More Gstreamer plugins

[ChaperonNoir]

yea yea its easy to get more plugins with apt-get, but why dont you include the following

DVD support
AAC support
mp3 support
flac support
musepack support
OGG vorbis ( well of course, we already have this one)

And why not include Videolan ? The best media player ever...

[Daniel G. Taylor]

yea yea its easy to get more plugins with apt-get, but why dont you include the following

DVD support
AAC support
mp3 support
flac support
musepack support
OGG vorbis ( well of course, we already have this one)

And why not include Videolan ? The best media player ever...

Several nations around the world have laws regarding software patents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent) that make it illegal to distribute those plugins without paying royalties for every copy distributed. DVD support is hindered by the fact that DVD content (MPEG2 video and AC3 audio streams) are encrypted on the disk and a library must be used to first decrypt the content before you can view it, which in e.g. the United States is illegal under the Digital Millenium Copyrights Act (DMCA) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA).

http://www.mp3licensing.com/
http://www.vialicensing.com/

It really crushes something inside of me to see open formats like MPEG4 and H.264, which have specifications out there for people to implement, are encumbered by patents and thus have this big legal cloud around them that keeps us from using them to the full potential. This is a good lesson that publishing format specifications is NOT enough. The formats have to be patent and royalty free to use for anyone to make a real open standard.

Change the laws and we will get native support for those formats.

[poofyhairguy]

yea yea its easy to get more plugins with apt-get, but why dont you include the following


Read the disclaimer:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats

[talkingwires]

Instead of worrying about plugins, how about getting gstreamer to actually stream any video file? Streaming video using the default application (Totem) is broken in Breezy, and local video files aren't much better off. To really play any video, you need to switch over to the Xine backend. And hell, the developers seem to have killed VLC (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=74308), the best alternative, a few days before the release. Why the sudden regression? Do we have to wait for a backport of a proper video player to stream video of Breezy? What gives, devs?

[Burgundavia]

Gstreamer 0.9/0.10 is apparently going to fix most of these problems. 0.10 is slated for a December release, so it will make Dapper. As for the codecs, they are already exist and are a simply apt-get away.

Corey

[Wolki]

flac support


Flac should be supported out of the box, since it's an ogg format; and I think it is.

[MadMan2k]

look in universe:
- gstreamer-mad (mp3 support)
- gstreamer-ffmpeg (mpeg4, divx support)
- gstreamer-pitfdll (wmv support, additionally you will have to install w32codecs from marillat or something)

[stoffepojken]

Is it possible to get a sticky with a howto for codecs? It seems that a lot of questions in this forums are about that

[MadMan2k]

http://ubuntuguide.org/#codecs

[m87]

where is the ubuntu project officially registered? europe has voted AGAINST software patents (and the victory has been SO clear), and I believe that they are a pain in the back for just 3 or 4 nations in the world... if ubuntu is NOT located in such countries what's the point on NOT making a non-us CD like debian does? maybe this can create some kind of "racism", but i think that the 5.7 billions people who aren't affected by software patents are quite a large majority.

this is why it could be an idea to make a CD with all that stuff. remember that most people don't want to install ANYTHING to play mpg files, then, OK, we may prefer ENCODING using theora and all those OPEN SOURCE formats, but what's the point on not using that debs for DECODING (unless they are illegal EVERYWHERE of course)?

marco

[SpaceTrapper]

this may not be the right place to ask but since we're talking about gstreamer-plugins here and all the other threads about this topics seem dead:

i'm running Kubuntu breezy-rc and want to play .m4a's in amarok. amarok 1.3 is using gstreamer 0.8 properly and with the register command i see that all plugins i need are installed, including ffmpeg with its 200-something features. Now mp3s are playing fine but m4a's arent recognized or played and i can't fugure out why. mplayer doesn't get it either.
Do you guy's have any idea what the problem may be? I've looked around everywhere and all walk-throughs ect... i found tell me it should work fine.
Since i'm running the RC from last week and DNS strangely stopped working (writing now in the big bad os from redmont :???: ) i'm not sure if any updates could fix it....would that be possible? I'd just have do figure out the DNS problems which are really strange too :rolleyes:
Thanks in advance for replies :)

[Daniel G. Taylor]

M4A is MPEG4 Audio (aka AAC) so you need to make sure you have the faad (AAC Decoder) gstreamer plugin installed. Then the files should play fine. :-)

I'm not really sure why this isn't included with ffmpeg...

