Windows Media players

[Douglas Furlong]

On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 09:10 -0400, Claude Jones wrote:
> Douglas Furlong wrote:
> 
> >>    
> >>
> >>>Claude Jones wrote:
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>Thanks for all the suggestions and advice. Maybe you or someone will 
> >>have an idea what I did wrong with the mplay install. If I click on a 
> >>Windows Media file from the Mozilla browser window, an Mplayer window 
> >>opens and a message appears that it's buffering along with a progress 
> >>bar -- and that's it. The green progress bar moves left to right, gets 
> >>to almost the end, and then I just get the endless hour glass. The file 
> >>appears to be downloading, but it never streams, or plays after the 
> >>download.
> >>    
> >>
> >There are a couple of things that can cause this (it's mentioned in
> >their FAQ, you did read that didn't you? http://mplayerplug-
> >in.sourceforge.net/faq.php)
> >Have you installed the additional libraries for playing wmv media? There
> >also seems to be a problem with playing some wmv files in xine/totem and
> >possibly mplayer, the thing they appear to have in common is that they
> >are encoded using variable bit rate.
> >
> >Hope this provides some help.

<snip>

> I did get mplayer working, and it's ok, but not as nice as Kaffeine. 
> Mplayer just pops up as a new browser window in Mozilla with no 
> controls, and just a small not-really-re-positionable video window in 
> the topmost left of the browser window. Kaffeine which I can start by 
> plugging the URL of the windows media file directly, starts up in its 
> own window and gives me many configuration possibilities. So, my new 
> related question is how can I switch Mozilla away from using the mplayer 
> plug in to using Kaffeine. I have found some limited documentation -- it 
> refers to directories that I can't find, including some that begin with a ./

The reason why it is appearing int he browser window is that I beleive
you have installed the "browser plugin", xine has a similar application
"gxine", which acts in a similar way. This is not always ideal, one way
of working around this is to right click on the image, and the tell it
to save the file, then open it manually, or as your doing already
pasting the URL in to the media player of your choice.

I am hoping, the easiest way of stopping Mozilla (and it's derivatives,
firefox for example), is to remove the "plugin" from it's plugins
directory.

These are fortunately (for flexibility) and unfortunately (bugger to
track them all down), in numerous places. A good rule of thumb however
is to look in the following locations.

/var/lib/browerser-<version>/
/home/<username>/.pheonix/plugins
/home/<username>/.mozilla/plugins

If you remove the file that look appropriate, then when you restart
mozilla I'm hoping it will no longer try to auto run the movies.

the url about:plugins is handy as that tells you which ones are
"registered".

> And yes, your help was useful and appreciated.

Glad to hear it, I was not meaning offence by my query about the FAR (I
only happened to read that page on friday when cleaning up my
bookmarks).

Just to confirm, it IS playing the movies just not quite in the way you
would like?

-- 
Douglas Furlong
Systems Administrator
Firebox.com
T: 0870 420 4475        F: 0870 220 2178
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