[MPlayer-users] Help with CarTalk stream, DirectShow.

[Albert Schueller]

Thu Jan 22 02:27:38 PST 2004

Hi all,

This is long, skip to the end if you just want to read about the mplayer
problem and not the long path that led me to it.  Thanks in advance for
any help.

I've grazed the list for this issue, but I wasn't able to solve my
problem.  In the US, NPR's CarTalk has switched from RealAudio to a
Windows Media Stream.

They give their reasons here:

 http://cartalk.cars.com/time-kill/archives/newsletters/2004/0401.html

whatever...

Here:
		http://cartalk.cars.com/Radio/help.html

they claim that mplayer is a way for linux users to listen to the
stream, now that RealPlayer is no longer an option.

Doing the dumb thing, I try:

 mplayer http://cartalk.cars.com/Radio/Show/Audio/200403/wms/CT0403-01.asx

and it fails.  Turns out there's a redirect in the .asx file.  I
download the .asx file and look inside, get the real url and try:

 mplayer mms://pubintwm.fplive.net/pubint/cartalk/200403/CT0403-01.wma

No luck, after a long (1 minute) timeout mplayer finishes with:

 <copious non-fatal mplayer output snipped>

 Cache fill:  3.96% (2595 bytes)    ASF file format detected.
 ============ ASF Stream group == START ===
  object size = 32
  stream count=[0x1][1]
    stream id=[0x1][1]
    max bitrate=[0x417b][16763]
 ============ ASF Stream group == END ===
 ASF: No audio stream found -> no sound.
 No stream found.

So I go and get asfrecord, a handy little utility for dumping asf
streams to files: http://sourceforge.net/projects/asfrecorder/

I get the file with:

 asfrecorder mms://pubintwm.fplive.net/pubint/cartalk/200403/CT0403-01.wma

and now the stream is sitting in the file.  Let's try mplayer on that:

 mplayer CT0403-01.wma

No luck, mplayer finishes with:

 <copious non-fatal mplayer output snipped>

 Playing CT0403-01.wma.
 ASF file format detected.
 ============ ASF Stream group == START ===
  object size = 32
  stream count=[0x1][1]
    stream id=[0x1][1]
    max bitrate=[0x417b][16763]
 ============ ASF Stream group == END ===
 Clip info:
  name: Cartalk 0403 - Segment 01
  author: Car Talk
  copyright: (c) Dewey Cheetham and Howe
  comments:
 ==========================================================================
 Cannot find codec for audio format 0xA.
 Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
 ==========================================================================
 Audio: no sound
 Video: no video

So, taking the message to heart, I start reading codecs.html.  I put
"format 0xA" into each of the wma codec sections in codecs.conf (one at a
time), and try:

 mplayer CT0403-01.wma

No luck, mplayer finishes with:

 <copious non-fatal mplayer output snipped>

 External func OLEAUT32.dll:7
 External func OLEAUT32.dll:8
 Total Unfree 0 bytes cnt 0 [(nil),0]
 IMediaObject ERROR: 0x840776f  input format not accepted (0x80040205 : -2147220987)
 ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec wma9dmod.dll.
 ADecoder preinit failed :(
 ADecoder init failed :(
 Cannot find codec for audio format 0xA.
 Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
 ==========================================================================
 Audio: no sound
 Video: no video

I start searching around for this "DirectShow" codec in the
mplayer-users archives.  I find a pointer to the "Importing" section of
codecs.html in the mplayer html docs.  There I'm directed to a windows
utility called GraphEdit.exe that will let me open the DirectShow driver
in Windows.  I go do that and get the following information:

 DisplayName: @device:sw:{083863F1-70DE-11D0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}\{22E24591-49D0-11D2-BB50-006008320064}
 Filename: C:\WINDOWS\System32\msadds32.ax
 Merit: 00800001

As you can see, I've made due diligence here, but I'm at an impasse.
What do I do with this information?  Can mplayer play these files?
Isn't wma just wma?  At the very least, CarTalk hasn't really looked
into the mplayer claim that they make on their www page.

Thanks for any help.

Albert









-- 
Albert Schueller                                 Department of Mathematics
Office Phone:  509-527-5140                      Whitman College
Public Key:  http://carrot.whitman.edu/gpg.key   Walla Walla, WA USA m99362