[Wolki]

where is the ubuntu project officially registered? europe has voted AGAINST software patents (and the victory has been SO clear)

Only a half-truth, unfortunately. The European Parliament has not accepted a new directive that would unify the legislation of the members of the european union to allow limitless patentability for software, but the European Patents Office has and continues to issue software patents, and single countries may still have their own legislation regarding the issue. Michel Rocard had proposed amendments to the directive that would forbid software-only patents, but they were not accepted either.


More and more accurate information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_the_patentability_of_computer-implemented_inventions

The fight against software patents in Europe is far from over.

[m87]

Only a half-truth, unfortunately. The European Parliament has not accepted a new directive that would unify the legislation of the members of the european union to allow limitless patentability for software, but the European Patents Office has and continues to issue software patents, and single countries may still have their own legislation regarding the issue. Michel Rocard had proposed amendments to the directive that would forbid software-only patents, but they were not accepted either.


More and more accurate information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_the_patentability_of_computer-implemented_inventions

The fight against software patents in Europe is far from over.

the patents office issues software patents but they're NOT approved (yet?). they're just PENDING, or at least they were, waiting for the law to pass. but it didn't. of course there will be another try but by now it's like a 1-0, i guess. and anyway, don't know about the UK and other new entries, but most of the EU countries have NO such rules about patents... as far as I know at least. I know for sure that we have no such law, but.

marco

[Wolki]

the patents office issues software patents but they're NOT approved (yet?). they're just PENDING, or at least they were, waiting for the law to pass. but it didn't. of course there will be another try but by now it's like a 1-0, i guess. and anyway, don't know about the UK and other new entries, but most of the EU countries have NO such rules about patents... as far as I know at least. I know for sure that we have no such law, but.

From Wikipedia:

The European Patent Office, which is not legally bound by any EU directive but generally adapts its regulations to new EU law, has no reason or incentive to adapt its practice of granting patents on computer-implemented inventions under certain conditions, according to its interpretation of the European Patent Convention and its Implementing Regulations.

You see, they're granting them already. And here's the FFII page on existing software patents in Europe: http://swpat.ffii.de/patents/index.en.html

Even the famous Adobe Tab patent was granted: http://swpat.ffii.de/patents/samples/ep689133/index.en.html

Name of the Invention:
Method of displaying multiple sets of information in the same area of a computer screen

This gives me the urge to say stuff that would violate the code of conduct, so I'll stop here.

[SpaceTrapper]

ouch...i thought ffmpeg did include the aac codec...but in the comment in their compatibility-list that confirms that it says "through external module libfaad" :cool:
thanks for the hint daniel :)

[poofyhairguy]

where is the ubuntu project officially registered? europe has voted AGAINST software patents (and the victory has been SO clear), and I believe that they are a pain in the back for just 3 or 4 nations in the world... if ubuntu is NOT located in such countries what's the point on NOT making a non-us CD like debian does? maybe this can create some kind of "racism", but i think that the 5.7 billions people who aren't affected by software patents are quite a large majority.


First of all- Ubuntu is to show off the power of free software. I make the excuse that its a legal problem mostly to help people understand, but there is every indication that Mark wants Ubuntu to stay libre. I know its hard to grok, but he cares more about showing off the power of free software than having the best out of box experiance.

Secondly, it does not matter where the Ubuntu project exists. What matters is the fact that if Ubuntu hosted a version that distributed all the codecs, Mark could be arrested (the developers too) if they entered a nation where the laws would be violated. As the world gets stricter and stricter laws the number of countries they could go to would be less and less. I don't know, but maybe even South Africa has such laws- then Mark couldn't go home.

