Sometimes solution is too easy to see (RealVideo .mvb in Debian)
I just got some new video files but instead of divx packed inside .avi they came in .mvb files unknown to me. Trying to view them with xine I was surprised that I did not have a correct codec installed and revealed that the format was RealVideo (RV40).
I was so blinded by the thought that I should have almost any possible commonly known codec installed that I spent several apt-cache searches by looking for something else and completely missing on packet - which I then spotted and was humbled by the fact I had forgotten to install it. The command I needed to get it work was simply:
apt-get install w32codecs
So never fool yourself, even though your guru mind should know all the switches and gears to make a steampunk computer tick, you might still miss the most obvious package for whatever problem you bump into :)
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Tags: codecs, debian, guide, howto, Linux/Unix, media, plugins

June 19th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Hi,
thanks for your posting.
Can it be that the package has been changed by now into some other name?
I received the following message.
————————————————————–
Package w32codecs is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package w32codecs has no installation candidate
————————————————————–
Or is your posting very old? (can’t see the date)
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
@peter
Nope, the post is not very old. The date can bee seen below the post and just before comments (in a gray box), in this case it would be May 10th, 2009 so it was this year. I suspect that the package name must have been changed (I believe that Debian Lenny was already replaced Eth as new stable version of Debian so that should not be the reason though).
I haven’t investigated on this yet but I guess I should. It might be possible that the package can be found from somewhere else than official Debian Stable repository but I don’t think so. I will look into this later but right now I suspect that this is because the package name has propably changed (like you suspected).
Please, if anyone knows better just post a comment here to educate us others :)
September 17th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
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