Help talk:Media (audio and video)/Archives/2016

HOW-TO: Find all the Ogg files on Wikipedia
Now that you know how to play Ogg files, either Vorbis, Theora or Speex, you might want to know where to find files to play. Wikipedia offers a vast list in this page, most of them under the Public Domain. You might also want to check the Commons data base.

Furthermore, you may want to offer your help to Wikipedia by creating Spoken versions of its articles using either the Vorbis format or Speex.

-- Saoshyant talk / contribs 15:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

How/where can I find a plug-in to play aforementioned video content on my Android smartphone? I use both the default Android browser and Firefox for Android. Erzahler (talk) 20:22, 1 January 2016 (UTC) Erzahler (talk) 20:22, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Ogg is a great codec, but...
Like I said, ogg is a useful, high fidelity, highly portable codec with no restrictions. However, there are some issues with the support pages; they direct the sort of users who probably would trust all instructions on the internet because they don't know better to install additional plugins and media players and to download additional software, the majority of which is out-of-date or no longer actively developed as the pages have not been updated for some time now. I personally have nothing against Ogg vorbis as a codec; I'm on Linux Mint with KDE and I ripped all my CD's in K3b to 320kbps Ogg files. They play back fine on my computer, and the quality is great - having tried to play other formats such as AAC in amarok, I can only get Ogg/FLAC/WAV files to work reliably. Therefore, I strongly support OGG.

My suggestion would be, instead of making users download additional software, some of which may be proprietary abandonware, firefox and chrome support OGG (as do "nerdy" browsers like Konqueror and Midori), so a simple message directing them to install firefox, chrome or opera (basically anything other than safari or IE) would be more than sufficient. The instructions currently on here, to be honest, make even me feel stupid. At the moment, the page basically says "if you don't run linux p*ss off we aren't going to help you lol". So, instead of deliberately making people feel stupid because they use IE/windows, a discrete banner saying "unsupported browser detected" with a link to download firefox would be better than intimidating average users with unnecessary, outdated instructions.

edit: sorry, forgot to sign Thelinuxneckbeard (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


 * For the past decade, Wikipedia has demonstrated its commitment to codecs that are not patent-encumbered. Bravo!


 * A lot has changed over 10 years; Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome now natively play these media formats! Simply providing links to https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ and https://www.google.com/chrome/ will let most users experience the audio and video content on Wikipedia.


 * I agree wholeheartedly with Thelinuxneckbeard; all we need is a simple message directing users to Firefox and Chrome (and to the companion apps for iOS.)


 * The awful days of requiring Java, codec packs and standalone media players are behind us. Let's update this page accordingly!


 * Hydraxan14 (talk) 04:22, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Your app doesn't play your own audio
Seriously? I can't listen to wikipedia's sound because Safari doesn't play those stupid ogg files. Even the bloody Wikipedia iOS app doesn't play wikipedia's chosen obscure file type!

You're supposed to be making knowledge more easily available to the people. Stop being hipster elitists and use something everyone can play (ideally including the mobile platform currently predominant around the world.

Telling me I have to dl some obscure third-party app just so I can play your audio, or worse *buy* another random app if I want the video and audio, is unacceptable — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.124.118 (talk) 03:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It was worse for my Windows RT tablet. There isn't any obscure third-party app to make it handle OGG. For that and other reasons, I gave it away this spring to someone who needed it and bought an iPad Air, which is no great improvement. For this and other reasons I think I'll buy another Android tablet, having given away my old one a couple years ago. Wikipedia, and Wikimedia Commons which is more responsible in this matter, are not serious about audio and video.  Jim.henderson (talk) 18:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree. There's a reason nobody uses OGG and everyone uses MP3. It's very technical but what it boils down to is that OGG sucks, big time. That's the technical term ;) Wikimedia foundation needs to pull its collective head out of its ass and come to its senses. Forcing people to use an obscure media format just because it is royalty free is just plain stupid. The legal status of MP3 and who owns its patent is unclear at best so the chances that one of the half-dozen companies that claim royalty rights could successfully sue Wikimedia are slim... and yet here we are still being forced to "use" OGG. Allthenamesarealreadytaken (talk) 03:13, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * You asked for it! :)
 * Vorbis doesn't suck! MP3 had a several-year head-start and hasn't lost its momentum.
 * MP3 was released in 1993/1995. Vorbis was released in 2000/2004.
 * Vorbis was created as an alternative which is not encumbered by licensing or patents. It succeeds in this and it makes more sense than MP3 in a lot of use cases (such as games, where the audio takes up a crap ton of disk space if not lossily compressed; the vorbis decoder is supplied and the creators would otherwise have to pay for the MP3 licenses for each game copy sold.  See Minecraft, World of Goo, Awesomenauts, Super Splatters, Super Hexagon, Sins of a Solar Empire, Fate, etc.  Oh, and not-for-profit websites, like Wikipedia.)
 * Since the most popular platforms don't ship with vorbis decoders (except for Android,) artist don't usually release their music in that format, so the platform devs don't really have any inclination to ship vorbis decoders. It's a vicious cycle.
 * With regards to audio quality, MP3 encoders have improved substantially. "lame --preset standard" is way better than the 128kbps CBR crap from ancient encoders.  At similar bitrates, I can't hear the different between Vorbis and MP3.
 * Hydraxan14 (talk) 05:02, 23 January 2016 (UTC)


 * You asked for it back - Betamax was better than VHS, but VHS won. Using Vorbis is the equivalent of writing articles in Esperanto - very worthy, but most people won't be able to read them. It's a dumb idea.  86.159.208.71 (talk)LP

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2016
89.15.174.31 (talk) 23:56, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --allthefoxes (Talk) 00:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

2016 VLC
i wanted to listen to the chromatic scales here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_scale

the first one played fine; the 2nd one i can't listen to. i click it, and get an "Open" dialog box; then select "Open with: VLC media player 2.1.5". VLC opens and gives me this: "No suitable decoder module: VLC does not support the audio or video format "MIDI". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."

I clicked the "Help" link following the file name, and from that page clicked "Directions on installing software" which brought me to this page (Wikipedia:Media help (audio and video)). I began following the steps for "Windows." The first step tells me that if I have VLC then i don't have to do any more steps. But, since I already had VLC and it hadn't worked, I continued. I followed the link of Step 2, and downloaded the Open codecs from xiph.org (Version 0.85.17777, 12 January, 2011, Win 32/64-bit Installer). BTW, this org seriously hasn't updated this for FIVE YEARS?

I ran the exe file, and tried to listen to the scale again. nN go. Got the same error message in VLC.

I'm running Win7 SP1, Firefox 44.0.2 (which is the latest), and, for the Realtek sound card in my laptop, have the Realtek Audio Driver 6.0.1.6685 for Windows 7 (also the latest).

So, what's up?Colbey84 (talk) 13:03, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

MP3 patent expiration
Note that most of the MP3 patents have expired by this point. This probably is still not worth it unless there is a good reason to do so. - Yuhong (talk) 01:09, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

How do I get this to work on an Android phone?
How do I get this to work on an Android phone? I'm using the Chrome browser, but I still can't play the following file: Banaticus (talk) 19:16, 24 October 2016 (UTC)