video players

[Peter Garrett]

On Mon, 4 Sep 2006 04:33:27 +0100
jimscafe <ulist at gs1.ubuntuforums.org> wrote:

> I used synaptic package manager to  install kmplayer and vlc.
> 
OK, both good players..

> When I tried to run an avi file downloaded from the internet kmplayer
> just flashed something on the screen then stopeed.
> 
An "avi" file could be a number of things. As i understand it, avi is a
container only and might use various codecs  For example:

file Marcel-CFH106.avi
Marcel-CFH106.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 320 x 240, 29.97 fps,
video: XviD, audio: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (mono, 44100 Hz)

 $ file marcel.cfh.email.avi
marcel.cfh.email.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 512 x 384, 25.00
fps, video: DivX 5, audio: (stereo, 44100 Hz)

(The "file" utility is quite handy for finding out what a file really is )

> 
> VLC seemed to play the file but the screen was all black! Any
> suggestions for what was wrong?

A bit more detail would help ...  for instance running "vlc  file.avi
" (without the quotes of course) or the same for kmplayer, from a terminal,
might give you some output to clue you in to what is actually happening. I
suspect that you need to get yourself some codecs and related helpful
stuff :-)

Try reading

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

If you follow the directions there, I think you will solve your issues
with most  video and audio formats. VLC plays most things "out of the
box", but chokes on a few formats...  mplayer with w32codecs (see the link
above), plays just about anything, and xine, gxine or totem-xine, or
kaffeine handle most things with the relevant packages installed .
Totem-gstreamer now handles a lot of formats too , again with the right
plug-ins and extras.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories  ,
https://help.ubuntu.com/                                       and
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UserDocumentation

are also good places to look.

Peter