[MPlayer-users] debian wmv Video used to play but Doesn't now.

[stan]

On Wed, 12 Sep 2018 12:22:35 -0500
"Martin McCormick" <martin.m at suddenlink.net> wrote:

> 	I have a file that I first acquired in 2006 called
> kosovo.wmv.  At that time, mplayer would play the sound with no
> trouble but it seems that no matter what I set in
> ~/.mplayer/config, there is no audio.

[snip]

> [AO_ALSA] Unable to set samplerate-2: Invalid argument
> Failed to initialize audio driver 'alsa'
> Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
> Audio: no sound

The alsa device didn't open, so you are never going to get sound.  The
error sounds like you are requesting the device set itself to a frame
rate that it doesn't allow.  Have you changed your sound device?

> 	Any constructive suggestions are welcome.  The file in
> question is listed on youtube.  It is a good test file to see if
> one can play the sound from an older .wmv file and, so far, one
> can't although it used to play with no issues.

Is it available?  Try
aplay -lv
then if the device is there and recognized,
aplay [some wav file]
or 
aplay -v -D plughw:0,0 [some wav file]
with the first 0 replaced with the device from the aplay -lv output.
This form compensates for frame rate differences.  Does it play?

Do you have pulseaudio installed?  Is it controlling the device?  Check
with pavucontrol in the gui.

What if you remove the line completely from the configuration file and
let mplayer find the audio device?

I tried grabbing kosovo.wmv with youtube-dl, it complained that the
sound format wasn't compatible with the video, and performed a
transformation, so it probably isn't a good test.  But mplayer told me
this about the sound,

Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 0.0 kbit/0.00% (ratio: 0->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffopus] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg opus)

and played without issue.