Ubuntu Jaunty: Getting WMV to Play

Add the medibuntu repo's and get them approved

1. sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
2. sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update
   

install smplayer and the supporting codecs and libraries

1. sudo apt-get install w32codecs libdvdcss2 mozilla-mplayer smplayer

that should do it. if you are not running jaunty, just rename the jaunty bits to your distro on medibuntu, that "should" work.

UPDATE
Alternatively, install this package (which I haven't tested) to play and record most common multimedia formats, including MP3, DVD, Flash, Quicktime, WMA and WMV, including both standalone files and content embedded in web pages. (should work for Jaunty, Ibex and Hardy)

• sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Source: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/