2011-10-25 19:41:10
Copy and paste what you get for the video you are trying to play.
also so that we can check the version of vlc that you have installed, send the command in a terminal
rpm -qa vlc
and post here the output.
for example, on my 64-bit openSUSE-11.4 PC I get:
oldcpu@corei7:~> rpm -qa '*vlc*'
vlc-aout-pulse-1.1.13-13.5.x86_64
libvlccore4-1.1.13-13.5.x86_64
vlc-1.1.13-13.5.x86_64
vlc-qt-1.1.13-13.5.x86_64
libvlc5-1.1.13-13.5.x86_64
phonon-backend-vlc-0.3.2-1.2.x86_64
vlc-noX-1.1.13-13.5.x86_64
You might want to run the more comprehensive multi-media
http://forums.opensuse.org/content/107-re-multi-media-restricted-format-installation-guide.html
Thanks guys. I had just figured it out that I may have to do just that; when I saw the replies. The information on the link is fairly comprehensive and easy to understand. I’m sure I can get through. Will let you know how it goes.