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[Rizlaw]

First a question: If FLAC and OGG are both free open source formats, why is OGG installed in MC12 by default and not FLAC?

Now to my problem with ALL versions of the MC12 FLAC downloadable plugins (both "in_flac" and "enc_flac"):

1. Under Linux (Ubuntu 7.04 to be specific) creating either VMware Workstation 6: Win2K or WinXP virtual machines and installing MC12 goes without a hitch. (MC12 works pretty well in a WinXP VM environment, except for "Theater View" which JimH informs me uses Direct3D which is not well supported in any VMs to date.) However, it is impossible in a WIN2K or WINXP VM to install the FLAC plugins, particularly "in_flac" - any version. I have downloaded and tried all versions of the FLAC plugins and none of them will install "in_flac" in Win2K or WinXP . Even manually moving the in_flac.dll file to the MC12 plugin folder doesn't work. A similar problem also exists when installing MC12 in Linux using Codeweaver's "Crossover 6.1" Wine application.

While I realize that none of what I am trying to accomplish is supported by JRiver, since MC12 is strictly a "windows" app, I fail to understand why a VM which is running pure Win2k SP4 or WinXP SP2 can not install the FLAC plugins without issue.

Obviously, adding FLAC, along with OGG to the basic MC12 build would solve the problem. But, it seems that JRiver is not inclined to accomodate those who wish to use open source codecs.

So, can someone please explain why the present FLAC plugins won't install in the environment I have outlined above. 

[Mr ChriZ]

But, it seems that JRiver is not inclined to accomodate those who wish to use open source codecs.

JRiver does accomodate people that wish to use open source codec by allowing an interface
to add extra decoding and encoding plugins.  It maybe that they would love to include
the code but are unable due to license restrictions as they are selling a commercial product.
Just because something is open source and free doesn't mean it is free for all to use and distribute.

[Rizlaw]

JRiver does accomodate people that wish to use open source codec by allowing an interface
to add extra decoding and encoding plugins.  It maybe that they would love to include
the code but are unable due to license restrictions as they are selling a commercial product.
Just because something is open source and free doesn't mean it is free for all to use and distribute.

Actually, my understanding is quite the contrary; if it is open source and free, then it is free for all to use and distribute. It is also my understanding (which may be incorrect since I have not researched the licensing for both OGG and FLAC) that both are totally free open source codec projects, and this is why they are always included in Linux distros such as Ubuntu which do not, by default, install any proprietary/restricted software drivers or codecs. It is, therefore, odd that JRiver includes OGG by default and not FLAC, since it is not likely due to a licensing restriction which would somehow prevent FLAC's inclusion in a commercial product like MC12. If this were the case, then OGG would not have been included in MC12. The fact that JRiver provides a mechanism for the installation of FLAC, is much appreciated, but, nevertheless, makes it more confusing as to why FLAC is excluded in the default installation of MC12. If memory serves me well, earlier incarnations of MC did not include OGG or MPC by default. This is not to say that JRiver doesn't have every right to decide what to include or exclude from builds of MC12. I am sure I am not alone is wishing that JRiver would add FLAC as an additional built-in codec like OGG.

However, none of this, answers my initial problem with installation of FLAC in a Windows VM under Linux.

[Mr ChriZ]

Actually, my understanding is quite the contrary; if it is open source and free, then it is free for all to use and distribute.

Fraid not.  It depends totally on the license that is distributed with the software.
Take a look at GPL (It's not a fun read I'm afraid).

[Edit] Technically they could use it, or distribute it, but not as part of MC.

[Rizlaw]

Fraid not.  It depends totally on the license that is distributed with the software.
Take a look at GPL (It's not a fun read I'm afraid).

It was not my intention to start a debate. Perhaps you are missing my point: OGG is included in MC12 because it is (1) free and (2) open source (without restriction on how it is used and by whom). That is why OGG was created. From the OggVorbis FAQ:

The Ogg Vorbis specification is in the public domain. It is completely free for commercial or noncommercial use. That means that commercial developers may independently write Ogg Vorbis software which is compatible with the specification for no charge and without restrictions of any kind. . . .

And from the FLAC FAQ page on the FLAC license:

FLAC is a free codec in the fullest sense. This page explicitly states all that you may do with the format and software.

