[SOLVED] Unable to play .mp4 files on Fedora 17

[TheComputer]

Running 64-bit Fedora 17, I'm trying to play .mp4 files in Totem, and am informed that "Movie Player requires additional plugins to decode this file". MPEG-4 AAC decoder and H.264 decoder are listed. I click "Continue" to search for those decoders. I'm told that gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-extras is to be installed. I know that the package is already installed, but click Continue anyway (what is my choice? cancel?).

After a bit of gear grinding, I'm alerted that "All of the packages selected for install are already installed on the system. The packages are already all installed." Well, yeah...

But the movie won't play because, "The playback of this movie required a MPEG-4 AAC decoder plugin which is not installed."

If I try "gst-inspect -b", I find that libgstpython.so is blacklisted. Deleting ~/gstreamer-0.10/registry.x86_64.bin and rebuilding results in the same blacklist.

I found this bug

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696388

posted 16 months ago for Fedora 15 i386, and apparently also present in some variant of Fedora 16.

I find it difficult to believe that this represents a true problem with libgstpython, as I would expect more than three of us (the two contributors to the bug report and myself) to want to play .mp4 files on three different versions of Fedora. However, I'm stumped as to how to resolve this issue.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[smr54]

I always install rpmfusion and then install mplayer. Many others use VLC. Both seem to solve the problem.

http://www.rpmfusion.net

[TheComputer]

Thanks. I included rpmfusion.org in my repolist and installed mplayer. mplayer will only play the audio portion of the .mp4.

I then installed VLC, which worked - as always.

The bug I mentioned really should be addressed. Asking users to add rpmfusion and switch to a different player is just papering over the apathy apparent in a 16 month old, unaddressed bug.

[george_toolan]

My mplayer plays everything including mp4 files ;-)

What does it have to say about the video portion of your mp4 file?

==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 141.0 kbit/9.18% (ratio: 17624->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffaac] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio))
==========================================================================

Did you install ffmpeg?