Codecs on yellowdog 6.1 - why not free?

[mushroom1]

Hi, I'm just wondering, Yellowdog is a free open source OS, with many free utilities and applications, yet you have to pay for codecs? Is there anyone out there who has free to use codecs or is this not possible for some reason? If you can basically copy microsoft word (open office) why not do the same for codecs?

[urbanracer34]

Possibly because of copyright laws.

[hxn]

What do you mean codecs? Most players in Linux use FFDShow or internal codec sets.

You should try to install MPlayer and compile it with multiple types of formats. I'm not sure, but with Gentoo all I have to do is add USE flags and it will compile with everything I need.

[anaria]

HI

Depending what you are looking for, you may also a look to VLC, as this one support a lot of codecs and also is able of being used as a client/server for streaming from your own computer for example.

And for my personnal experience on playing Full-HD H264 movies on my own computer (not the PS3 under linux), I got more success with VLC than MPLAYER

BR,

[mushroom1]

Thanks everybody, I'll look into it.