Totem is just a front-end to the gstreamer media framework, so it will play any format for which you have a gstreamer plugin installed.

Unfortunately, Sun cannot ship plugins for many of the media formats you mention. They're not freely redistributable, and in many cases, a licensing fee applies. Anyone who uses "free" alternative solutions instead, such as mplayer, vlc or xine, does so at their own risk-- in some countries it may be legal to use them, in others it is not.

That doesn't mean Totem is useless, though-- you can download a free mp3 plugin from http://shop.fluendo.com, and plugins for some of the other formats you mention are available to buy there for a small fee. (Note that Fluendo are unconnected to Sun, so Sun takes no responsibility for any data loss or other problems that may arise from using their plugins.)

Hello calum.benson and HumanFactor,

Thank you two for giving me the helpful info. I feel better after I got the background and the reasons of “Why Totem?” issue. I am now more confident for new OpenSolaris users to explain there ARE unpreventable reasons and also alternatives other than what I already know.

I am kind of unfamiliar with Gstreamer or VLC yet, but will try. I guess it is worth it.

Thank you!

Robinky

Not sure what Linux has to do with it, but luckily there's a Solaris version of Real Player too, if that's what you like:
http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=4415df31

Regardless of the workarounds, or all the Gstreamer plugins in the world--be they good, bad, or ugly--I must agree with the original poster's assertion that this is not a good situation for new adopters... especially those who may be less computer-savvy than many on these forums.

The default installation of Totem does, well... basically nothing. It draws a nifty little screen, and then dazzles us with the plethora of reasons it can't play any of our media files or formats. From a legal standpoint, there may be good reasons for this. From a technical standpoint, there may be relatively easy ways to increase Totem's functionality. But from a marketing standpoint, it is a disaster!

Imagine buying a new car, and while you're driving it home, you turn the knob on the radio, only to hear a recorded error message repeating "This radio is not configured to play music." So you try to tune something else in, only to hear "This radio is not configured for news... this radio is not configured for sports... This radio is not configured for..." How happy are you with the car now? I'd bet less so than before you tried to turn on the radio.

All of us in the opensolaris community are better served by seeing more people install and use opensolaris, and stick with it! The larger our installed user-base, the better we can leverage it. More users = more development... more drivers... more software... more support. You get the idea.

Totem, as it ships in opensolaris, is worthless. Actually, it is beneath worthless, in that it actually has negative worth: it is not compatible with almost any common media format, so it carries little benefit, but because it frustrates many potential opensolaris adopters, it does harm to the brand. I think we would be better as a whole if they left Totem out; you can still get it from the repository, and if you bother, you probably know how to set it up. Otherwise, its just a blemish on GNOME--an app that does nothing but frustrate newbies.