VLC has pretty good coverage ; it uses libavcodec for most formats.
The formats most likely to cause problems in practice are proprietary formats like Real Audio / Real Video.
A few versions are supported by the open libraries - other versions may require transcoding (possibly using emulation).
http://www.videolan.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libavcodec
Simon
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Digital Curation" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to digital-curati...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to digital-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/digital-curation.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Digital Curation" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to digital-curati...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to digital-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/digital-curation.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Mplayer requires running libavcodec from prerelease. I think if trunk is tagged and released, Mplayer cannot be downloaded until at least one change is made :-P
VLC beta is like that too, but additionally threatens to burn down your house and kill your kitten 😿.
Mplayer X for Mac does not include the cli utilities; it checks for availability and downloads them.
Configuring the command lines for ffmpeg and mplayer can be an adventure (especially if you can't find a recipe). Many of the options for ffmpeg can be passed to mplayer with appropriate wrapping.
Not *all* of the option values are magic numbers :)
Also, if you have issues with non ascii media...
http://annasagrera.com/on-ascii-youtube-and-letting-go/?lang=en
If you are just looking for something to open and play files, in addition to VLC I have found that Media Player Classic (MPC-HC) often works well (Windows). http://mpc-hc.org/- Carol