The FLAC and Ogg FLAC formats themselves, and their specifications, are fully open to the public to be used for any purpose (the FLAC project reserves the right to set the FLAC specification and certify compliance). They are free for commercial or noncommercial use. That means that commercial developers may independently write FLAC or Ogg FLAC software which is compatible with the specifications for no charge and without restrictions of any kind. There are no licensing fees or royalties of any kind for use of the formats or their specifications, or for distributing, selling, or streaming media in the FLAC or Ogg FLAC formats.

It is irrelevant to this discussion that other provisions of the GPL may permit software developers to impose restrictions. That's not the case with OGG and I don't believe it is with FLAC either. I am willing to be educated and shown that I am wrong and that FLAC has restrictions on how it is used in both commercial and non-commercial (i.e. free) software, which are not present with OGG and which prevent its default inclusion in MC12 builds.

As for  your added comment:

[Edit] Technically they could use it, or distribute it, but not as part of MC.

I think the above quoted sections strongly suggest that you are wrong and that MC12 can include FLAC with absolutely no strings attached if they want to do so.

[Mr ChriZ]

  Chill dude.  I was mearly making a point.
Maybe your right, and FLAC is fine to add with MC.
I checked the Wiki before making my first post, which I found unclear
some part of it is GPL others BSD (OK).
I'm just pointing out that not all Open source stuff is free to do as you wish with.

I'm a developer.  I come across this problem all the time.  I tend to work
for commercial companys there's more of them round here.  We simply
cannot have GPL code anywhere near us.

Any open source code we do use we have to scan the licenses
top to toe, to make sure they can't sue us.

[scthom]

To answer the original question of why it won't install...

Make sure you have gdiplus.dll in your path, as noted in the readme.  The install will fail if this file is not present.  There's a link to download it if you don't have it.

Otherwise, try using depends.exe (DependencyWalker) to see if something else might be missing.

If you don't want to use my plugins, you can feel free to set MC to use External (command-line) plugins set to flac.exe.  But that will only work for encode-decode and tagging would be out.

JRiver don't support flac because they already have APE and anybody can write plugins.

[Rizlaw]

To answer the original question of why it won't install...

Make sure you have gdiplus.dll in your path, as noted in the readme.  The install will fail if this file is not present.  There's a link to download it if you don't have it.

Otherwise, try using depends.exe (DependencyWalker) to see if something else might be missing.

If you don't want to use my plugins, you can feel free to set MC to use External (command-line) plugins set to flac.exe.  But that will only work for encode-decode and tagging would be out.

JRiver don't support flac because they already have APE and anybody can write plugins.

   
As I was writing this reply, and for reasons which I can't explain, I finally got the plugins to install in my WinXP VM. I will try my Win2K VM next. I just love Windows!

Thanks again, and I do very much appreciate your efforts for those of us who prefer open source media codecs.

[Mr ChriZ]

   
As I was writing this reply, and for reasons which I can't explain, I finally got the plugins to install in my WinXP VM. I will try my Win2K VM next. I just love Windows!

Thanks again, and I do very much appreciate your efforts for those of us who prefer open source media codecs.

Fantasic 

[Rizlaw]

I'm back to report that my Win2K VM will not install the 2.4.0 "in_FLAC" plugin. I get the error that the plugin can not be loaded and a further message referring me to a Sourceforge page which I have read and is of no help. And yes, GDIPLUS.DLL is on my VM and in the path. I can, however, install the "enc_FLAC" plugin. It makes no sense why the encoder can be installed and not the decoder. Obviously, without both, there is no FLAC support in MC12. I would prefer to run MC12 from a Win2K VM so I don't have to contend with $M annoying product activation of the month nonsense.

I also noticed that during the installation of the plugins, the installation process seems to go out to the Internet to "download" something. I don't know why there should be any internet activity installing the plugin when it's already downloaded on my VM for installation? This appears to be the case whether MC12 is running or not running at the time of the install.

Anyway, I've tried 2.3 and 2.4 of the "in_FLAC" and neither works. As the King said in The King & I: "It's a puzzlement."

[GHammer]

If you search for Crossover Office in these forums, you may find a way to install FLAC and other plugins.

You may also wish to consider the idea that nobody owes you the ability to run MC or plugins under anything but the listed versions of Windows. Once you get outside that, then it is up to you to find a way to make things work as opposed to insisting that others accommodate your dislike of Microsoft.

[Rizlaw]

If you search for Crossover Office in these forums, you may find a way to install FLAC and other plugins.

