missing codecs.conf

[Haines Brown <brownh@hartford-hwp.com>]

I installed and have been using mplayer succcessfully, but decided I'd
like to be able to run DVDs, and so now installed the win32codecs
package. I was able to play one DVD, which is a copy of an old silent
film, but when I try a new DVD, I get:

	libavformat file format detected.
	LAVF_header: av_open_input_stream() failed

	Exiting... (End of file)

So I did 

   $ mplayer -v                                
	MPlayer 1.0rc1-4.1.2-DFSG-free (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team	
	...
	get_path('codecs.conf') -> '/home/brownh/.mplayer/codecs.conf'
	Reading /home/brownh/.mplayer/codecs.conf: 
		Can't open '/home/brownh/.mplayer/codecs.conf': 
		No such file or directory
	Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open 
		'/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
	Using built-in default codecs.conf.
        ...

It turned out I have no codecs.conf file in either /etc/mplayer/ or in
~/.mplayer/ . Shouldn't mplayer have created the file? I was unable to
locate any instance of codecs.conf. 

Should I have uninstalled mplayer and then reinstalled it after
installing win32codecs?

-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM