How to play Real Media in Ubuntu Hardy
I use Gentoo and Ubuntu systems generally. While playing .rmvb files on Gentoo was just a matter of emerging the win32codecs or the win64codecs (w32/64codecs on Ubuntu), w64codecs aren’t available for you to apt-get install. Fortunately all you have to do to play .rmvb files with mplayer is to get the binary codecs package from mplayerhq for your specific architecture and platform. In my case AMD64/EMT64 Linux. Go to the download section on the mplayerhq web site and download your codec package. Create the /usr/lib/codecs/ folder if it doesn’t exist already and extract the .so files from the archive you download to that folder. Change the folder permission to a+rx and the .so files permissions to 0644. Be sure to use mplayer or gmplayer to play your .rm or .rmvb files.
Example:
sudo -i
cd
mkdir temp1
cd temp1
wget http://www8.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-amd64-20071007.tar.bz2
tar xjf essential-amd64-20071007.tar.bz2
ls
# if after running ls you don’t see a lot of .so files but instead you see a folder, run:
# cd that_folder
mkdir /usr/lib/codecs
mv *.so /usr/lib/codecs
chmod 0755 /usr/lib/codecs
chmod 0644 /usr/lib/codecs/*
cd
rm -R temp1
exit
EDIT: In the 64bit version of Arch Linux, this was very easy to install just by doing “pacman -S extra/codecs” (Non-linux native codec pack. (Win32, Real9, QuickTime)).
EDIT: The above instructions should work on all systems, but there’s even an easier way to get w32/w64/codecs and keep them up to date: go to the medibuntu site and read the Repository HowTo.
I,m using the 64bit ubuntu in 64bit machine.. i follow the instruction to install rmvb codec but nothing happen? am i missing something?
dakjawa
September 6, 2008 at 02:40
Open up a terminal and do this exactly:
sudo -i
wget http://www3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-amd64-20071007.tar.bz2
tar xjf essential-amd64-20071007.tar.bz2
mkdir /usr/lib/codecs
mv *.so /usr/lib/codecs
chmod 0777 /usr/lib/codecs
chmod 0644 /usr/lib/codecs/*.so
If that doesn’t work, please let me know.
brokenthorn
September 6, 2008 at 02:46
Didn’t work.
In fact the mv command didn’t work, probably because you need to change to the directory the tar file created first, but I just used gksudo nautilus and graphically copied the files.
But I still can’t play Realmedia in Mplayer.
Of course, what I am trying to do is stream a .ram video from a website, using the Mplayer Firefox plugin, so maybe I’m on the wrong track with this?
Séamas
September 30, 2008 at 06:58
[...] How to play Real Media in Ubuntu Hardy [...]
MPlayerでRealMediaファイルを見る by fukabee1500
November 16, 2008 at 19:31
it works for me
mv *.so /usr/lib64/codecs
chmod 555 *.so
thank you!
CentOS 5.2 user
December 23, 2008 at 16:37
I was do everythin what you say and still didn’t work
When I open a .rm file in mplayer I have this error:
AO: [pulse] File to connect to server: Connection refused
poko
January 25, 2009 at 00:35
Séamas, maybe you should change Settings in your video player. I am using SMPlayer, after changing video output (in SMPlayer settings) to X11 everything started working
rinfanaiel
January 25, 2009 at 14:35
The best performing video output module for mplayer is xv. For audio, select alsa. I don’t know why people have to be forced to use pulse. :/
If they’re gonna develop a sound server, they should make it part of Alsa and KISS.
brokenthorn
March 14, 2009 at 22:45