Ubuntu is not getting these codecs added. At best an new Linux based on Ubuntu will sell you a version with the codecs if you want one day. Till then, we just have to deal with it.

[m87]

Mr. Shuttleworth is not the first human on Earth with this thought in mind. I guess you know something about GNU/Hurd.

The bad point that many people FAIL to notice is: OpenOffice had a STRONG dependence on JAVA. Now. Is the *most used* JAVA VM open source? It isn't.

OK, now as of 2005 we have gcj/gij and they are working quite fine, but I see lots of howto's talking about OOo and associating it with free software and such. WHY do people support the OOo thing when for at least 2 years we talked about something which still sticks to something that has not a fully featured open implementation yet? And YES, we have the alternatives. We have AbiWord, we have lots of stuff.

Remember... I am talking about IMPORTING. Decoding is enough. We don't need encoding, I have no mp3 encoders installed, for example.

mpg321 is open source, ffmpeg is open source and faad is too. If I have the "open source über alles" mentality I'll think about SPREADING my formats without rejecting the others. Otherwise for the same reason Ubuntu should act like Fedora and reject Mono.

And I don't believe that any developer could risk ANYTHING for what you claimed... a child watching an over18 hyper-violent movie wouldn't get the shop assistant which sold it to the child's 19yo brother charged. I AM NOT a lawyer and I don't actually know how this works, but open source software is NOT something that was born in 2003, lots of people came before us.

Of course this is my opinion, but I'd accept "this is our policy, no matter you like it or not" more than justifying it with legal matter.

[Wolki]

First of all- Ubuntu is to show off the power of free software. I make the excuse that its a legal problem mostly to help people understand, but there is every indication that Mark wants Ubuntu to stay libre. I know its hard to grok, but he cares more about showing off the power of free software than having the best out of box experiance.

Yeah, but in most cases - mp3, xvid, etc. the only thing that keeps the codecs from being free (as in speech) /are/ the patents on them, as the code itself is under a free license. Lame is a completely independant implementation of an mp3 enco... er, "not an mp3 encoder", xvid is an open source project, and for many more the situation is the same or similar. There are claims that the mp3 patent also covers ogg vorbis, since it could be interpreted in a way that it covers /any/ lossy audio compression. Should ubuntu not come with ogg?

The core of the problem is that software (and business practices) patents are wrong in itself. I mean, patenting dialogs with tabs? Patenting selling presents online? How can that not be wrong?

[poofyhairguy]

And I don't believe that any developer could risk ANYTHING for what you claimed... a child watching an over18 hyper-violent movie wouldn't get the shop assistant which sold it to the child's 19yo brother charged. I AM NOT a lawyer and I don't actually know how this works, but open source software is NOT something that was born in 2003, lots of people came before us.

Problem with being a nerd these days. We want to do all these things, but there are all these laws we don't understand standing in our way, and our nerd training does not prepare us for any of it.

And just so you know, you analogy is way off. The main point is that if Ubuntu distributed these codecs or made them any easier to install than they are now, the developers and Mark could be charge with being an accessory to a crime:

http://www.criminal-law-lawyer-source.com/terms/accessory.html

Personally I plan to go to law school so I can help the nerd community I'm a part. Just reading slashdot will tell you that nerds have no idea how the laws affect them and its scary.


Of course this is my opinion, but I'd accept "this is our policy, no matter you like it or not" more than justifying it with legal matter.

Thats because you know what GNU is, you know what libre software is, you know who Richard Stallman is. Many of the people I find defending Ubuntu against on this point are recent Windows converts- for some the whole Free Software Movement is a bunch of "hippy crap" so I find I have to explain things to them in ways that they could understand.

