Help:Media help

This help page is customized to The Sims Wiki and does not rely on Shared Help from Wikia. Wikia Help has no equivalent article.

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Some articles on The Sims Wiki contain audio and/or video files that can be played on almost all personal computers. However, in order for those files to run, your computer must have the right software. If your computer lacks the needed software to run these files, the Internet usually contains freely downloadable programs or tools to do so.

Sound files on The Sims Wiki are typically Vorbis files, while video files are usually embedded from other websites, but some may use the Theora format. Vorbis and Theora files are contained inside an Ogg file, which are analogous to other formats used to play digital audio and video, most notably MP3 and MPEG. Most modern operating systems, however, do not support these file formats by default and require additional software to run them.

Most audio and video file formats, such as MP3, cannot be used on Wikia as they are not open source, and by default MediaWiki does not supply an integrated player for MP3 files. See w:Help:Audio files#File type support.

If you are having difficulty trying to play a media file, please read the sections below.

Audio

Example sound file If you can play the sound file above, you can play Ogg Vorbis files.

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Problems playing this file? See media help.

Most modern systems are able to play common audio file formats, such as MP3 and WMA. These are not open format or open source, and thus they are not enabled on MediaWiki by default.

The Ogg Vorbis audio format is a free and open source audio format, and is capable of delivering high quality audio and video. However, it is not supported by many modern operating systems by default.

The easiest way to play Ogg Vorbis audio files is to use the integrated OGG player that Wikia includes by default. The integrated media player only works on Google Chrome (download), Mozilla Firefox (download), and Opera (download), as these browsers have native support for Ogg (Theora and Vorbis).

If you wish to download these files and play them locally on your computer, you can try the following steps.

Windows

The VLC media player includes support for Ogg (Theora and Vorbis) files.

1. Go to VLC player Windows download page.
2. Click on the "Download VLC" button.
3. Run the setup program and follow on-screen instructions.
4. Once VLC has finished installing, you can open Ogg files on your computer using the application.

Most Windows users will also have Windows Media Player by default. Installing a codec should allow Windows Media Player to run OGG files.

1. Go to xiph.org/dshow.
2. Download the current stable version.
3. Run the setup program and follow the instructions on screen.
4. After the Setup Wizard finishes, your player (from step 1) should be able to play audio and video files from The Sims Wiki.
5. If Windows does not automatically associate the file type with your favorite program, all you have to do is to drag/drop the file into it, or force the program to be associated with the .ogg file.

If you use Internet Explorer 9 (or later), you can also install WebM for IE.

Macintosh (Mac OS X)

MPlayer OS X is a media player which can play Vorbis and Theora files.

1. Go to the MPlayer Mac OS X download page
2. Click the Download Now button.
3. Select an appropriate location (mirror) from which you want to download the software.
4. Click the corresponding icon under the download column.
5. Once downloading has finished, double click the zip archive to extract the files.
6. Copy the MPlayer Application to your Applications folder.
7. When the copy operation finishes, you can use MPlayer to play audio and video files from The Sims Wiki.

VLC media player can also play Vorbis and Theora files.

1. Go to the VLC player Mac OS X download page
2. Select an appropriate version of the software to download.
3. Once downloading has finished, double click the disk image to mount it.
4. Copy the VLC Application to your Applications folder.
5. When the copy operation finishes, you can use VLC to play audio and video files from The Sims Wiki.

Unix (Including Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc)

Most recent free Unix systems are able to play Vorbis audio without any special installations. If you don't have any audio software installed, you can try an audio program mentioned above, such as VLC.

Video

Most videos on Wikia are embedded from other websites, such as YouTube and Dailymotion. To view these videos, you will need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. If you are using Google Chrome, the Flash Player is built into the browser and updates automatically. If you do not have Chrome, you can download and install the Flash Player here.

YouTube also offers an HTML5 video player that is available in most modern browsers. Check this page to see if your browser can run the HTML5 player. If it does, it will use this player whenever possible. If it does not, it will continue to use the traditional Flash video player.

If you still cannot play YouTube videos, please see the YouTube Help Center for additional assistance.

While uncommon, some videos on Wikia are in OGG or OGV. Like OGG Vorbis, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera have native support for these files. Most programs mentioned in the Audio section are also able to play Ogg Theora videos—follow the instructions there.

libtheora is required for Theora video support on Unix systems.

See also

• Wikipedia:Media help (audio and video)
• Help:Audio files
• Help:Video Embed Tool