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I have just downloaded and installed the latest VLC version on a WinXP machine. It works fine on everything I tried so far except windows .WMA audio files. These files play just fine with Windows Media Player but not with VLC. Actually, the VLC player shows on the progression-bar that it is playing, however, there is no sound. What am I missing? Is there some "switch" to turn on or are the .WMA files protected by the WMP?

--codec dmo

"If you want an answer to your question, just be specific and verbose. Don't PM."

PM? What the heck is PM?

codec dmo? Is that supposed to be an answer? Just be specific and verbose.

VLC used to work on wma files, back before I installed umpteen different software packages. It still works on most things, just not on wma files.

PM is a private message, feature of this forum.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=35859&start=75#p119933
more guidance for DMO. DMO may not work with WMP11.

is the new one can play WMA?

You can try nightly builds to see if they play those files that currently won't work.
http://nightlies.videolan.org/

I am a newbie and do not have a technical bone in my body so this VLC is an adventure. I cannot play some WMV files either whilst all other files and WMV files are ok. Gleaning from the forums, troubleshooting, the WMV codec which are causing the trouble is: WMA2 - Windows Audio Media V8, WMA2 - Windows Audio Media 9. How do I fix this?

If i need to install a codec, where do i find it and how do I do this?

My dummies guide is gleaned again fom google, please correct before misadventure....
Choose Start>Control Panel and double click Add hardware, then click Next.
Click Yes, I have already connected the hardware and click Next.
Select Audio Codecs in the list of installed hardware.
If you did not have previously any audio codecs installed in the system, you should select Audio Codecs in the list of devices and click Next. This should install support for the needed sound compression schemes. Stop following this procedure at this point.
On the other hand, if you do have support for some audio codecs it is likely that you need to go on with the procedure below.
Choose Add a new hardware device at the bottom of the list and click Next.
Click Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced), and click Next.
Select Sound, video and game controllers and click Next.
Select (Standard system devices) and click Have Disk.
Click Browse in the Install From Disk dialog box and open the folder C:\Windows\System32.
You should see here mmdriver.inf. Select it and click Open.
Click OK in the Install From Disk dialog box.
If you see a warning about logo compatibility, just click Continue Anyway.

Thank you in advance, long liv VLC!

I don't think you can only install proper DMO because AFAIK it is tied to WMP version. So if you have latest WMP (WMP 11), you are out of luck if nightlies don't open those file. You could rollback to earlier WMP but I don't suggest it (WMP 9 should work).

VLC_help, have you thought about putting the WMP10 dlls in VLC plugin folder ?

AFAIK DMO filters must also be registered using regsvr32 so copying the dlls to VLC plugin folder shouldn't work.

Are you sure about that inside VLC ?

Yep, you are right. dmo.c lists wvc1dmod.dll, wmv9dmod.dll etc. and it uses GetProcAddress so that dll trick might work.

\o/ Have you tried ?

My bad. codec_dll decoders_table and codec_dll encoders_table aren't used by default (I emptied both tables, compiled new version and --codec dmo still works). And I should have figured that earlier, because Vista doesn't have for example wmv9dmod.dll, wvc1dmod.dll etc. at all, but DMO decoding still works. I think it uses GUID for locating the right decoder.

Most common error is can't set DMO output type which comes from SetOutputType failing.

have you thought about putting the WMP10 dlls in VLC plugin folder ?

That's a nice trick, I didn't know about that and yes it's working fine

But on my computer it's working only if I copy the DLL's in the main VLC folder where VLC.EXE is, it seems that they can't be loaded from the \plugins folder for some reason.

For instance, I tried with a WMVA video and this codec is not installed on my system.
This is what I got with the DLL copied in the \plugins folder: But it's working fine after I copied the DLL into the main VLC folder:

Can you add this tip on the wiki and list the correct DLLs ?

But on my computer it's working only if I copy the DLL's in the main VLC folder where VLC.EXE is, it seems that they can't be loaded from the \plugins folder for some reason.

Yes the default location for DLL's need to be in either the same directory as the *.exe, or in "C:\WINDOWS\system32".

Arite.

Filenames should be listed in dmo.c decoders_table and encoders_table.

Decoders:
wvc1dmod.dll
wmv9dmod.dll
wmvdmod.dll
wmsdmod.dll
wmvadvd.dll
wma9dmod.dll
wmspdmod.dll

Encoders:
wmvdmoe2.dll
wmadmoe.dll

It doesn't work with MSS2 videos for me.

For instance this video:
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/V-codecs/MS ... speech.wmv

is playing fine in alternate players like MPC-HC (using the DMO codec which is installed on my system) and also in MPUI/MPlayer using the same trick as VLC does.

As I said the codec is installed on my system but whether I'm using the system codec or I copy the DLL into the main VLC folder it doesn't work. I got this message: I've tried with two different versions of WMSDMOD.DLL, v9.0.0.2980 and v10.0.0.3802 and always got the same result.

I woke the MSS2 trac ticket earlier. Same for me.
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/750

Interesting

dmo error: can't set DMO output type

Do MMS1 work?

I tested MSS1 support with mms://trog.ni.com/ni/webevents/gsd/introtogsd_fast.wmv and errors are the same.

Same here and same error message with MSS1 as with MSS2: "dmo error: can't set DMO output type".

ok, then the issue is with this dll