I’m having trouble playing any movies on Linux. I think I just need the codecies, but I’m not sure. I’ve tried downloading the Divx for Linux version, but Linux couldn’t recognize the file type. I added a .gz at the end, so it could be decompressed, all that did was begin an endless cylce of uncompressing the same unknown file. As it is I can’t view any videos of any file format. Any suggestions?
Goo
That’s strange… I have downloaded the DivX codec for Linux, a few months ago and it seems it’s working o.k. for me…
Could you please tell me exactly, what did you do, so I can be able to help you more???
Anyway, perhaps the file you downloaded is corrupted or something…
Try downloading again…
You should have a file called: divxforlin-501-20020418.tar.gz (or something like that…). Uncompress it with:
tar -xvzf divxforlin-501-20020418.tar.gz
cd to the newly created directory and as root issue:
the install.sh script will do the rest for you…
Spyros.
p.s.: Don’t install the divx player that comes with it, cause IT REALLY SUCKS!!! :x :x :x :x :x :x .
Use Mplayer instead ( http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/ )…
Ok, I’ve got the divx coodex installed and the mplayer, but it still won’t play videos, or at least not the one I tried it on. I jsut got a bunch of vertical lines. I tried the dragonfall.mpg file that a link was posted to recently. What should I do now?
There are also a whole lot of files named “core######”, with different numbers where the number symbols are. What are they, because they take up alot of space and seem to appear from no where.
Goo
Tell us what version of Linux you have for starters. Download MPlayer as source and compile it youself - at the end of “./configure” it will tell you what codecs it supports, judging from what it found. Make sure you have the NVIDIA drivers, asuming you have a NVIDIA card.
(biased reply) don’t use Kaboodle, Noaturn or whatever they call it in KDE - they suck 
(end of biased reply)
What you describe here, means that actually the program crashes during it’s effort to playback your movie… (that’s the reason for those core.xxxx files…)
I don’t quite understand what the problem is but, providing that you have the apropriate codecs installed, it may have to do with MPlayers video output settings…
I am saying that cause I had similar problems with the damned thing (I have an ATI RAGE Furry card…) and had to use the VIDIX driver to get MPlayer run properly…
Go to: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/video.html
… and see if they have anything specific for your graphics card…
About those core files, here’s a quote from the “Answer Guy” 
:
A “core” file is a snapshot of a process’ memory state just prior to its abnormal termination by the system. It’s an image of the program’s “core” which is an old term for RAM dating back to a time when computers actually used little ferrite “donuts” suspended in a wire mesh for their memory and storage. These can be used by programmers for post-mortem analysis, clues as to what caused the failure.
core files can be generated any time one of your programs crash for just about any reason. Most of us mortals just delete the things.
So perhaps if you would examine those core.xxxx files they would tell us a few things about your problem… Open them with a text editor (e.g. pico…) and read them carefully…
In case you continue to experience problems come back and tell us more details…
Hope it helps…
Spyros.
Ok, I looked at the core files, and they all seemed to be a screen saver problem., so I switched to a new one. All of the core files totaled to 2.1 gig!!! That’s as much as all the files in my home directory are. I looked at a few, but there were over 500 so I couldn’t look at all of them. I didn’t see anything for the mplayer. I’m running Gnome on Mandrake 9.0. I looked for the specs on my graphics card, and the only name I can find is Viper II. It’s a 32mb card, but beyond that your gues is as good as mine. I redid the ./configure step and saw only three codecies so I’m guessing that’s the problem. They were divx5linux, libavcodec, and linvorbis. I tried playing a divx movie, but it still showed up as a bunch of lines. The screen size and length is right, but there is no image.
Here’s everything that the command line said from start to finish when I tried playing the divx.
[goo@localhost goo]$ mplayer /mnt/win_c2/walk2s.avi
Using GNU internationalization
Original domain: messages
Original dirname: /usr/share/locale
Current domain: mplayer
Current dirname: /usr/local/share/locale
MPlayer 0.90rc3-3.2 © 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS)
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Duron SF Spitfire (Family: 6, Stepping: 1)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx
Reading config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf: No such file or directo
ry
Reading config file /home/goo/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/goo/.mplayer/codecs.conf: can’t open ‘/home/goo/.mplayer/codecs.co
nf’: No such file or directory
Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 49 audio & 130 video codecs
font: can’t open file: /home/goo/.mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can’t open file: /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Failed to open /dev/rtc: Permission denied (mplayer should be setuid root or /de
v/rtc should be readable by the user.)
Using usleep() timing
Can’t open input config file /home/goo/.mplayer/input.conf : No such file or dir
ectory
Can’t open input config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/input.conf : No such file or
directory
Falling back on default (hardcoded) input config
Audio: no sound
Starting playback…
This file was encoded with DivX500 Build413
VDec: vo config request - 500 x 250 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 2.00:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 500x250 => 500x250 Planar YV12
New_Face failed. Maybe the font path is wrong.
Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
V: 6.6 200 8% 20% 0.0% 0 0 0%%
Successfully enabled DPMS
Exiting… (End of file)
[goo@localhost goo]$
Goo
Apart from the fact that the rest of the .config files that can’t be opened have to do with subtitle fonts, which I don’t think it has anything to do with, or cause your problem… the above line could…
First of all, try this:
[goo@localhost goo]$ xhost +localhost (in order to be able to run X11 applications later when you su to root]
[goo@localhost goo]$ su (become root)
Then as root start MPlayer, to see if there’s a permission problem… (if that’s the case and for security reasons, don’t setuid root, MPlayer, cause I don’t know if it’s safe… just give your user permission to access that device.)
If that doesn’t work, I’d say it is the video output driver as it was in my case. And in my case I solved the problem by using the VIDIX driver… But I have to warn you, I don’t know if it is safe enough to use it…
So before you do anything, I’d suggest to try and e-mail the guys at MPlayer team… Give them all the feedback… It’s for sure that they know things better…
If you don’t wish to go to all that trouble, there’s also xine, an other video player for linux, which it’s equally good (if not better in some aspects…). Go to: http://xinehq.de/ for more details.
Come back and tell me what happened…
Spyros.
Ok, I did what you told me to do, but it didn’t help. I still get the vertical lines. I tried it in Xine too, but I still only get the vertical lines. I scaned through the faq’s for both of them, and it seems to me it is a driver problem.
Goo
Do you mean that you also tried the VIDIX driver solution and it didn’t work??? Or you just tried to run MPlayer as root…
If you haven’t tried it, I’d say prehaps this would be your solution…
Spyros.