HOWTO: Ubuntu Multimedia [Archive]

disposable

October 10th, 2004, 09:00 PM

** UPDATED **
Per post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7156&postcount=48

// Ubuntu Multimedia HOWTO
//
// by Disposable
//
// http://www.oldskoolphreak.com

Introduction
------------
"Will Warty Warthog / Ubuntu include complete multimedia support?"

Ubuntu Linux [1] is a Debian-based, desktop Linux distribution whose name
means "humanity to others." The philosophy behind this GNU/Linux
distribution and the great selection of packages make you feel good that
you're using it. The lack of multimedia support, however, leaves your
digital media desires unsated.

"We're still working out some of the difficult legal / policy issues
involved with multimedia support. Warty Warthog will include some
multimedia support, we just need to find out what we can safely and freely
do."

This HOWTO details the installation and configuration of applications
essential to your media enjoyment on Ubuntu.

Update It
---------
If you've installed Ubuntu, and you should have a fresh install for this
HOWTO, then you're already familiar with its default use of sudo. You'll
be using sudo a lot.

The first step towards an Ubuntu multimedia powerhouse is to make sure your
box is up-to-date [2].

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

MPlayer
-------
It's time to grab all of the packages needed to install MPlayer. MPlayer
is the most versatile media player available for GNU/Linux - video, audio,
X, no X - it very well may be the only player you'll need. Let's start with
gcc/g++ and other dependencies, and then grab the MPlayer source.

$ sudo apt-get install manpages-dev
$ sudo apt-get install autoconf
$ sudo apt-get install automake
$ sudo apt-get install libtool
$ sudo apt-get install flex
$ sudo apt-get install bison
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-doc
$ sudo apt-get install g++
$ sudo apt-get install x-window-system-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libpng-dev

Have your Warty Warthog CD handy and accept any extra packages, e.g. the
libtool install will also install gcc. We'll use a US mirror for (most of)
the MPlayer packages and assume you're working in your home directory.
Download MPlayer, codecs, English fonts and the default blue skin.
Internationalization and slick graphics are up to you.

$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/codecs/essential-20040922.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/fonts/font-arial-iso-8859-1.tar.bz2
$ wget http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/Skin/Blue-1.4.tar.bz2

Using the README from mplayerhq.hu [3] as a baseline, install the codecs
with the following commands.

$ tar -xjf essential-20040922.tar.bz2
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/codecs
$ sudo cp essential-20040922/* /usr/local/lib/codecs/

Time to compile MPlayer. Issue these commands.

$ tar -xjf MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2
$ cd MPlayer-1.0pre5
$ ./configure --enable-gui
$ make
$ sudo make install

Now install the fonts and skin.

$ cd
$ tar -xjf font-arial-iso-8859-1.tar.bz2
$ sudo cp font-arial-iso-8859-1/font-arial-14-iso-8859-1/* /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/
$ tar -xjf Blue-1.4.tar.bz2
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default
$ sudo cp -r Blue/* /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default/

Finally, copy over the included conf files.

$ sudo cp MPlayer-1.0pre5/etc/* /usr/local/etc/mplayer/

Test your install by launching the graphical version of MPlayer.

$ gmplayer

QuickTime, WindowsMedia, MPEG, avi - you should be able to play just about
anything. Give yourself quick access to MPlayer by adding a launcher to
the top GNOME panel. Right click on the panel and click Add to Panel...
Select Custom Application Launcher and click Add. Use the following
information and click OK.

Name: MPlayer
Command: /usr/local/bin/gmplayer
Icon: /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default/icons/32x32.png

Playing DVDs
------------
The Ubuntu Wiki discusses restricted formats [4], which include CSS and
DVD playback. To add DVD playback capability to Ubuntu, use your favorite
text editor and add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main

Then sync your package index and grab the infamous DeCSS.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

Add a dvd link and enjoy DVDs with MPlayer and Ubuntu.

$ sudo ln -s /media/cdrom0 /dev/dvd

XMMS
----
With your video needs taken care of, we can move on the audio portion of
our show by installing XMMS.

$ sudo apt-get install libmikmod2
$ sudo apt-get install xmms

Logging out and logging back in will find XMMS already in the Applications/
Multimedia menu. And there it is - instant Ogg/mp3/jukebox/streaming audio
goodness.

A Little Perl
-------------
For streaming internet radio, you can of course use XMMS. Set your
preference in Firefox and you're good to go. I listen to a few stations
regularly, and I always have a gnome-term open. With those things in mind,
I've found it much more convenient to write a Perl script that uses MPlayer
to stream my favorite music.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# mplay.pl -
# command line streaming of your fav stations
# usage: mplay <channel>

use strict;

help() unless defined(my $chan = shift);

if ($chan =~ /bass/) {
system("mplayer http://us-dc1.streams.bassdrive.com:8012");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /cryo/) {
system("mplayer http://207.200.96.225:8022");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /di/) {
system("mplayer http://64.235.239.5:8006");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /ind/) {
system("mplayer http://130.240.207.88:9090");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /talk/) {
system("mplayer http://broadcast.rantradio.com:9010");
}
else { help(); }

sub help {

print <<EOF;

Usage: mplay <channel>

Channels:
bass - BassDrive
cryo - Cryosleep
di - Digitally Imported
ind - RantRadio Industrial
talk - RantRadio Talk

EOF

exit;
}

"mplay ind" plays RantRadio's 128-bit industrial stream quickly and
without a browser. If you need your terminal, "q" stops the stream, do
your deed, and up arrow gets the stream right back (or of course Ctrl+
Shift+T for a new tab in gnome-terminal).

Conclusion
----------
Ubuntu Linux is an impressive distribution. Even more impressive is the
conviction of the developers. "The most important thing about Ubuntu is
not that it is available free of charge, but that it confers rights of
software freedom on the people who install and use it." They put their
money where their apt is. So as a GNU/Linux user, the tasks detailed
above are trivial compared to the decisions made not to include such
support.