You may also wish to consider the idea that nobody owes you the ability to run MC or plugins under anything but the listed versions of Windows. Once you get outside that, then it is up to you to find a way to make things work as opposed to insisting that others accommodate your dislike of Microsoft.

1. I have searched the forums and any of the suggestions on how to install FLAC in Linux do not work for me. However,  this thread is not about installing MC12 or FLAC plugins in Linux, but about installing FLAC in Windows VMs. [/u]

2. Perhaps closer scrutiny of my posts in this thread would have revealed that I never said that JRiver, or anyone else, owes "me" anything other than a reasonably working version of MC12 in Windows. Although, IMHO, it would be great if someday, in the not too distant future, the best multimedia player on the planet was ported to Linux and MAC for a similar price.

If you were reading carefully, the crux of my posts made it clear that Windows is precisely where I am trying to install the FLAC plugins in the first place (i.e. in Windows 2K and XP VMs). I noted that I got things working in a WinXP VM, and only partially in a Win2K VM.

Now, it could well be that I am the first MC12 user to try MC12 in a VMware Windows Virtual Machine. However, it seems to me that, apart from the MC12 "Theaterview" feature, MC12 should install itself and run all plugins in Windows 2K/XP Virtual Machines that it runs in "traditional" Windows 2K/XP installations on a physical hard disc. For the most part MC12 does this, except for the two quirks I  have noted (In_FLAC.dll won't install in a Win2K VM and "Theaterview"). As for "Theaterview" it is the exception because apart from VMware's experimental 3D support, no other virtual machines can properly emulate 3D acceleration which "Theaterview" uses - VMware gets close.

And yes, I do feel that JRiver should include FLAC support by default in MC12, just as they include OGG support by default.


 

[scthom]

Plugins really only do one thing when they install, and that's register themselves into the system registry.  For encoder plugins, I do it myself within the plugin.  For the decoder plugins, MC handles it and I just pass on a little information.

Either way, if there are dependencies missing, the plugins will not install.

To see if there are missing dependencies, use depends.exe.

To see if they registered correctly, look in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JRiver\Media Center 12\Plugins tree.  Look for keys in the Encoders\FLAC Encoder entry and the Input\FLAC entry.

[Rizlaw]

Scthom,

Thanks for your continued help.

I did use "depends.exe", however, I don't actually understand what it's trying to tell me. As far as I can tell, the one flagged error (I don't recall it now) was an error that the depends Help file said I should ignore. As for any other errors, I don't have a clue. Perhaps you can explain to me what I should be looking for and where in the depends program.

To see if they registered correctly, look in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JRiver\Media Center 12\Plugins tree.  Look for keys in the Encoders\FLAC Encoder entry and the Input\FLAC entry.

In my Win2K VM all I see is a registry key for "Flac Encoder", on the data side of the screen I see that the encoder version is 2.2.2, your name, a bunch of hex values, "Ext=flac", "configurable =0x00000001 (1),  Iversion=0x00000004 (4), and a URL for Sourceforge. The "Input" key has no "Flac" entry.

At this point I have two questions:

1. Why is it that on my Win2K virtual machine I can install the "enc_FLAC" plugin, but not the "in_FLAC" plugin. What is different about them? (I believe you may have already partially answered this question):

For encoder plugins, I do it myself within the plugin.  For the decoder plugins, MC handles it and I just pass on a little information.

Perhaps, the problem lies in the way MC12 is processing the info being passed to it for the "in_FLAC" plugin under the Win2K OS VM?

2.Why, when I click on the "in_FLAC.mjp" installer, does my computer show that something is being sent or received from the Internet  during the install. I was under the impression that downloading the plugins placed everything I needed for installation on my local hard disc, hence there should be no need for any Internet communication between the "in_FLAC.mjp" file and JRiver and/or Sourceforge.

   

[Alex B]

2.Why, when I click on the "in_FLAC.mjp" installer, does my computer show that something is being sent or received from the Internet  during the install. I was under the impression that downloading the plugins placed everything I needed for installation on my local hard disc, hence there should be no need for any Internet communication between the "in_FLAC.mjp" file and JRiver and/or Sourceforge.

In_FLAC.mjp tries to dowload the zip package from internet. You can open it in Notepad for checking the code.

Did you download the In_FLAC-V2.4.0.zip file, unzip it to a temporary folder and start the Local_Install.mjp file? This file copies the unzipped In_FLAC.dll file directly to MC's plugin folder.

