F18 livecd can't play wma files, and no mplayer

[Fernando Cassia]

I booted Fedora 18 off a LiveCD, and want to play back wma files.

So far, all my attempts have been unsuccesful. It's clear no wma
playback codecs are included with the files.
Plus, MPlayer, which usually plays back 'everything' is NOT included
in the official repos, and if I try to install mplayer from ATRPMS, it
gets a thousands (I'm exaggerating) dependencies and installation
aborts.

I tried looking around for a STATIC BUILD of mplayer, but that doesn't
seem to exist (someone used to compile mplayer statically, many many
years ago, but it seems there's no static builds of recent versions).

Please, let me know of ANY -preferably tiny and NOT dependencies
encumbered- player I can run on F18 from a LiveCD to play back wma
files....

TIA
FC

[Reindl Harald]

Am 18.04.2013 02:36, schrieb Fernando Cassia:
> I booted Fedora 18 off a LiveCD, and want to play back wma files.
>
> So far, all my attempts have been unsuccesful. It's clear no wma
> playback codecs are included with the files.
> Plus, MPlayer, which usually plays back 'everything' is NOT included
> in the official repos, and if I try to install mplayer from ATRPMS, it
> gets a thousands (I'm exaggerating) dependencies and installation
> aborts

use rpmfusion and NOT atrpms
that's the same as for a physical install

[Fernando Cassia]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Reindl Harald  wrote:
> use rpmfusion and NOT atrpms
> that's the same as for a physical install

Thanks, enabled RPMFUSION and it's now downloading a thousand deps
(ok, 29 deps actually), and it'll use 55 MB of HD space.

I still think a static build of MPlayer would be great, but I see here
building one is apparently not so easy:
http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2011-August/083170.html

(Ironically, on win32 there's plenty of static builds of ffmpeg, and I
think I've seen Mplayer builds for Win32 delivered as a single huge
file as well).

Oh well...

What is ironic is that if I google long enough, I'll surely find some
wma player written in Java that I could run by just downloading a
single .jar file and running it with OpenJDK... so much for the
advantage of the 'linux way' of a thousand dependencies on system libs
scattered throughout the system... ;)

FC

[Rick Stevens]

On 04/17/2013 07:19 PM, Fernando Cassia issued this missive:
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Reindl Harald  wrote:
> > use rpmfusion and NOT atrpms
> > that's the same as for a physical install
>
> Thanks, enabled RPMFUSION and it's now downloading a thousand deps
> (ok, 29 deps actually), and it'll use 55 MB of HD space.
>
> I still think a static build of MPlayer would be great, but I see here
> building one is apparently not so easy:
> http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2011-August/083170.html
>
> (Ironically, on win32 there's plenty of static builds of ffmpeg, and I
> think I've seen Mplayer builds for Win32 delivered as a single huge
> file as well).
>
> Oh well...
>
> What is ironic is that if I google long enough, I'll surely find some
> wma player written in Java that I could run by just downloading a
> single .jar file and running it with OpenJDK... so much for the
> advantage of the 'linux way' of a thousand dependencies on system libs
> scattered throughout the system... ;)

Large portions of the ability to play various media is encumbered by
copyright and patent issues on the codecs. Red Hat/Fedora play by USA
laws and can't include things that have such issues. SuSE and several
others based outside the USA bypass them regularly. Note that
"mplayerhq.hu" is registered in Hungary.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    [e-mail] -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
- Life:  That which happens while you search for the remote control. -
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Fernando Cassia]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Rick Stevens  wrote:
> Red Hat/Fedora play by USA
> laws and can't include things that have such issues. SuSE and several
> others based outside the USA bypass them regularly.

Yes, I know Rick. I've found the hard way that Fedora's media players,
as shipped with the OS, are basically useless for playing any media
you find on the Net, no mp3 playback, no wma audio playback, can't
even play back *.mp4 (MPEG 4 layer 10, aka H.264) files downloaded
from Youtube via keepvid.com...

And common media players like MPlayer or VLC do not come in
'statically linked' versions that one can just download as a single
file and run, while booted off a LiveCD... (yes, one can 'yum install
mplayer' but it's painfully slow and the app is obviously gone at the
next reboot).

You might say "why don't you install the OS and be done with it?" and
you might have a point, but it's still a sad reality of the Linux
world that there's no "download and run" media player available on
Linux that doesn't need a ton of dependencies installed. Ironically,
on Windows the user can just go to any "portable apps" site and
download a single .exe file that contains everything needed for media
playback.

On the other hand, I've found jlGui which being Java based doesn't
need more than itself and the Java JRE available (runs just fine under
OpenJDK 7, luckily included in the LiveCD),

http://www.javazoom.net/jlgui/jlgui.html

... and can even be launched with a single click from a web link using
Java Web Start (with the provided Icedtea web launcher)....
http://goo.gl/b7QwY

BUT, there's always a BUT.... Unfortunately it does MP3 and Vorbis
playback, not WMA...

The good news is that their pure-Java mp3 decoder is even licensed
under the LGPL... http://www.javazoom.net/javalayer/javalayer.html

Back to WMA... I suspect Micros~1 must have a patent or two on wma
audio playback... yet ffmpeg authors reverse engineered their own wma
decoder back in 2002. Too bad ffmpeg isnt even included in the F18
livecd, otherwise it'd be a matter of creating a jlGui wrapper using
this http://code.google.com/p/jjmpeg/

Oh well, will keep looking. Thanks everyone.

