What are Microsoft codecs?

[Tim]

On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 22:21 +0500, gilpel at altern.org wrote:
> It would just be nice if, instead of letting threads go on endlessly,
> it was clearly told that Totem is very unlikely -- despite
> Radio-Canada pretending so -- to play WMV unless you buy Fluendo and
> that MPlayer offers a free alternative that Red Hat doesn't endorse.

Because that's not the case.  

Paid codecs, like Fluendo, are just one option available to you.  Why's
it paid?  Apart from the obvious of paying for the programming time
needed to create the code, and making it available (e.g. webhosting),
it's paying for the right to use it.  Annoying, but necessary, because
of those patent owners.

My totem plays WMV files, and I didn't buy a codec from Fluendo, and
I've written about this on this list, before.  Not that long ago,
either.  Try installing:  gstreamer-ffmpeg

Of course, where you live might affect the legality of that.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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