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mcplugins/In_FLAC-V2.4.0.zip

[Rizlaw]

AlexB,

Thank you for the info, but I already tried that (Local_Install.mjp), and it doesn't work to get the FLAC decoder installed.

[scthom]

I did use "depends.exe", however, I don't actually understand what it's trying to tell me. As far as I can tell, the one flagged error (I don't recall it now) was an error that the depends Help file said I should ignore. As for any other errors, I don't have a clue. Perhaps you can explain to me what I should be looking for and where in the depends program.

If all it flagged was the help file, then there is nothing else missing.  Typically, gdiplus.dll has been missing, but you don't seem to be missing that.

In my Win2K VM all I see is a registry key for "Flac Encoder", on the data side of the screen I see that the encoder version is 2.2.2, your name, a bunch of hex values, "Ext=flac", "configurable =0x00000001 (1),  Iversion=0x00000004 (4), and a URL for Sourceforge. The "Input" key has no "Flac" entry.

This indicates the Encoder was installed correctly and the Decoder wasn't.  There should be a similar entry in the Input/FLAC key.

At this point I have two questions:

1. Why is it that on my Win2K virtual machine I can install the "enc_FLAC" plugin, but not the "in_FLAC" plugin. What is different about them? (I believe you may have already partially answered this question):

Perhaps, the problem lies in the way MC12 is processing the info being passed to it for the "in_FLAC" plugin under the Win2K OS VM?

2.Why, when I click on the "in_FLAC.mjp" installer, does my computer show that something is being sent or received from the Internet  during the install. I was under the impression that downloading the plugins placed everything I needed for installation on my local hard disc, hence there should be no need for any Internet communication between the "in_FLAC.mjp" file and JRiver and/or Sourceforge.

1.  Since the encoder self-registers and MC must register the decoder, I agree that there is something amiss.  Either a dependency is missing, or MC can't properly register it.  I don't know enough about VMWare to troubleshoot any further.

2.  AlexB's answer is correct.  The default mjp file will download the zip from Sourceforge.  The local_install.mjp file will use the local file directly (make sure to completely unzip first).

[Rizlaw]

scthom,

Thanks. One last thing, which may or may not be important. When I look in the Media Center 12/plugins folder I see that "Input_flac.dll" is there, however, I also notice that the word "Input" starts with a capital "I" and not a lower case "i" like all of the other properly installed plugins. Renaming the file, so that it starts with a lower case "i" and then trying to manually install it with Plugin Manager doesn't work. Does this suggest where the problem may lie? Also, if the plugin is present in the plugin folder why isn't it properly recognized by a manual install?

[scthom]

Letter case shouldn't be a problem (hasn't yet to my knowledge anyway), but with *nix in the background you never know.

Something is preventing the file from being registered.  That's the real problem.

[Rizlaw]

Letter case shouldn't be a problem (hasn't yet to my knowledge anyway), but with *nix in the background you never know.

Something is preventing the file from being registered.  That's the real problem.

Agreed. But, I'm not convinced the issue is with Linux, since I have been able to install both flac plugins in my WinXP VM. There is either something different about Win2K itself, or something about a Win2K VM running MC12. In other words, an issue with MC12 on Win2K which doesn't exist on WinXP. I guess we've hit a wall on this one.

Edit - 7/6/07: I finally got the "in_FLAC.dll" installed in the Win2K VM. I re-downloaded "depends.exe" from the dependencywalker website and re-ran it. It said I had a problem with "GDIPLUS.dll" and "APPHELPER.dll". Same as before. My original search for GDIPLUS.dll had revealed that is was in the following directory: \winnt\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727. This was not in my path at the time, so I manually added it to the path statement and assumed I had done so correctly. The problem appears to have been that even though I added it to my path, I probably missed some punctuation or misspelled something. I'll check on that. But, to end this story, I simply copied the GDIPLUS.dll file from it's location in the ".net framework" subfolder to the folder I created when I unzipped the "In_FLAC" 2.4.0 plugin. I then, re-ran "Local_Install.mjp" and voila, the decoder installed!!!

So my suggestion to all who have read this thread is - if you're having a problem like this, try what I just did and it will probably work for you, too.

My second suggestion for "Scthom", who's efforts created these great plugins, is, if it's legal, add "GUIPLUS.dll" to the zip download files for the FLAC Codecs. This way when users unzip the files to a folder the "GUIPLUS.DLL" file will be right there for the installer to see and use.

Scthom, thanks again for your help and a great plugin for MC12.