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DMCA, baby. In that case they are in violation of federal law and will be shut down if they do not rewrite the player to comply. OR the video will simply fail to stream, OR the monitor will simply not accept the stream from the player.

OR you could use MPlayer, which does not have to comply with US copyright laws.

How about mplayer?

I haven't tried VLC, but mplayer will usually play partially-downloaded torrents if they are mpeg files. It just skips the bits that haven't been downloaded yet.
It's less reliable with avi files: it doesn't seem to like it if the first part of the file is missing.

If you don't have a PC but something else you're out of luck afaik.

Try vlc - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
or mplayer - http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.htm l

Not that I have downloaded the clip yet myself, but those players have been able to play that kind of content in the past, mplayer in particular tends to be very high-performance/high-efficiency.

> It got moderated +5 informative because the majority of people also reject copyright

that's the problem i'm talking about.

> something everyone knows to be wrong (aka copyright). That's just my opinion there...

NO. Certainly not everyone.

> You just wanted to put forth your own opinion and have a bit of a rant,
> but you didn't have the decency to do so in an upstanding sort of fashion,
> you had to twist it around so your opinion (that violating copyright is wrong)
> was presented as a fact beyond discussion and anyone who disagrees with you
> is a morally reprehensable person.

1) , It's a FACT, that violating copyright is illegal since 1886 and as of 2005 in 159 countries. Illegal, that's WRONG by law, q.e.d. You can have your moral opinion whether these are good laws, but not a legal opinion.

2) The Salon staff explicitly says that they do not want it to be copied. That's a violation of their wishes. "Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Copyright 2005 Salon.com"

3) Everyone can read the article, if they go to salon.com and click through the "free site pass" and watch the ads. You don't have to spend any money, just a little time and effort. If you don't do that then Salon.com will have to close shop and there will be no other interview with Bruce Campbell to copy violate around, all because of your lazyness.

4) Bruce Campbell's movies are protected by EXACTLY THE SAME LAW that Salon's article is. If they were not, they would had been never produced and there would be no article to write about.

5) Linux's source code is protected by EXACTLY THE SAME LAW that Salon's article is (GPL). If there was no copyright Microsoft would simply copy linux into it's own code base.

6) The above situation #5 happened to the crew of mplayer. With copyright they have a legal way to prevent it.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html #kiss01

"It has been brought to my attention, that the now famous KiSS Technology - already in violation of the GNU General Public License - has been confirmed stealing another program which is also completely under the GPL license."

"Every single one of their patterns match ours! This is not coincidence. This is stealing GPL code into a proprietary product! KiSS Technology failed to answer our inquiry for their source files (which they are obligated to provide)"

7) Even slashdot disagrees with you. Look at the bottom of this page.
"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2005 OSTG."

>So, I give myself permission to flame a bit...
> Why don't you just fuck off?

Now that was extra decent. pot/kettle/black.

you could also download the "essential" codec pack from mplayers site (here) and install it manually either in /usr/local/lib/codecs or /usr/local/lib/win32 (simlink one to the other) and you should be good to go...

I did it this way before I knew about marillat's repository (which btw is a great source for the various faad and faac debs, since compiling them on debian is one hell of a PITA)

MPlayer will play .wmv's, and it also won't open your browser to a bunch of ads that were embedded in the .wmv file.

``IF the package is on your distribution's list.''

Of course. But then, if you use Debian, it probably is. Even if it isn't, somebody may have made a package available outside of the distribution (MPlayer, for example). Failing that, if it's a larger application (the sort of thing you'd install on Windows; browsers, instant-messaging programs, office suites...), they probably distribute some kind of binary download that you can install on any distro. Or you can fetch the source and create a package yourself. Of course, that isn't very much what you would expect a desktop user to do. But with projects like GNU source installer, it may be a realistic option, or become one very soon.

``With windows applications, I can have a friend (who has broadband) download the program for me, or set up an all night download on my computer. With packages... I spend hours downloading the application, only to find that I need x number more packages to work properly.''

If you run apt-get -s install foo, it will tell you all the packages that are going to be downloaded to install foo. Then you just ask your friend to download these packages for you, copy them to your computer, install them, and all should be fine.