Please support free software developers. Continue to use Ubuntu.
Contribute to the Ubuntu Linux community. And watch Batman: Dead End
while you're doing it [5].

References
----------
[1] http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

[2] I could not intuitively get Rhythmbox to play one simple Ogg file. So
my first step in setting up multimedia on Ubuntu is to sudo apt-get
remove rhythmbox.

[3] http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/README

[4] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats

[5] http://www.theforce.net/theater/shortfilms/batman_deadend/

eNiNjA

October 11th, 2004, 07:36 AM

Very nice, thank you =)

metaPipe

October 11th, 2004, 08:23 PM

alternatively, theres ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/index.html

add this line to your apt sources list:
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main

then update apt sources and install some things like:

"gstreamer-mad" for mp3 playback in rhythmbox (yay!)

removing gstreamer-esd is also good if you are using alsa and have problems with sound skipping under system load.

theres also mplayer, xine, libcss2 and many more packages.

oh yes, and don't forget to install "w32codecs". This will make just about any format media file play.

spoetnik

October 12th, 2004, 04:53 PM

Thanks for this great HOWTO. Is there a way of installing mplayer as a plugin for firefox???

Julle

October 12th, 2004, 05:56 PM

Thanks for this great HOWTO. Is there a way of installing mplayer as a plugin for firefox???
You might want to try this.

http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/

Had it installed when I used Gentoo and it worked almost always.

----------
EDIT
----------

Just installed mplayerplug-in to my Ubuntu. Works like a charm. :)

spoetnik

October 14th, 2004, 08:02 AM

I installed the plugin from source-forge but is doesn't work that good.
In 'about:plugin' it shows all the plug-ins, but firefox still ask's me what application to use.

wurtel

October 14th, 2004, 09:00 AM

Oolong

October 14th, 2004, 11:17 AM

Is there a way to install mplayer without the terminal, from the synaptic package management? I ask this because I'm pretty new to linux and have no understanding of terminal commands. Since I don't understand any of it, I'm somewhat scared of it.

Also is it really necessary to install a new application? Can't there be any codecs installed for the totem video player?

You can try using mozplugger :

"Plugin allowing external viewers to be launched inside Mozilla
mozplugger allows you to seamlessly integrate external applications
to view files downloaded from the web that Mozilla can not normally
handle. The application is embedded within a Mozilla window as to act
like and feel like a true plugin.

This allows to you view PDFs, Postscript files, animations and
movies, amongst other file types all from within Mozilla (with
supporting applications)."

it is in ether universe or marillat.

Damon

October 16th, 2004, 02:15 AM

Amazing stuff! Great write-up.. :-D

igster

October 19th, 2004, 07:16 PM

Works great. Thanks!

emperor

October 19th, 2004, 09:23 PM

Mozplugger looks like an easy (no compiling) way to go. It's in the "universe" too, so you can install it using Synaptic!

emperor

October 20th, 2004, 10:55 PM

I tried both mozplugger and the vlc plugin and neither gave me the seemless multimedia experience I wanted. For example, Media Player did not work! But after building and installing mplayerplug-in, everything works perfectly, even Yahoo! Yahoo's multimeda search found all 3: Quicktime, Media Player 9, and RealPlayer10.

So, it is worth your time to install the dependent packages, configure, make and install mplayerplug-in! I think even a newbie can do this, just give it a try!

Basicly all I have done below is fill in a few holes and adapted the information at the link below for the Ubuntu distro. The reference link is: http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/install.php

How to buiild and install mplayeplug-in:
=========================
1. Install the following using apt-get via xterm session (sudo apt-get install pkg) or using Synaptic gui. I use the GUI when I can. I happen to like Synaptic! These packages should all be in Ubuntu's main respository.

libgtk2.0-dev
libgtk2.0-dbg (may be optional!)

2. Download gecko-sdk: (for x86 on linux you want this one!)
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.6/gecko-sdk-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.6.tar.gz

3. Unpack gecko-sdk in your home "work" directory, I use "~/download"
tar -xzvf gecko-sdk-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.6.tar.gz

4. Now download the mplayer-plugin from here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mplayerplug-in/mplayerplug-in-2.70.tar.gz?download

5. Unpack the source for mplayerplug-in in your "home" work directory:
tar -xzvf mplayerplug-in-2.70.tar.gz

6. Change to your mplayerplug-in directory, for example:
cd mplayerplug-in (in my case, this is: "~/download/mplayerplug-in"

7. Execute "configure" with the following commandline option: (substitute your user account name in "username" )
./configure --with-gecko-sdk=/home/"username"/download/gecko-sdk

8. Next compile and link together the mplayerplug-in by running make with "no" options!
make

9. Finally, install the component and plugin:
For mozilla:
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.xpt /usr/lib/mozilla/components

For firefox:
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.so /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.xpt /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/components

Notes:(a) I also found I had to set Mplayer's Video driver to X11 (Preferences - Video - X11) or Firefox/Mizilla would crash after playing a movie.

Julle

October 21st, 2004, 06:11 AM

Just little correction. You need EITHER mozilla-dev OR gecko-sdk not both of them. So you can skip phase one of emperors instructions. And naturally you can delete the gecko-sdk and mplayerplug-in folders once you have succesfully installed the plug-in.

Then one question. Does the plug-in work correctly with you ppl? After the first test that I did I notised that for some reason there isn't any controls in my mplayerplug-in. So I can't pause the video or move it backwards or forwards. Any ideas?

emperor

October 21st, 2004, 10:20 AM

Removed "mozilla-dev" from instructions. Thanks Julie!

Julle

October 21st, 2004, 11:33 AM

It seems that libgtk2.0-dev was the thing I was missing. Or libgtk2.0-dbg don't know because I didn't take any changes.

My turn to say thanks. :)

Artificial Intelligence

October 21st, 2004, 12:25 PM

Works perfect, emperor!

natefish

October 21st, 2004, 11:44 PM

Didn't need the libgtk2.0-dbg package, used gecko-sdk, and didn't need to set preferences for X11 on my set up. Seems to be working perfect. Much better user experience then the mozplugger.

