Collection of Sample Clips???

[dandirk]

This is probably an odd question....

I am looking for a site or possibly a DL pack of sample clips of various codecs that are out there.

I don't need a sample clip from every codec under the sun but probably the most commonly used ones...

Codec list???? These are just the top of my head maybe more?

Xvid
Divx
Mpeg-2 (DVD)
Real Media
WMA
Quicktime


Essentially I am trying to put together a fairly comprehensive universal player to deploy at my work. Users tend to mess up their computers downloading/installing this that and the other... So I figured I.S. should just bite the bullet and provide a player that already handles 90% of video people will find out there...

So far I have setup MPC with the Real and quicktime alternatives. This so far is working great playing DVDs, Quicktime and real... I just need to test more codecs etc to see if I should also expand to installed a codec pack (heaven forbid please:) or FFDShow for more codecs...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

A very good source for sample clips in various formats is here:
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/

(note that many audio/video formats are in the "A-codecs/" and "V-codecs/" subdirs)

[dandirk]

Thanks I will check that site out.... Looks like they have a ton of codecs... Guess my next question would be what are the most common codecs used out there?

[Dark Shikari]

fairly comprehensive universal player to deploy at my workWhy not just use mplayer?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Guess my next question would be what are the most common codecs used out there?

Video: H.264, MPEG-4 ASP (DivX/Xvid), MPEG-2, MPEG-1, DV, FLV1, MJPEG, WMV3, WMV2, WMV1, HuffYUV, FFV1
Audio: MP3, MP2, AC-3, DTS, (HE-)AAC, Vorbis, FLAC, WMA, ALAC, Musepak, APE

Why not just use mplayer?

Agreed. Either MPlayer or VLC.

List of "Codecs" supported by MPlayer natively (that is: without any additional software) is here:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/codecs-status.html#vc

[dandirk]

Thanks for the suggestions... Mplayer looks promising, lots of great skins to choose from, even a windows media player one. Don't want to confuse my users lol. Have to figure out how to make the default player but that should be a small bump...

Downloading VLC now...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I'd highly recommend to use MPlayer with SMPlayer (http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/) front-end. You may consider my "MPlayer for Windows" package (see link in sig).

[video_magic]

.....Essentially I am trying to put together a fairly comprehensive universal player to deploy at my work. Users tend to mess up their computers downloading/installing this that and the other... So I figured I.S. should just bite the bullet and provide a player that already handles 90% of video people will find out there...

So far I have setup MPC with the Real and quicktime alternatives. This so far is working great playing DVDs, Quicktime and real... I just need to test more codecs etc to see if I should also expand to installed a codec pack (heaven forbid please:) or FFDShow for more codecs...

Wouldn't his best bet be to install MPC and the most recent FFDShow-Tryouts release? Other than occasionally using SMplayer (an Mplayer GUI) I have for the last year and a half found this to be the generally optimum solution for a Windows user that doesn't want to install a lot of different programs.

[dandirk]

Sorry been so long got pulled to another project for a bit...


VLC - while a nice player, it does not support RAM/Real Media so that is a deal breaker

MPlayer/SMplayer - Though mplayer says it supports Real Media, I am having trouble with all RAM sample files and rm files as well. I have posted on SMPlayer forums for a possible reason, mplayer doesn't seem to have a forums but I looked through a few pages of their email lists and didn't find much yet...

MPC/FFDShow - This seems to be the working solution right now. The Real/Quicktime alternative packages work great and with FFDShow I should get most of the other codec support from. The only downside is the GUI, its not bad but some of the WMP skins for mplayer were great for my users to transition to...

Thanks for all the input guys

[LoRd_MuldeR]

MPlayer/SMplayer - Though mplayer says it supports Real Media, I am having trouble with all RAM sample files and rm files as well. I have posted on SMPlayer forums for a possible reason, mplayer doesn't seem to have a forums but I looked through a few pages of their email lists and didn't find much yet...

Are you sure that these .ram files aren't dummy (playlist) files?
If so, open the .ram file with your favorite text editor (e.g. notepad), copy the URL and pass that URL directly to MPlayer.
In SMPlayer that means: "Open" -> "URL" ;)

Also MPlayer has got a mailing list for users, which can be found here:
http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users

(And before you ask: The link is NOT broken, you simply need to accept the "invalid" certificate ^^)

[dandirk]

You know you are right on Lord Mulder... They are playlist files. Though a problem still exists because my users will try and play RAM files and cannot be bothered by extracting the URL.

Your Mplayer version has the most promise, it does play the RAM files but delays and repeats audio for about 5 sec at the beginning (with green lines on display). It then will start the video at a fast rate and slowly sync the video and audio....

I will spend some time on the RAM playlist issue for mplayer, but otherwise it may just be a good idea to go the MPC/FFDShow route...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I will spend some time on the RAM playlist issue for mplayer, but otherwise it may just be a good idea to go the MPC/FFDShow route...

When opening a .ram file from an URL, e.g. http://www.example.com/playlist.ram, you can check the "It's a playlist" option in SMPlayer :)
However there's no such option for local files, so you'd either need to extract the URL manually (as mentioned before) or pass the "-playlist" argument manually to MPlayer.exe.

Remember that going the MPC/ffdshow route requires to install various independent software products (mpc, ffdshow, haali media splitter, quicktime alternative, etc) instead of just one "self-contained" application (like MPlayer or VLC Player). This may or may not lead to some unforeseen problems. And you must keep various software components up-to-date, maintance becomes more difficult...