Re: Usual "forbidden items" explanation

Ed Greshko wrote:

Keith G. Robertson-Turner wrote:

Ed Greshko wrote:

Rex Dieter:

Not so mysterious, AFAIK, all the needed extra bits are at rpm.livna.org.

Hmm, I think it still deserves being referred to as mysterious.
I don't recall it giving you any useful clues about how to get
it working.  You have to work it out through other means.  And

it still doesn't make sense about why it can't play some unencumbered file types that other things already can.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the list of unencumbered file types

folks were having trouble to play. I'm not having any particular issues, but will admit that my usage in this area may be a bit narrow.

So, if it isn't too much trouble, could you list what formats are
having problems with and if there is a link/file on the internet
one can test against.

Certainly.

http://ia300124.us.archive.org/3/items/TrustedComputing/

"You do not have a decoder installed to handle this file." for the H264 or XviD. The Theora file only plays back audio, the video component is missing.

You seem to be implying that TrustedComputing_LAFKON_MID_theora.avi contains common codecs that can be played on other platforms.

Nope, I don't use other platforms, only Linux, specifically Fedora (FC5).

I tried to play it on a Windows XP system with "Windows Media Player", "RealPlayer", and "Quick Time". None of these was able to play it and were unable to download a video codec even though they tried.

Makes you wonder how MPlayer manages to do it then, eh?

I don't know or care about Windows.

So, your point is?  Or, are you just spreading FUD?

Why would an exclusively Linux user, and staunch Linux advocate, like me
be spreading Anti-Linux FUD? This isn't Anti-Linux, this is (if it's
Anti-anything) Anti-Totem, or at least questioning the prudence of
packaging in Core a multimedia player that quite patently doesn't.

MPlayer plays every MM file on that page without error.

Like I said, I've yet to find a file that Totem will actually play (at all - or properly).

I don't use Totem...

Neither do I, since I've never managed to get it to actually do anything
but spew errors.

As far as I can tell/recall, the original intent of this exercise was
not to get Totem working but to determine what formats could not be
played on FC5 that could be played on other platforms.

The message *I* replied to was from Tim on 06/03/2006 at 05:52 AM, where
he was complaining that Totem was set up as the default multimedia
player for filetypes that it obviously couldn't play, in its distributed
crippled form, if at all.

So far, none has been pointed out since I can't play the above file you called out on any other platform either.

Like I said, I don't know or care about "other platforms", all I care
about is that unsupported filetypes are being incorrectly associated
with applications that cannot handle them, and that this should be
corrected by the packagers and more clearly documented in the release
notes, i.e.:

"The included Totem player will not play any of the following encumbered
filetypes without plugins, which are available in Non-Free extras
repositories such as Livna: mp3, mpeg2, encrypted-DVD, unencrypted-DVD
(unless copied to the hard drive first), H264", etc. etc.

However, looking at yumex now, I don't see any plugins at all, except
the Mozilla plugin. The nearest thing I can see that would help, is
apparently you can replace Totem's backend with Xine, to make it
actually work. However, if I need to go to that extent to get it to
work, I might as well replace it entirely with something else, like
MPlayer, for example.

Maybe I need to be looking for gstreamer plugins, if that's relevant to
Totem. Who knows? Will anyone ever know?

Just for laughs, I'm going to download the SRPM for Totem now, look at
the spec file, and see whether or not it is being config'd to exclude
encumbered filetypes - i.e. in its *pure* form, it would actually
support all those files.

I'm not suggesting that Fedora dev starts supporting encumbered
filetypes, I fully understand that they do not ... and *why* they do
not; I just find it incredibly stupid to associate files with
applications that don't support them, and then give no clues about *how*
to do so.

Let's just disassociate unsupported filetypes from applications that
don't support them, so that standard MIME etc. handles them with
"Unknown Filetype" errors, rather than confusing people by launching an
application but then bombing out. How about handling it the same way
Mozilla/Firefox does with "Do you want to install this plugin", or even
just a *hint* to run yum and look for codecs, plugins, or backend
players for support.

*Anything* at all would be friendlier and more intuitive than the
current situation.

-
K.