Thread: Installing Video codecs

Installing video codecs is one of the most notoriously difficult things about Linux. Finding codecs and installing them can be a daunting task for new users, and a very strong reason for many experimenters to completely give up on Linux. However, the procedure is not that difficult, and can be handled easily with a little tweaking around in the system.

A codec is a coder-decoder, which is a set of algorithms by which multimedia files can be compressed a viewed. Different codecs offer a different range of compromises between filesize and quality. The open source community uses formats like theora for video and flac or vorbis for audio, but files in these formats are pretty rare.



Most media players for linux store codecs in two locations. This is either /usr/local/lib/codecs or /usr/lib/win32. To manipulate both these locations, you will need root access. Check if both these directories exist. If they don't, create them in the correct locations with the correct spelling. These codecs have been compiled by the mplayer team, and are in the tarbz2 format. Unpack the file using the tar command, then copy and paste the unpacked files into the two folders mentioned above. Once this is done, your media player should be able to play most formats. The file contains mpeg and variants, DivX, Real Formats, Windows formats, Cinepak and Intel formats, Ogg formats and Quick time formats for audio and video file. covering most common codecs in the will. There are many other codec packs available in this directory. ranging from the essential to the comprehensive.