[MPlayer-users] Re: Mencoder codec location

[Terry Corbet]

01. Because I am not configured for building/testing this code, I am
not able to 'unring the bell' with regards to what trouble-shooting
actions I took, and what changes caused what results.  The best I
can do is try to faithfully reconstruct the chronology as an aid to
anyone who might stumbleupon this thread and find it useful.

02. For whatever configuration of controlling options had originally
been suggested for a successful conversion of a .wmv file [In this
case produced by the MS Photo Story 3 software on an XP host
that happens to have a rather old Matrox card -- old enough that
it does not support the most current DirectX drivers.], the first-level
diagnostic errors indicated that the failure to be able to handle
the video track was due to the fact that the selected codec
could not be found.

03.  When I found a version of the selected codec in the bundle
available from the download site, and placed it in the codecs
directory under the mplayer install home, the symptom still
appeared to be that the reqluired dll file was not being located.

04.  With the helpful suggestions of a.) backing off to mplayer
instead of mencoder, b.) running in -verbose mode, and c.)
capturing stdout so I could take the time to more methodically
try to understand which portions of trace I might comprehend,
I was able to determine that the essential problem -- at least
the one which I had identified, concerning path locations for
codecs was likely the very same code in both products, so I
could set aside the mistaken belief that my problem was
mencoder-specific.

05.  With the helpful suggestion concerning the fact that some
people reported that the Windows platform -- for whatever
behavior may be true of the favored *nix development platform --
seemed to require the placement of codecs in the Windows-
preferred system location -- that placement in the /codecs sub-
directory may not suffice.  In so doing, I found that the
selected .dll was already there!.  Not knowing enough about
these low-level, pedal-to-the-metal matters, since the pre-
existing .dll was two years younger and less than 2% of the
size of the one from the most-recent bundle download, I
saved a copy of the old one, and installed [meaning that, in
addition to copying the file to /system32, I ran the suggested
regsvr32 command] the new version.  Voila, all of a sudden
both mplayer and mencoder seemed to be able to access
the video track in my little audio-visual presentation.

06.  As admitted up front, I do not have a reproducible
audit trail, but I do have what seems to be pretty convincing
evidence of the fact that -- at least in some cases -- this
software will only correctly access the necessary codecs when
those codecs are installed in the OS-specified path location.

Thanks to everyone who provided some assistance.  If my
summary smacks of some flagrant mistakes I am sure that
those who 'own the code' will correct them.  My only hope/
intention is to try to provide a Googlable search path to help
anyone else who may have similar difficulties.