Thanks for the great directions.

chapterthree

October 22nd, 2004, 02:23 PM

Thanks for this guide!

As far as the mplayer install, the following wget isn't working, it's giving me "failed: Connection timed out"
$ wget http://ftp3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2

Are there updated links for this?

Rancoras

October 22nd, 2004, 02:58 PM

I had the same thing, it appears that their "ftp3" server may be down. Just go to the mplayer web site and try another mirror.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html

gamehack

October 23rd, 2004, 10:19 AM

Hello all,

after adding the marillat repository and trying to install mplayer it gave me this:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
mplayer-586: Depends: libartsc0 (>= 1.3.0) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.0.5) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libungif4g (>= 4.1.3) but 4.1.0b1-6 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

I think it's a big mistake for Ubuntu not to include mplayer in their repository. Come on, that's the best player for Linux and it's even in the repository... I like ubuntu very much but this annoys me. If there's some special package for Ubuntu for mplayer, can someone give me some links. Or some other way of installing it, but not by source. I hate whis brute force installing, although I can do it, it's not the preferred way.

Thanks

aledin

October 23rd, 2004, 10:23 AM

j_baer

October 23rd, 2004, 10:57 AM

I'm struggling with the Firefox Quicktime. I installed MPlayer as outlined and tested. If I hit a movie trailer page the link is still looking for the Quicktime plugin.

I installed mozplugger but I have no idea how to use it.

Any help is appreciated ....

lean

October 23rd, 2004, 04:51 PM

I get this when trying to use marillat (unstable main)

apt-get install mplayer-586
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
mplayer-586: Depends: libartsc0 (>= 1.3.0) but 1.2.3-1 is to be installed
Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.0.5) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libungif4g (>= 4.1.3) but 4.1.0b1-6 is to be installed

j_baer

October 23rd, 2004, 07:02 PM

All,

The HOWTO worked great. I did not do the mozillia plug but the web pages work fine through the file association process.

Linux really needs a media program like MPlayer and this should be included as part of the base install if at all possible.

Good job everyone ...

Juneau

October 24th, 2004, 02:32 PM

Thanks to everyone for that guide! Finally got my favourite media player on Ubuntu!

leeech

October 24th, 2004, 10:29 PM

aren't there any ready made .deb file for mplayer and mplayer-plugin

going through all those compiling is not fun... [-(

reason, if i were to implement to my clients... i can't be going to all their PCs compiling 1 by 1...

uggeli

October 25th, 2004, 03:12 AM

Sorry for maybe stupid guestions, but I'm newbie so..

If mplayer-custom is in the multiverse repository of Ubuntu so what does that custom version contains (how it's costomized) and should I still do rest of steps which are on 1st message of this thread or are they ready in that customized version?

Ps. I haven't installed ubuntu yet (haven't receive CDs I ordered yet..) but just wanted to ask this allready so I can start install mplayer immediately I got ubuntu installed.

Thanks for possible answers. :)

Edit: some typos

gamehack

October 25th, 2004, 09:27 AM

@uggeli

Yes, you can after adding the multiverse repository. But there's a slight problem... it will only install the console version :(

Cheers,
gamehack

uggeli

October 25th, 2004, 10:16 AM

@gamehack

Hmm I can do rest of steps mentioned in 1st post after installing mplayer from multiverse if I got it right from you message, but do I have to do those steps or are those allready "built-in" in that "custom(ized)" version of mplayer? That word "custom" misleads me. So is that "custom" version still normal (expect no gui :( ) mplayer?

Well maybe it's afterall easiest to just ask that does things still go like in 1st post in this thread or do I have to get mplayer (with gui) from somewhere else or what? I understood that there was some problems getting mplayer from those sources which are mentioned in 1st post, or did I misunderstood something? Howabout those other stuff (codecs etc.)?

Sorry for asking again these but as newbie I littlebit scare to try unless I'm 100% sure that things are still going the way I try to. Well I promise not to ask anymore until I got my ubuntu cd and got it installed. :)

j_baer

October 25th, 2004, 10:43 AM

thorhr

October 26th, 2004, 08:34 AM

Ubuntu Multimedia HOWTO

Introduction
------------------
"Will Warty Warthog / Ubuntu include complete multimedia support?"

Ubuntu Linux [1] is a Debian-based, desktop Linux distribution whose name
means "humanity to others." The philosophy behind this GNU/Linux
distribution and the great selection of packages make you feel good that
you're using it. The lack of multimedia support, however, leaves your
digital media desires unsated.

"We're still working out some of the difficult legal / policy issues
involved with multimedia support. Warty Warthog will include some
multimedia support, we just need to find out what we can safely and freely
do."

This HOWTO details the installation and configuration of applications
essential to your media enjoyment on Ubuntu.

Update It
--------------
If you've installed Ubuntu, and you should have a fresh install for this
HOWTO, then you're already familiar with its default use of sudo. You'll
be using sudo a lot.

The first step towards an Ubuntu multimedia powerhouse is to make sure your
box is up-to-date [2].

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

MPlayer
------------
It's time to grab all of the packages needed to install MPlayer. MPlayer
is the most versatile media player available for GNU/Linux - video, audio,
X, no X - it very well may be the only player you'll need. Let's start with
gcc/g++ and other dependencies, and then grab the MPlayer source.

$ sudo apt-get install manpages-dev
$ sudo apt-get install autoconf
$ sudo apt-get install automake
$ sudo apt-get install libtool
$ sudo apt-get install flex
$ sudo apt-get install bison
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-doc
$ sudo apt-get install g++
$ sudo apt-get install x-window-system-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libpng-dev

Have your Warty Warthog CD handy and accept any extra packages, e.g. the
libtool install will also install gcc. We'll use a US mirror for the
MPlayer packages and assume you're working in your home directory. Download
MPlayer, codecs, English fonts and the default blue skin.
Internationalization and slick graphics are up to you.

