Ask Slashdot: Movie Players for Linux?

mrlament wishes to know about the following: "I've been a long time Linux user, but I keep finding myself having to switch over to my Windows box in order to view videos. I've tried xanim, and have yet had it properly handle a single video, aside from the real player, I cannot seem to find a single decent player for MOVs, AVIs and MPGs. Does anyone know of any, or are there just not any out there?" I posted this up here because I get a lot of this from people outside of Ask Slashdot, so I figure there are people out there that want this information. Hit the link for more. In all honesty, I don't think Linux is going to get very far beyond Indeo Video 3.2 support since IV4, IV5 and the I263 codecs are VERY proprietary and (so I've heard) it costs a lot of money just to become a developer. I would love support for AVIs under more than just Windows, but it's been a couple of years since IV4 was released and I just haven't seen support for it materialize anywhere else (if I'm wrong, someone PLEASE correct me!).

I'm surprised that there ISN'T more visible QuickTime support, but that's Apple's bailiwick. Intel and Apple have also begun to crosslicense technology as Apple now gets Intel Video 4.4 support for QuickTime. Of course as far as I can tell, QuickTime is still only available for Macs, 95/98 and NT.

MPG video files are more crossplatform than any of the others. I expect this format is supported under more platforms than any other, however I don't have any information on a LINUX player. If someone has a helpful link, please post it.

As an aside, MainConcept has one of the best movie players I have seen and supports a wide range of formats. It's been the mainstay viewer under OS/2 for a while, and it looks like they've taken an interest in Linux as they are attempting to port their Video Editor over.

Update: 02/13 01:16 by C : I've started a discussion, and someone has already answered my question regarding IV4 and IV5 on Linux. It appears that the only people who can offer support on these codecs is Intel themselves. With their support of Linux in recent times, who knows, this might actually happen. A cordial letter writing campaign might be in order to see if we can get them to port these codecs sooner rather than later?