Talk:Airborne laser successfully destroys ballistic missile

Video
Why does the video totally fail to play for me, coming up with a grey X on a grey background? I've managed to run video from Commons and Wikinews in the past - and I'm using Firefox which should support this just fine. --Brian McNeil / talk 01:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't play for me either ... also Firefox. --SVTCobra 01:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd no problem when I did the INDECT video (which I ripped from YouTube and converted with some GNU command-line tools) - is this really a proper theora file? --Brian McNeil / talk 01:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh balls. It wouldn't work for me on Linux/Firefox using Totem player, but worked fine using Cortado and in Windows/Firefox. The file also plays ok in VLC or MPlayer, so I figured it was just a problem in my Linux setup. I used the recommended ffmpeg2theora command line tool. I'm not an expert on videos, if someone else wants to try the original wmv file is the first video on http://www.mda.mil/news/gallery_altb.html the wub "?!"  11:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm having a go. Downloaded the video, and found my 'usual tricks' didn't work. So, I've successfully imported it into Kino and exported to theora from that and am waiting on an upload over an unreliable internet connection. If it still fails I will export from Kino to one of the AVI/MPEG formats then use the command line to turn it into an .ogv file.
 * I am curious, is there anything on Commons about video conversion? Most people on Windows will likely find themselves screwed over and expected to buy some expensive software package - not so on Linux where the tools are far easier to use, once you've read the manual pages for the command-line ones. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Using Kino and the straight-to-ogg export produced an absurdly large file with an altered resolution, i.e. too big for me to reasonably stream. Am exporting to MPEG2, YUV Deinterlace Film-like, and will then use the command line for final conversion to ogv and rescaling to a streamable size. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Conversion command: ffmpeg2theora -i marti_jan10-laser-demo.mpeg -v 8 --potimize --width 200 --pp deblock -o marti-jan10-laser-demo.ogv Time for another upload test to see if plays from Commons. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Brian! Having looked more closely Commons recommends Firefogg which looks like it might work for Windows users and be fairly easy to use. I haven't tried it myself though. the wub "?!"  16:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I used Firefogg and it didn't convert, which is most likely due to the fact its a WMV file. Mind you, Brian had to convert it over to MPEG before he could convert it to OGG. --Patrick M (TUFKAAP) (talk) 16:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Historical information
The details on the similar Russian attempts would, actually, be quite an interesting point to add to the article - but it was not sourced. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:41, 13 February 2010 (UTC)