$ wget http://ftp3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-20040922.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/fonts/font-arial-iso-8859-1.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/Skin/Blue-1.4.tar.bz2

Using the README from mplayerhq.hu [3] as a baseline, install the codecs
with the following commands.

$ tar -xjf essential-20040922.tar.bz2
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/codecs
$ sudo cp essential-20040922/* /usr/local/lib/codecs/

Time to compile MPlayer. Issue these commands.

$ tar -xjf MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2
$ cd MPlayer-1.0pre5
$ ./configure --enable-gui
$ make
$ sudo make install

Now install the fonts and skin.

$ cd
$ tar -xjf font-arial-iso-8859-1.tar.bz2
$ sudo cp font-arial-iso-8859-1/font-arial-14-iso-8859-1/* /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/
$ tar -xjf Blue-1.4.tar.bz2
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default
$ sudo cp -r Blue/* /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default/

Finally, copy over the included conf files.

$ sudo cp MPlayer-1.0pre5/etc/* /usr/local/etc/mplayer/

Test your install by launching the graphical version of MPlayer.

$ gmplayer

QuickTime, WindowsMedia, MPEG, avi - you should be able to play just about
anything. Give yourself quick access to MPlayer by adding a launcher to
the top GNOME panel. Right click on the panel and click Add to Panel...
Select Custom Application Launcher and click Add. Use the following
information and click OK.

Name: MPlayer
Command: /usr/local/bin/gmplayer
Icon: /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default/icons/32x32.png

Playing DVDs
-------------------
The Ubuntu Wiki discusses restricted formats [4], which includes CSS and
DVD playback. To add DVD playback capability to Ubuntu, use the Synaptics
Howto [5] to add ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat to your sources list
(unstable, main). Then sync your package index.

$ sudo apt-get update

Grab the infamous DeCSS.

$ sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

Add a dvd link and enjoy DVDs with MPlayer and Ubuntu.

$ sudo ln -s /media/cdrom0 /dev/dvd

XMMS
---------
With your video needs taken care of, we can move on the audio portion of
our show by installing XMMS.

$ sudo apt-get install libmikmod2
$ sudo apt-get install xmms

Logging out and logging back in will find XMMS already in the Applications/
Multimedia menu. And there it is - instant Ogg/mp3/jukebox/streaming audio
goodness.

A Little Perl
----------------
For streaming internet radio, you can of course use XMMS. Set your
preference in Firefox and you're good to go. I listen to a few stations
regularly, and I always have a gnome-term open. With those things in mind,
I've found it much more convenient to write a Perl script that uses MPlayer
to stream my favorite music.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# mplay.pl -
# command line streaming of your fav stations
# usage: mplay <channel>

use strict;

help() unless defined(my $chan = shift);

if ($chan =~ /bass/) {
system("mplayer http://us-dc1.streams.bassdrive.com:8012");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /cryo/) {
system("mplayer http://207.200.96.225:8022");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /di/) {
system("mplayer http://205.188.234.68:8006");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /ind/) {
system("mplayer http://130.240.207.88:9090");
}
elsif ($chan =~ /talk/) {
system("mplayer http://broadcast.rantradio.com:9010");
}
else { help(); }

sub help {

print <<EOF;

Usage: mplay <channel>

Channels:
bass - BassDrive
cryo - Cryosleep
di - Digitally Imported
ind - RantRadio Industrial
talk - RantRadio Talk

EOF

exit;
}

"mplay ind" plays RantRadio's 128-bit industrial stream quickly and
without a browser. If you need your terminal, "q" stops the stream, do
your deed, and up arrow gets the stream right back (or of course Ctrl+
Shift+T for a new tab in gnome-terminal).

Conclusion
----------------
Ubuntu Linux is an impressive distribution. Even more impressive is the
conviction of the developers. "The most important thing about Ubuntu is
not that it is available free of charge, but that it confers rights of
software freedom on the people who install and use it." They put their
money where their apt is. So as a GNU/Linux user, the tasks detailed
above are trivial compared to the decisions made not to include such
support.

Please support free software developers. Continue to use Ubuntu.
Contribute to the Ubuntu Linux community. And watch Batman: Dead End
while you're doing it [6].

References
-----------------
[1] http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

[2] I could not intuitively get Rhythmbox to play one simple Ogg file. So
my first step in setting up multimedia on Ubuntu is to sudo apt-get
remove rhythmbox.

[3] http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/README

[4] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats

[5] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/SynapticHowto

[6] http://www.theforce.net/theater/shortfilms/batman_deadend/
These are the best instructions i have ever found on any web site. Thank you!They work!

senectus

October 26th, 2004, 10:32 AM

I cant get down off that mirror.. is there somewhere else I can get the *.tar.bz2 files?

jayclark

October 26th, 2004, 12:11 PM

Julle- I have the pause/play/stop buttons also the scaning bar to move forward or backwards.

emperor

October 26th, 2004, 12:22 PM

Having trouble compiling mplayerplug-in

My are my steps ...

1) apt-get libgtk2.0-dev & libgtk2.0-dbg (may be optional!) - ok

2) download gecko-sdk-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.6.tar.gz to ~/"username"/download - ok

3) unpacked gecko-sdk-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.6.tar.gz to ~/"username"/download - ok

- this created a folder gecko-sdk in ~/"username"/download of source files

4) download mplayerplug-in-2.70.tar.gz to ~/"username"/download - ok

5) unpacked mplayerplug-in-2.70.tar.gz to ~/"username"/download - ok

- this created a folder mplayerplug-in in ~/"username"/download of source files

6) changed to ~/"username"/download/mplayerplug-in directory - ok

7) configure ./configure --with-gecko-sdk=/home/"username"/download/gecko-sdk - ok

8) compile and link by "make" - failed

Questions:

Do any of the above commands need to be run as sudo?

Did the configure command really execute successfully?

Do I need to move the files from gecko-sdk to somewhere else?

Thanks ...

The notation "~" append's "/home/username" to the path. So "~/username/download" would become "/home/username/username/download".

Could this be your problem?

gecko-sdk does not need to be installed anywhere eles as it is just used to compile the plugin; .afterwards, you can delete it.

Use of Sudo is only required when you are copying the plugin to the final mozilla/firefox directory.

More error info would help!

BTW, "sudo -s" will create a root session in the terminal session. Use "exit" to go back to regular user. If there is a lot of "sudo-ing" going on I like to go to a root session.

dmatrix

October 26th, 2004, 12:55 PM

Forget compiling this stuff, there is an easier way.

Make sure you have multiverse and universe in your /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu warty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu warty-security main restricted universe multiverse

Open a Terminal
sudo apt-get install mplayer-custom mozilla-mplayer
wget ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/dists/stable/main/binary-i386/w32codecs_20040916-0.0_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i w32codec*

Browse to http://apple.com/trailers/

Enjoy

oddabe19

October 26th, 2004, 02:15 PM

jayclark

October 26th, 2004, 02:47 PM

The mplayer custom has a problem. Dosen't want to work with all cpu's. It won't work on pentium 3's at all. At least thats what i'm told by a dev on the mailing list.

Rancoras

October 26th, 2004, 04:09 PM

Multiverse? What the HELL is multiverse? I was completely happy with just universe. :???:

Multiverse is non-free, unsupported packages

brschmid

October 26th, 2004, 04:24 PM

i am having trouble with this part :
Using the README from mplayerhq.hu [3] as a baseline, install the codecs
with the following commands.

$ tar -xjf essential-20040922.tar.bz2
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/codecs
$ sudo cp essential-20040922/* /usr/local/lib/codecs/

these are the errors, please help, i want to be able to listen to music and watch some movies.
me@craptop:/home $ tar -xjf essential-20040922.tar.bz2
tar: essential-20040922: Cannot mkdir: Permission denied
tar: essential-20040922/msms001.vwp: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ctadp32.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/mi-sc4.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/AvidQTAVUICodec.qtx: Cannot open: No such file or direct ory
tar: essential-20040922/BeHereiVideo.qtx: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/CLRVIDDC.DLL: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/CtWbJpg.DLL: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/LCMW2.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/LCODCCMW2E.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/QuickTime.qts: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/QuickTimeEssentials.qtx: Cannot open: No such file or di rectory
tar: essential-20040922/QuickTimeInternetExtras.qtx: Cannot open: No such file o r directory
tar: essential-20040922/ViVD2.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/acelpdec.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/alf2cd.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/aslcodec_dshow.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directo ry
tar: essential-20040922/atrac3.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/atrc.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/clrviddd.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/cook.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/drv3.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/drv4.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/dspr.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/iac25_32.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/icmw_32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/imc32.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ir41_32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ir50_32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ivvideo.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/jp2avi.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/lhacm.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/m3jp2k32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/msh261.drv: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/msscds32.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/nsrt2432.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/qpeg32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/qtmlClient.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/rt32dcmp.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/sipr.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tm20dec.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tokf.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tokr.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tsccvid.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tsd32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tssoft32.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ultimo.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vid_3ivX.xa: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vivog723.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/voxmsdec.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vp4vfw.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vp5vfw.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vp6vfw.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vssh264.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vssh264core.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vssh264dec.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vsslight.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vsswlt.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wma9dmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmadmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmspdmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmv9dmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmvdmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wnvplay1.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wnvwinx.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

j_baer

October 26th, 2004, 05:38 PM

dMatrix,

Thanks, your script worked perfectly!

...

j_baer

October 26th, 2004, 05:51 PM

Just curious,

Is there a plugin for windows media?

emperor

October 26th, 2004, 05:57 PM

The mplayerplug-in will handle this provided the windows codecs are installed from the mplayer "essential..." package mentioned earlier in this thread. Type the following in firefox's URL entry field to see what plugins are currently installed:

"about:plugins" <smiley is suppose to be a colon!>

BugsyMalone

October 26th, 2004, 07:09 PM

I'm trying to get MPlayer set up to play DVD's. I added the marillat link to the sources list and when I run the sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 command I get this error:

Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libdvdcss2: Depends: libdvdread2 (>= 0.9.2) but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

I don't have any idea what this means, does anybody have a translation?

BugsyMalone

October 26th, 2004, 07:32 PM

Nevermind... I installed the unstable link and it installed. I did the sudo ln -s /media/cdrom0 /dev/dvd command and I can't get DVD's to play. AVI files play perfectly. I have a DVD/CDR drive, should I make a different entry?

brschmid

October 26th, 2004, 09:40 PM

help!!! please

still getting errors on this part:
Using the README from mplayerhq.hu [3] as a baseline, install the codecs
with the following commands.

$ tar -xjf essential-20040922.tar.bz2
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/codecs
$ sudo cp essential-20040922/* /usr/local/lib/codecs/

me@craptop:/home $ tar -xjf essential-20040922.tar.bz2
tar: essential-20040922: Cannot mkdir: Permission denied
tar: essential-20040922/msms001.vwp: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ctadp32.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/mi-sc4.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/AvidQTAVUICodec.qtx: Cannot open: No such file or direct ory
tar: essential-20040922/BeHereiVideo.qtx: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/CLRVIDDC.DLL: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/CtWbJpg.DLL: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/LCMW2.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/LCODCCMW2E.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/QuickTime.qts: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/QuickTimeEssentials.qtx: Cannot open: No such file or di rectory
tar: essential-20040922/QuickTimeInternetExtras.qtx: Cannot open: No such file o r directory
tar: essential-20040922/ViVD2.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/acelpdec.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/alf2cd.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/aslcodec_dshow.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directo ry
tar: essential-20040922/atrac3.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/atrc.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/clrviddd.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/cook.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/drv3.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/drv4.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/dspr.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/iac25_32.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/icmw_32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/imc32.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ir41_32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ir50_32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ivvideo.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/jp2avi.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/lhacm.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/m3jp2k32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/msh261.drv: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/msscds32.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/nsrt2432.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/qpeg32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/qtmlClient.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/rt32dcmp.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/sipr.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tm20dec.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tokf.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tokr.so.6.0: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tsccvid.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tsd32.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/tssoft32.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/ultimo.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vid_3ivX.xa: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vivog723.acm: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/voxmsdec.ax: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vp4vfw.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vp5vfw.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vp6vfw.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vssh264.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vssh264core.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vssh264dec.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vsslight.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/vsswlt.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wma9dmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmadmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmspdmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmv9dmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wmvdmod.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wnvplay1.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: essential-20040922/wnvwinx.dll: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

herweg

October 26th, 2004, 11:18 PM

It sounds to me like for some reason you don't have permission in that directory - come to think of it, it looks like you are one level up from where you should be. Is that your personal home directory for that username? If not, you won't have adequate permission to edit it, you can do one of two things - either sudo mv the file to your username's home directory, or you can just throw a sudo in front of the tar.

disposable

October 27th, 2004, 12:02 AM

Since vBulletin won't let me edit the original post, the latest verion of the HOWTO is located here:

http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/hack/ubuntu.txt

I implore everyone to read the conclusion and notice that capability is added without enabling universe/multiverse/negaverse. The path of least resistance leads to... windows.

brschmid

October 27th, 2004, 01:51 AM

FLeiXiuS

October 27th, 2004, 03:27 PM

i am having trouble with this part :

these are the errors, please help, i want to be able to listen to music and watch some movies.

Your extracting you /home which a defaul user doesn't have access too write too. So in this case you would have to extract it to ~/ or /home/USER_NAME.

plasmo

October 27th, 2004, 09:16 PM

emperor: i followed your guide and yes. everything worked flawlessly :D
u da man! :)

DriftSK

October 28th, 2004, 05:24 PM

The mplayer custom has a problem. Dosen't want to work with all cpu's. It won't work on pentium 3's at all. At least thats what i'm told by a dev on the mailing list.

I confirm that. Right now as I'm writing it seems that mplayer-custom package was compiled with P4 optimizations (arrgghhh :-( ). Moreover, all mplayer packages that I've got in my apt cache now refuse to install, and are redirected to mplayer-custom as default fallback... so I can't even force mplayer-386 or similar as I used to.

PLEASE, rebuild mplayer-custom as a 386 package!

A little footnote about mplayer plugin: I've tried many of them, including the infamous Marillat-available one, but the one and only that worked 100% giving me playback control buttons and all the bells & whistles is the one in Cerkinfo repository:

deb http://apt.cerkinfo.be/ unstable main contrib non-free
deb-src http://apt.cerkinfo.be/ unstable main contrib non-free

and is named mplayerplug-in.

hectorvs

October 29th, 2004, 12:48 PM

Thanks man, it worked excellent!

The only thing is that sound doesnt work... kinda...

Everytime I open a movie by right click --- open with gmplayer I get this message

audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: Device or source busy

But when I open mplayer first and then open the movie through the player, sound works ??

any help? Thanks!

ubuntu-geek

October 29th, 2004, 12:56 PM

Updated... on the first page...

Since vBulletin won't let me edit the original post, the latest verion of the HOWTO is located here:

http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/hack/ubuntu.txt

I implore everyone to read the conclusion and notice that capability is added without enabling universe/multiverse/negaverse. The path of least resistance leads to... windows.

moon2js

October 30th, 2004, 05:10 AM

Anyone else having problems with this howto? I've followed to the letter after a fresh install twice, and no luck. Video won't display windowed (just blue screen) however I can hear the sound. In full screen mode, the the video appears, but it's aligned wrong. There is a big blue bar going down the screen and the original video's right third is displayed on the left, the left on the right.

DriftSK

October 30th, 2004, 06:34 AM

IMHO building Mplayer from sources is NOT the right way of solving the problem. At least not for the average Ubuntu user, which I suppose is not a geek.

Ubuntu to me is a very good package-oriented distro, and should be used as such. When you need to compile something in a package-oriented distro in my opinion there's something going wrong: Ubuntu is not Gentoo and eventually should be even better than Debian GNU/Linux for its simplicity and ease of use. This should mean no hassles with installation, no cryptic configuration steps, no need to compile anything.

The universe/multiverse repository is a very good approach because it allows the user to choose up to which grade of "unofficiality" his distro can be, a bit like choosing between Debian unstable or testing. Even Fedora, which is one of the most conservative distro ever about multimedia support (they don't even provide mp3 playback in the standard configuration, you have to add it manually), allows its users to add almost any multimedia toy they want - afterwards and using only yum or apt. And IMHO so should Ubuntu.

Let's face it, many people in this thread are reporting troubles about compiling Mplayer. It's not a very easy task and the user should not be forced to do it.

Instead, I'd suggest providing mplayer and mplayerplugin in the multiverse repository - after checking the mplayer-custom package, which in current state is almost useless (as I pointed out previously) being P4-only optimized.

My two cents, huh. Sorry if I've gone a bit OT.

dmatrix

October 30th, 2004, 08:23 AM

If you look back thru this thread you will see I suggested an easier way using multiverse packages. The mplayer-custom package and the mplayer-amd64 package work great for me on many of my systems including amd64, 686-smp and k7. Once you install the mplayer package you just need to get w32codecs and you are good to go. As a Debian user I know I do not have to compile things from scratch. If there is a package available in apt-src its really easy to compile it. ie. apt-get --compile source mplayer-custom. Which is what I did with my mplayer package since it lacked libdvdread support.

Magneto

October 31st, 2004, 04:24 AM

Just a side note for anyone having issues compiling or using the various methods listed here.

Ubuntu seemed to make my ck-sources 2.6.8-cko8 kernel have major issues- weird instability issues with windowing - weird swap issues - and I couldnt compile mplayer from source without error everytime- switching back to the default ubuntu kernel set me straight again

Also mplayercustom seems to be compiled without gui support but comes with gmplayer links- but if I ran gmplayer - it would die in --help mode as if I ran mplayer

I am up and running though now and add another " Great job on the howto" from me

marguz

November 1st, 2004, 03:50 PM

Sorry, but I just have to ask.

How did you tell apt-get to use libdvdread during the --compile option ?

I've looked. but could not work it out.

Comming from FC2, so apt-get with all of it options is new to me.

Mark

If you look back thru this thread you will see I suggested an easier way using multiverse packages. The mplayer-custom package and the mplayer-amd64 package work great for me on many of my systems including amd64, 686-smp and k7. Once you install the mplayer package you just need to get w32codecs and you are good to go. As a Debian user I know I do not have to compile things from scratch. If there is a package available in apt-src its really easy to compile it. ie. apt-get --compile source mplayer-custom. Which is what I did with my mplayer package since it lacked libdvdread support.

fng

November 1st, 2004, 06:09 PM

I can't resize the video :/. Whenever i go fullscreen, the video remains the original size with a black border around it, instead of enlarging the video screen.

DriftSK

November 2nd, 2004, 06:47 AM

I can't resize the video :/. Whenever i go fullscreen, the video remains the original size with a black border around it, instead of enlarging the video screen.

This is usually a side effect of using x11 video output instead of xv. Try setting xv as your video overlay and see (you should notice a performance improvement too).

oddabe19

November 2nd, 2004, 01:24 PM

Actully... I use x11 (Cause i like my screenshot with video), and it resizes just fine (except doublemode... but that doesn't work in general).

in your mplayer configfile, you just have to make sure you have zoom in there. or when you launch mplayer

mplayer -zoom

fng

November 2nd, 2004, 02:32 PM

enabling it in the config file worked. thnx

Verlager

November 4th, 2004, 07:41 AM

mercurus

November 4th, 2004, 11:58 AM

I'm concerned.

Surely totem-xine is capable of playing all the same formats as mplayer ?

They use the same codecs, and totem comes pre-installed on Ubuntu systems. Further, a totem solution would continue GTK 2.0+ packages, and mean that no GTK 1.x+ packages or libraries would be required.

I installed totem-xine and codecs and I was very happy with it.

The sole reason I've just begun install mplayer from Marillat is the absence of an interface between mozilla-firefox and totem-xine. If there were mozilla plugins re-directing media to totem, I would ditch mplayer completely and maintain a GTK 2.0+ Ubuntu system.

Is there any possibility of such a match-up ?

Cheers
mercurus

spoetnik

November 4th, 2004, 12:10 PM

St-Ex

November 4th, 2004, 12:27 PM

I got MPlayer working, but not with DVD; i get a "seek failed" error warning...
Any idea? I'm almost there...

Cheers,

moon2js

November 4th, 2004, 01:44 PM

This is usually a side effect of using x11 video output instead of xv. Try setting xv as your video overlay and see (you should notice a performance improvement too).

I've found that when I use the xv option, the video doesn't display properly. In windowed mode, the picture won't display and in fullscreen mode, the video is unwatchable because the right half of the image is spliced onto the left side of the screen, the left half of the image is spiced onto the right, and there is a wide blue bar going down the middle, slightly favoring the right.

Is there anyway to fix this?

Using x11 as the video out option works fine though. What's the difference between xv and x11 besides performance?

BugsyMalone

November 4th, 2004, 04:23 PM

root@ubuntu:/home/verlager # sudo apt-get install libpng-dev
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package libpng-dev is a virtual package provided by:
libpng12-dev 1.2.5.0-7ubuntu1
You should explicitly select one to install.
E: Package libpng-dev has no installation candidate

What do I do now?
Verlager, the libpng-dev files can be installed in Synaptic. Make sure you have Universe enabled then do a search for libpng-dev. Several entries come up; I didn't know which one to choose so I installed them all. That will take care of it.

DriftSK

November 5th, 2004, 02:57 PM

The easiest way to install Mplayer and the firefox player plugin is using the scripts from kanotix.

http://www.kanotix.com/files/

Look for these scripts...

install-codecs.sh
install-mplayer.sh
install-mplayer-cvs.sh
install-kmplayer.sh

Did you try it before posting? It made up quite a mess on my system: the install-mplayer.sh downloaded a whole bunch of stuff including the whole mozilla suite, spit out some errors and then tried to compile something - which obviously failed since I don't have any compiler on my system. I haven't found a clue about the need of a compiler in your post :-? now I have to go and clean up things...

DriftSK

November 5th, 2004, 03:03 PM

I've found that when I use the xv option, the video doesn't display properly...
[...]
Is there anyway to fix this?

Using x11 as the video out option works fine though. What's the difference between xv and x11 besides performance?

Xv is supposed to take advantage of your video card hardware overlay acceleration/scaling/blitting, if any. While x11 is something more basic and failproof, blitting the video without trying to use too much hardware support - which is slower and eats more CPU, but it's also likely to work on almost any video card.

I guess your troubles with xv are due to lousy video drivers and/or something wrong in the configuration. In both cases, if x11 is working fine for you go on with it and just don't care ;-)

Gehost

November 5th, 2004, 05:37 PM

I got MPlayer working, but not with DVD; i get a "seek failed" error warning...
Any idea? I'm almost there...

Cheers,

hi, MPlayer can't read DVD, so I guess you to install (In Synaptic, with Universe server enabled) gXine. It can read divx and mpeg4 like MPlayer, but DVD format too... In addition, you can have a "integrated" xine to Totem... (totem-xine)

I recommand that , cos I had this problem... 8-[

Gehost

November 5th, 2004, 05:46 PM

So... Just forget something...