FC

PS: For the curious, I have tons of radio shows recorded in DVD-R in
low-bitrate, mono .wma files, files often being 100MB+ in size each
and containing four hours of audio.... which I often want to cut in
tiny snippets, for which I use the Linux freeware (not FOSS, but
freeware) http://www.radioactivepages.com/asfbin.aspx from the command
line. But in order to be able to cut it, first I need to be able to
hear the files to find cut points.

PS2: No, converting all files to other format is not an option. And
installing F18 to HD, as of right now, is not possible. Maybe soon,
but not now. So I'll keep using F18 off a LiveCD for now...

[Reindl Harald]

Am 18.04.2013 21:48, schrieb Fernando Cassia:
> Yes, I know Rick. I've found the hard way that Fedora's media players,
> as shipped with the OS, are basically useless for playing any media
> you find on the Net, no mp3 playback, no wma audio playback, can't
> even play back *.mp4 (MPEG 4 layer 10, aka H.264) files downloaded
> from Youtube via keepvid.com...

so what
> And common media players like MPlayer or VLC do not come in
> 'statically linked' versions that one can just download as a single
> file and run, while booted off a LiveCD...

nobody wnat's static linked binaries where security updates
at the libs are not affecting the still vulnerable binary
> (yes, one can 'yum install
> mplayer' but it's painfully slow and the app is obviously gone at the
> next reboot)

so what - get a usb-stick and make a bootable live-stick
with persistent storage - works since many years

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Fernando Cassia  said:
> And common media players like MPlayer or VLC do not come in
> 'statically linked' versions that one can just download as a single
> file and run, while booted off a LiveCD... (yes, one can 'yum install
> mplayer' but it's painfully slow and the app is obviously gone at the
> next reboot).

So use one of the several tools to copy the live CD image to a USB
stick, along with creating an overlay.  You can install things and
they'll still be there on a reboot (and as a bonus, flash is vastly
faster than optical media).  You can also create a separate home
filesystem image and even swap if needed.

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 15:48:50 -0400,
   Fernando Cassia  wrote:
> Yes, I know Rick. I've found the hard way that Fedora's media players,
> as shipped with the OS, are basically useless for playing any media
> you find on the Net, no mp3 playback, no wma audio playback, can't
> even play back *.mp4 (MPEG 4 layer 10, aka H.264) files downloaded
> from Youtube via keepvid.com...

Youtube provides webm which is playable with packages available in Fedora.
Conferences related to free software also often provide recorded talks 
in formats that are not patent encumbered.
> And common media players like MPlayer or VLC do not come in
> 'statically linked' versions that one can just download as a single
> file and run, while booted off a LiveCD... (yes, one can 'yum install
> mplayer' but it's painfully slow and the app is obviously gone at the
> next reboot).

You pretty much need just as much stuff if not more by downloading 
a static archive. It will just be in one file instead of several. It may 
be that the install goes slower since seeks on optical media are very slow.

Also note it is pretty easy to use livecd-creator to make respins that 
include stuff from rpmfusion.
> PS: For the curious, I have tons of radio shows recorded in DVD-R in
> low-bitrate, mono .wma files, files often being 100MB+ in size each
> and containing four hours of audio.... which I often want to cut in
> tiny snippets, for which I use the Linux freeware (not FOSS, but
> freeware) http://www.radioactivepages.com/asfbin.aspx from the command
> line. But in order to be able to cut it, first I need to be able to
> hear the files to find cut points.

There are some free (and weapons grade) voice audio encoders that need 
around 1400 bps which sounds like it would result in significantly 
smaller files. One was covered by a talk at LCA 2012.

[Tim]

Allegedly, on or about 18 April 2013, Fernando Cassia sent:
> Ironically, on Windows the user can just go to any "portable apps"
> site and download a single .exe file that contains everything needed
> for media playback.

Either because they've the legal right to include the codec, or the
program is illegal.

Serious, why do people expect free software to have either paid for you
to have the rights to use something, or to break the law??!!  MP3, etc,
are encumbered, and require either the software creator or the end-user
to pay for the privilege to use it.  If you want to grizzle at someone
about this, grizzle at those that developed MP3.

[poma]

On 18.04.2013 04:19, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Reindl Harald  wrote:
> > use rpmfusion and NOT atrpms
> > that's the same as for a physical install
>
> Thanks, enabled RPMFUSION and it's now downloading a thousand deps
> (ok, 29 deps actually), and it'll use 55 MB of HD space.
>
> I still think a static build of MPlayer would be great, but I see here
> building one is apparently not so easy:
> http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2011-August/083170.html
>
> (Ironically, on win32 there's plenty of static builds of ffmpeg, and I
> think I've seen Mplayer builds for Win32 delivered as a single huge
> file as well).
>
> Oh well...
>
> What is ironic is that if I google long enough, I'll surely find some
> wma player written in Java that I could run by just downloading a
> single .jar file and running it with OpenJDK... so much for the
> advantage of the 'linux way' of a thousand dependencies on system libs
> scattered throughout the system... ;)

What a hullabaloo you are. :)

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