gstreamer pitfdll w32codecs wmv

[HadroLepton]

this is a short howto or troubleshooting for following problem:

i have installed gstreamer and pitfdll and w32codecs but totem does not play wmv files

you need to rebuild your gstreamer codec registry. delete the .gstreamer directory in your home and then trigger a rebuild using gst-inspect.

rm -rf ~/.gstreamer-0.10
gst-inspect-0.10

source:
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/dat...g-gst-register

some explanations:
gstreamer maintains a registry of codecs in your home (~/.gstreamer/). apparently, if this registry already exists, gstreamer will not check for any new codecs. if you already have the registry, and then install w32codecs, gstreamer will not recognize the new codecs. when you delete this registry, gstreamer will rebuild the registry, and while doing so will find new codecs installed in the system.

disclaimer:
i am no gstreamer expert. there are many different ways gstreamer can fail and there are many fixes. i just wanted to share this because it worked for me and it has not been posted here in this forum.