[ubuntu-in] Is there a comprehensive list of media codecs required and other problems

[ramnarayan.k at gmail.com]

Hi

just a shirt while back i received a cd full of short and some long
videos - .wmv. .avi , ,mpeg some .mov as well.

Recently i also upgraded to 7.04 and tried to install many audio and
video codecs and players so as not have any problems when i got home (to
a narrow and incosistent band internet connection)

So on trying to play some of the avi's i get a few error messages which
are somewhat like this
- proper plugin not found
- correct demux not found
etc etc

so i check synaptic and run a search for the supposed errant missing
codecs and other assorted files and find some familiar sounding ones not
installed.

Now my question is how can i know what ALL i need to install to make
sure all the most popular formats run.

Its not that avi files don't work - some work well and some don't

so i checked the properties and looked at the encoding format - the ones
that work are mepg based the ones that don't work are DV based !!!

***
I tried running the misbehaving .avi file through Kino (video editor)
and well it worked better than any of the media players - good rendering
of colors as well. So does kino know something that the other players don't

Finally - there was a post on not being able to copy .dat files
(presumably) from a VCD. The solution was to check the file copy limit
(using ulimit) so i tried copying a VCD .dat files and kept getting an
error - it can't be my copy limit as its unlimited. It can't be a cd
error because i copied it through windows and it worked liked a charm.

Worse Ubuntu apart from refusing to copy refused to even play
(obviously) but after copying it through windows Ubuntu played the same
.dat file like a charm

So all in all with my video woes the following are my questions / request

Question 1 what am i missing

Request 1 Would some kind soul please make a list of all the codecs, lib
files players etc one may require to make sure video works well -

thanks
ram