[Seth]

this may not be the right place to ask but since we're talking about gstreamer-plugins here and all the other threads about this topics seem dead:

i'm running Kubuntu breezy-rc and want to play .m4a's in amarok. amarok 1.3 is using gstreamer 0.8 properly and with the register command i see that all plugins i need are installed, including ffmpeg with its 200-something features. Now mp3s are playing fine but m4a's arent recognized or played and i can't fugure out why. mplayer doesn't get it either.
Do you guy's have any idea what the problem may be? I've looked around everywhere and all walk-throughs ect... i found tell me it should work fine.
Since i'm running the RC from last week and DNS strangely stopped working (writing now in the big bad os from redmont :???: ) i'm not sure if any updates could fix it....would that be possible? I'd just have do figure out the DNS problems which are really strange too :rolleyes:
Thanks in advance for replies :) The problem is actually with libtag, which does not support m4a / mp4 files. AmaroK will actually play m4a's fine, but it will not add them to your playlist :(

[poptones]

mpg321 is open source, ffmpeg is open source and faad is too. If I have the "open source über alles" mentality I'll think about SPREADING my formats without rejecting the others. Otherwise for the same reason Ubuntu should act like Fedora and reject Mono....

The main point is that if Ubuntu distributed these codecs or made them any easier to install than they are now, the developers and Mark could be charge with being an accessory to a crime

Neither of these are entirely accurate, but they add up. The MP3 licensor, for example, explicitly allows individual use of the technology for free, and makes exceptions on for-profit use by entities under a certain size. But Ubuntu exists as a corporation and no matter how "libre" ubuntu itself is the parent corporation is far too large to meet the "free as in beer" guidelines.

But adding any of that support OOTB defeats the whole "free as in speech" paradigm. It's not about being exclusionary, because the patent holders already saw to that. Saying it's about Ubuntu being "exclusionary" is like blaming the victim in a crime.

On a side note, I also think the talk about integrating mono fits well within this same context. No matter how you slice it, mono is a "me too-ism" based on Microsoft technology. And while the apps look neat in theory, there isn't a single thing being done there that cannot be done equally well with python - better, in fact: it seems like every single mono app I tried when I had it installed required me to screw about with a dozen different c++ libraries and cross dependancies. How on earth can you call that "portable?"

There was a story on /. just in the last day or two about abiword being able to introduce features OOo could not because of abiword's licensing compared to OOo. If the OOo license isn't open enough to allow forking into a completely libre branch based on the existing code then I would also agree ubuntu needs to work on that area to deliver a consistent message. There are a couple of really good gnome apps being ignored here because of the OOTB inclusion of OOo.

[sijp]

hi,
Isn't it legaly possible to make a short post-install script that installs all of these packages from the repositories? something like the idea behind hebubuntu (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=380926#post380926) ?

I imagine something like a welcome screen, that helps the post-install procedure. perhaps asking questions about installing multimedia codecs, 3d acceleration etc. Anyway all of these are in the repositories, so instead doing after the installation:
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-mad
[...]
and perhaps,
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable


a post install dialog will open and will ask the user what he would like to install. it seems to me more usable this way... does something like this will have legal issues as well?

[Harry_Sack]

ahh who are really the pirates?

[aslocum]

my vlc plays really nice in dapper...

[LordRaiden]

How about converters? i.e. like mp3 --> ogg-vorbis. Are they subject to the same restrictions? I personally wouldn't mind converting all my mp3s and avi files to some free format as long as there is no loss in quality.

[UbuWu]

I personally wouldn't mind converting all my mp3s and avi files to some free format as long as there is no loss in quality.

Converting between two lossy formats (e.g. mp3 -> ogg) will always lead to loss of quality. You can convert them to flac without quality loss but that will mean a big increase in disc space. Btw. soundconverter (http://soundconverter.berlios.de/) is a nice app to do this.

[wout.wepsait.com]

I believe that converters are illegal to.

I think that if you live in a country where using these plugins is legal you should be able to install that thrue apt-get. Isn't it possible to create a "restricted formats" repository? With legal acceptance and stuff???