Who in the world said you should break the law. It seems you didn't find exactly what I was talking about. It is a mozilla plug-in (works in Firefox under Linux) that acts as a wrapper for the best linux/Windows/AnyOS media player mplayer http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ Using it together with the win32 codecs (free) you can watch WMV videos as well as almost any other video you want (haven't found a video format that didn't work in mplayer yet). So, this way, you can see all the videos on CNN on Linux, or even MacOSX if you want. Enjoy

The legal way to get those codecs is to download and install each official player+codec combo, and then use your choice of player to use the codec; even then their EULA may say you can't use the codec separate from THEIR player.

Howerver the best way to get the codecs -- but not technically legal way, because of software patent BS -- is to google for and download what's called a "codec pack". The best one for Windoze is called the "K-Lite Mega Codec Pack", which comes with Media Player Classic, BSPlayer, as well as almost every video/audio codec under the sun. For Linux, the best (and only?) codec pack available is the MPlayer essential codec pack, which is actually just an archive of windows .dll codecs, which MPlayer, VLC, and other players will fall back on if there is no open source alternative codec to use.

Use MPlayer , it plays just about everything out there....and does lots more than just play....

Sure. MEncoder, which is part of MPlayer, claims to be able to encode H.264.

HTH!

Yaz.

Sure. MEncoder, which is part of MPlayer, claims to be able to encode H.264.

HTH!

Yaz.

Mplayer has a GUI. You need to compile the GUI in with mplayer.
There is a ton of nifty skins too. Ones that even look like Windows media player too. The good thing about mplayer is it takes advantage of whatever your system has to put out. My PPro 200Mhz has a Voodoo 5 5500 and I could actually use Glide for my video output. Nifty little program.

Here is where you get the skins

Check em out. I never really used the GUI but some people like it for there video player.

mplayer, not Windows Media Player.

XMMS has a plugin to play videos using MPlayer.
But I miss AVS.
There are some XMMS vis plugins that does something in the lines of AVS (a scriptable generic effect engine), but the real value of AVS is on the fantastic presets that comes with it.

I would give most anything for a working media player for OS X that plays oggs, flacs, and maybe shns.

"This is just getting rediculous. When will people stop referring to QuickTime as a codec."

AHEM!

MPLAYER
'nuff said!

Funny, but its current home page doesn't exactly give me warm and fuzzy "safe" feelings. Methinks you chose a bad example there :-)

Well, don't we all to some degree?
To some degree, yes. When the ratings drop down to 0.00% even I would cancel a show, thereby preventing any non-nielsen (or non-US) family from watching.

great ratings [...] support that supercedes [...] Enterprise
I thought they recently reported that BSG reached 3.1 million viewers. While Enterprise has, since the pilot, dropped down to about 3 million (perhaps lower in the mean time, I don't remember where I saw this, otherwise I would check it).

the first episode is available on scifi.com
I know, I did try to watch it. However mplayer http://mplayerhq.hu/ didn't seem to have much luck with it. Besides, one episode isn't enough and starting with the mini-series would be my preference. Perhaps I should check out if it's available as a rental.

Thank you for replying.

This is a welcome move in some respects, it certainly shows that VIA now considers the Linux user as a valuable customer base that must be supported.

However, there is already a thriving open source driver implementation for this platform: link providing code that was based on a version of VIA's code that they released to a limited number of open source developers a few years ago.

It is also worth noting that the "VIA Open Source" package still relies on a proprietary binary library to provide MPEG acceleration on their hardware. This library provides a completely non-standard API that applications must interface to to implement MPEG support. This is in contrast with the Unichrome project's solution, providing full source code for their MPEG implementation and implementing the standard and well established XvMC API in their driver.

The Unichrome project has also been responsible for implementing support for VIA MPEG acceleration in Xine, MPlayer , MythTV. Again this contrasts with VIA's solution to application support which has resulted in them producing forked VIA specific versions of Xine [VeXP] and MPlayer [VeMP] without involving the donor projects in the process or contributing back to them.

Along with many performance, feature and stability enhancements to the codebase the Unichrome project has also been responsible for reorganising and cleaning the codebase to a state that is now acceptable for inclusion in the base X.org source tree and resolving the security issues in the DRM code so that it can be included in the official Linux kernel.

It is, therefore, a shame that VIA decided to make this grandiose eye catching announcement, rather than just getting involved in the existing open source communities and simply helping and contributing to the Unichrome, Xine, MPlayer and MythTV projects. That might have been less eye catching or press release friendly, but it would certainly be a better way to win friends in the Linux community.

On a sidenote, mplayer has the same message on its website. have a look: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/index.html

I, for one, happen to like the following aspect of TV aesthetics:

There are no user interface elements on the screen, because it is devoted to the video itself. There are buttons on the DVD/video player, the TV set, and the remote, but not on the screen.

MPlayer gets this right by not having a GUI in the first place. There is the keyboard somewhere below the screen, just like there's a DVD/video player near the TV screen. In addition I can use a remote if I like. It just makes sense.

I personally use mplayer on Linux, but it takes some work to get all the Quicktime plugins installed, all the WMP codecs installed, and then the AC3/MPG4, etc., codecs installed, etc.

Don't blame mplayer, blame the packager.

E.g. on Gentoo, simply set the 'avi' and 'real' USE flags (and 'live' for RTP/RTSP streaming support) and emerge -av mplayer.

If there are no Lose32 codec packages for your distro of choice, just go to http://mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/codecs.html and get the 'all' tarball. You are not likely to bump into a video file you're not able to play with those (as long as you're running the x86 architecture).

Modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is response time

Non-modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is bluescreen time.

Modularity comes at a cost, and that cost is response time

There are other ways you can pay for modularity. A clever pre-processing (really pre-linking) system can eliminate all the perceptible slowness... but of course, it comes at the cost of programmer time, and that's what Microsoft actually wins in. OpenOffice is slow relative to MS Office primarily because it's still working to catch up on features, and not optimize for speed. (Plus, OO is cross-platform, so they face obstacles the MSO team can ignore)



Some of your example are true, but I've seen exactly the reverse in my experience. On the same hardware, Linux mplayer can start playing a video almost instantly, while Microsoft's Media Player needs a significant, multi-stage startup time. (Presumably, some of that delay comes from it going onto the internet for little ads to draw in side panels).

And, KDE's icon-thumbnail previews outperform the same feature on MS Windows...

As far as the Help system is concerned, how would *you* suggest that it be set up?

The better design would be that a feature such as HTML display has a fixed, (subset) API attached to it, and the user/sysadmin can select any application or library providing those features to handle those operations on the system. (To some extent, Microsoft did this when the USA DOJ forced them to create the "Program Access and Defaults" panel, after an anti-trust suit)

Spagettii-modularity, where any component can link to an arbitrary subpart of any other component, is risky and unstable software design. Modules that interoperate with each other via interfaces of limited scope are not only more secure against software errors, but also allow opportunities for competitive programmers to release superior versions of individual systems. (which makes the OS more like a free market, and less a monopoly)

nothing on my machine plays any of the formats he has

Try mplayer

He's actually right there. Before fully adopting Mono, it would be rather nice to know if it infringes any patents, and what will be done about it. Having Mono heavily integrated into Gnome could be just asking for trouble.

However, don't forget that, as the article says, it's not the only thing that's threatened. They could take away our porn.

Don't forget the official windows version, from the mplayer team themselves...

When I move from machine to machine, I usually install the codec packs and then run mplayer off of the USB drive for the media off of it. If there was a media player where I could avoid the hassle of installing the codecs for the media that would be great!

Yes.

Mplayer http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html

One data point you can use is the mplayer FAQ.

I don't beleive it. Why settle for only $2500? Well, I hope atleast it is $!

Anyway, thanks for the tip.

Well, I'm still downloading it (75MB) but it's a .mov file, i.e. Quicktime so you should be able to play it if you have the right codec. You can use either Xine or Mplayer and probably others. Once installed, download the codec for Quicktime (the standard package available from the Mplayer site includes this) and then once in the appropriate directory, you should be ready to go.

Here's the contraption I experienced:

Funny that nowadays, the Linux video player mplayer gives better compatibility than the commercial alternatives. Just one big codec pack to download, and it handles all AVI/WMV/DIVX/MOV/RMV, so that we hardly notice or care what format a video came as.

Too bad it is illegal.

you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

mpeg4 is great for low bitrate PC generated video (which is what it was designed for), but it is not significantly better than mpeg2 to get the miracle compression you attribute to it.

i know you think your 4x reduced mpeg4 rips look "good" on a pc monitor

you can't generate detail from missing bits

they look horrible blown up on a bigscreen. artifacting all over the place

don't believe me? try this analysis by an mpeg expert.

Really? I have yet to see one of mine that doesn't play, and I've got dozens, but I believe you.

What about mplayer then? Same deal?

you need divx. mplayer will run this in windows, bu its command line only. http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

Just for fun about a year ago I installed Linux on an old 486 SX my in-laws were throwing out. There is something surreal about combining software with up to the minute security and bug fixes with a ~10 year old computer and a ~6 year old network and sound card, and then turning around and using pretty much the same software to interface with digital video and still cameras and wireless network cards that weren't even conceived of when 486s were cutting edge.

If you haven't checked out Linux in a couple of years, look again. In my opinion, Linux is well beyond the catch up stage and is starting to lead the pack in some areas. As an example of free software being ahead of its time, one of my recent configuration frustrations has been trying to keep a handful of applications like mplayer from using IPv6 by default. Look at the hardened gentoo project for another example of Linux leading the pack.

" MPlayer is a linux only app "

No, MPlayer isn't a Linux only app, it works on many Unices, MacOS X and MS Windows. Latest version (1.0pre6) is available here for MS Windows : http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/win32-bet a/

You mean something like okle?
And mplayer doesn't have GUI? Granted, it's not compiled by default, but it's easy to enable, and binary packages usually include it.

Seems like the market for this is limited. StreamRipper lets me download most radio stations' MP3 streaming audio. Mplayer with some addons allows me to download RealAudio streams which can be converted to MP3. I've got this all automated via cron job to download NPR news, This American Life, plus foreign radio broadcasts for later playback. Plus I can download multiple streams simultaneously, and no worries about poor reception.

Also, I have found no problems with .mp4 files (with MPEG-4 video/ and both mp3 and mp4 (aka AAC) audio): they play in quicktime on mac os x and with vlc on any other platform.

While I'm not a *nix guru, I think that finding a decent codec for cross-platform video shouldn't be terribly difficult. Personally, I've found that MPlayer has fairly good fleaxability when it comes to input. It even says that it supports "ASF/WMV/WMA format". ;)

I think that if you find a codec that works well for you, you should use it. If all else fails, why not have 2 downloads? That would be easier on the pipes then having 1, larger, download.

P.S. - This might be helpful too.

While I'm not a *nix guru, I think that finding a decent codec for cross-platform video shouldn't be terribly difficult. Personally, I've found that MPlayer has fairly good fleaxability when it comes to input. It even says that it supports "ASF/WMV/WMA format". ;)

I think that if you find a codec that works well for you, you should use it. If all else fails, why not have 2 downloads? That would be easier on the pipes then having 1, larger, download.

P.S. - This might be helpful too.

Just a note - QuickTime movies can be played on Linux using mplayer. http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/

i recommend you encode mpeg or quicktime, but most anyone can get a good wmv decoder for free with mplayer or vlc (videolan). these players work mac/windows/da penguin and are free. yes, mplayer is a pain to install for a non geek user, but once it's running, you can even read real player streams and windows media streams and other such fun things.

on the encoding side, mplayer can encode mpeg for you for free if you're thinking of ditching wmv.

~fab

xine and mplayer both work for me.

In case you haven't noticed, high quality TS is nowdays always better than SCREENER, sometimes even better than a dvd screener (no stupid banners rolling over).

I would pay 5-10€ per movie for:

• Fast delivery (not in 24h-92h hours as in with 1Mbps link I've got at the moment)
• High quality, both sound and video, or at least the quality of current 2CD scene xvid releases.
• That I can play it using mplayer or xine or whatever. (READ: no windows media player, no real media player)

At it's current state, the hunting down warez and the risk of it beats the crap out of jumpy rental dvd's for example.

And another thing, few days back I got this movie Black Hawk Down DVD, a cheap bargain but it's a legal copy. Why don't they use the full DVD resolution, there's a lot of wasted frame area unused... Couldn't they afford to make a quality DVD transfer? I don't get it... I know I'd be really pissed off I had paid 60€ for it.. Also the dvd is authored with some buggy software, making it impossible for mplayer to find finnish subtitles for example! Just great..