23 February 2014

The Ultimate Codec Support for Sailfish OS


Sailfish OS is capable of playing media files in formats like MP3, MP4 and WMV. But media
containers like AVI are not officially supported since required codecs are missing. "Xerxes2" created a package which installs many additional codecs and makes your Jolla capable of decoding many known media file formats.


Codecs are there to convert recorded analogue video and audio signals into digital signals in order to save them in digital form. During the convertion such media files can be compressed to different qualites. If done right the compression allows to store files of smaller size than the original and boost the performance. The best known example of a codec is MP3. It compresses bulky audio files such as WAV to much smaller MP3 files. 

Finally codecs are also needed to read converted files: The "Ultimate Codec Supports" for Sailfish OS is a great codec pack which is available via Warehouse application (OpenRepos). It's necessary to enably "sailfish_lib" repository. To do this open Warehouse app and select Browse by categories. There you find a category called Libraries including the needed repository. 

Now enjoy your music and videos on Sailfish media player on any other 3rd party application!