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My fianceé has a AAO 751h. I've convinced her that, for that machine, Ubuntu (and/or derivatives) is a better choice than Windows (any version).

But now she wants to install Windows to play video files incoded with 'wmv9' because I can't get her notebook/netbook to run it (the audio plays ok, but not the video). I've already installed VLC, RealPlayer, Kubuntu-restricted-extras and the first codec package from mplayer download page.

When I test the same files in my notebook (which has the same software installed, but a differente hardware configuration), they run ok (both audio and video). Does anyone have a clue about what should I do? Thx in advance!

Jorge Castro
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1 Answers1

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The audio was coming out perfectly and the video was only a black screen; the problem was only with videos encoded with 'wmv9' codec. I tried other formats and a few streaming videos and they were working ok.

Now here's what I did to solve it: I saw this post and tried it. When I change the VLC video output for X11, it worked. I don't know why it worked and I can't even think why it happens, but it worked on my fianceé's AAO 751h.

Translation of the post:

For those who are looking for a way of displaying videos even after installing several codecs, you can try the suggestions of this two links (1 and 2). They basically say that one thing worth to try (and that solved my problem too) is to set either the whole system or the only the video-player to use X11 as the 'output' video.

In Ubuntu it can be done by (this I didn't try myself, I just copied and pasted here):

  • For gstreamer applications:

    • System --> Preferences --> Multimedia Systems Selector (If it's not there, you'll have to enable it by editing the menus.)
    • Click on the "Video" tab.
    • In the "Default Output" section, select X Window System (No Xv)` for the "Plugin".

  • In VLC it can be done by (that's the one I've done, but right now I can't remember the exact names of the tabs)

    • Preferences --> Video --> Output --> X11

References:

Jorge Castro
  • 73,717