Windows Media codecs released

Windows Media

I’m happy to tell that the Windows Media codecs that I have been working on have just been released today on the Fluendo Webshop. And here is the announcement.

Currently there is:

  • an ASF demuxer
  • a Windows Media Video decoder
  • a Windows Media Audio decoder

The demuxer is used to extract the audio/video streams from the ASF files (that is, files commonly ending in .wmv, .wma or sometimes also .asf) and sends them to the respective decoders. The demuxer was written from scratch and the decoders are adapted from the sources provided by Microsoft. This is the first time one can play those files legaly on Linux because with those codecs comes the license to do so.

The platforms supported are:

  • Linux x86
  • Linux x86_64
  • Solaris SPARC
  • Solaris x86
  • Linux PowerPC

And more to come but I cannot disclose them yet. The media framework used is GStreamer which means all your applications using it automatically can play Windows Media files.