In fact, you can read DVD with MPlayer, but you have to install, I think...

libdvdcss2 (sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2); but that never worked with me... :oops:

wallijonn

November 5th, 2004, 09:57 PM

install SPM's XINE (xine-ui)

google search for and download libdvdcss2_1.2.8-1_i386.deb

extract the files (creates /usr/lib folder) and then start a root terminal

cd <to the folder containing the following two files>
sudo cp libdvdcss.so.2 /usr/lib
sudo cp libdvdcss.so.2.0.7 /usr/lib
exit

Slip in a movie DVD and enjoy.

.

St-Ex

November 10th, 2004, 07:05 AM

Thx for your replys.
In fact, as I followed strictly the procedure described in the first page, I did install the libdvd...
And it eventually worked after a reboot.... :oops:

So everything is working for me, except CD-Audio.... I really wonder what's wrong with it. It looks like it has got sthg to do with gnome-cd. I tried to desactivate the automatic reading with gnome-cd (as it can't be uninstalled through apt), but then it is not possible anymore to mount a CD-Audio, so no way to try out with XMMS (I installed the cd-read plugin). Weird... :confused:

Monika

November 10th, 2004, 03:27 PM

JAlso mplayercustom seems to be compiled without gui support but comes with gmplayer links- but if I ran gmplayer - it would die in --help mode as if I ran mplayer

This is what's happened to me :(

I would try and compile from sources if I could, but I cannot download mplayer file number2 (the codecs). I went to their site and tried different mirrors but none of them work for me. Each time it just says that the site or file may have been moved, that it's not there.
I also recall trying to compile mplayer on SuSE linux a few weeks ago and got stuck in exactly the same spot.

I would really appreciate any help you could give me.

wallijonn

November 10th, 2004, 10:40 PM

So everything is working for me, except CD-Audio....

Do you have the little 4 wire cable installed on your CDRom drive to the motherboard?

I find that I have to install it (to use the CDRom drive to listen to CD audio) but I can just use the IDE cable for Digital audio under Windows )leaving the small thin cable out).

St-Ex

November 11th, 2004, 06:07 AM

Do you have the little 4 wire cable installed on your CDRom drive to the motherboard?

Actually, my dvd-rw is linked to my Audigy Player through a digital cable (tiny 2-pins cable).

But I eventually got CD-Audio working with XMMS.

Here is what I did:

1- I installed xmms-cd-read pkg

2- For this step, I will try to translate my desktop from french to english, but I am not sure as I have never got my desktop in english...
>desktop preferences>removable drive
For CD-Audio, I changes the line "gnome-cd --unique --play --device %d" by "xmms --unique --play --device %d". And it works great, using alsa driver.
I also changed the line for DVD, & replaced totem by gmplayer... No effect on cd-Audio, but each time I inserte a DVD, mplayer plays it automatically.

Cheers ;-)

I would really appreciate any help you could give me.

I can send you the file through email if you like.

zenetics

November 11th, 2004, 08:59 AM

help!!! please

still getting errors on this part:
Hello !!
I'm not sure, but you seems to have permission to create the directory

Check if the directory is created before copying

mrv

November 13th, 2004, 09:00 AM

I think it's a big mistake for Ubuntu not to include mplayer in their repository. Come on, that's the best player for Linux and it's even in the repository... I like ubuntu very much but this annoys me. If there's some special package for Ubuntu for mplayer, can someone give me some links. Or some other way of installing it, but not by source. I hate whis brute force installing, although I can do it, it's not the preferred way.

If you take all the non-free / (patent) problematic parts out of the mplayer, there isn't that much left. You can't even encode (easily) in free formats, eg. Ogg Theora (for video) and Ogg Vorbis (for audio). But I do agree that mplayer has, for example, a great audio/video filter collection. I guess it just has all the non-free stuff too integrated in the core, so that it's difficult to have it in a GNU/Linux distribution.

And as was pointed out, the full mplayer is in the non-free section (multiverse) of Ubuntu.

krietor

November 14th, 2004, 10:56 PM

The guide in this thread for compiling and installing Mplayer worked great for me. Thanks, disposable! One note, where I had to change some commands, since the source to wget one of the files was missing. . . .
Where disposable says to do:
$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/codecs/essential-20040922.tar.bz2
the link didn't work so I used the following:
'$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/codecs/essential-20040704.tar.bz2'
And of course some of the other commands had to be modified too. Just put 'essential-20040704.tar.bz2' wherever he says 'essential-20040922.tar.bz2' - Although there are a few clues, I don't grok the implications. However, it worked. I hadn't been able to make MPlayer go fullscreen correctly with the package from Marrilat (sp?) even after trying oodles of suggestions from here and other forums. Now MPlayer does fullscreen well. Also the handy gui came back. I like the keyboard shortcuts a lot, tho, and they are there too.
Wow, compiling from source can be easy and fun, AND it makes stuff run a lot better!
Thanks again, disposable!
P.S. I simply checked at http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/codecs - the first part of the url for the tarball. That's when I noticed there was a essential-20040704.tar.bz2 and no essential-20040922.tar.bz2 . I suppose it was removed.

krietor

November 14th, 2004, 11:14 PM

update on my MPlayer experience - It works really well, but every time I go to play a file it gives an error:
Requested audio codec family [mad] (afm=libmad) not available. enable it at compilation.
What should I do?

adbak

November 15th, 2004, 12:31 AM

panickedthumb

November 15th, 2004, 12:33 AM

I've heard that by adding deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main to your /etc/apt/sources.list you can install MPlayer.

NOTE: that was testing -- not stable or unstable.

I'm too chicken to try that, anyone brave and daring care to confirm it for me?
yeah, I've gotten it to run fine with testing.

Linux_Noob

November 16th, 2004, 12:22 AM

Im having trouble with ogm format files. When i play them using mplayer i get a no stream error message? Is there some codec or app i need in addition to the ones mentioned in this thread on how to set up mplayer?

DaGr8Gatzby

November 16th, 2004, 10:58 PM

I Really don't like MPLayer. I don't know why, I just don't. I would rather use Totem. Is there a way to get proprietary codecs to work with it?

kingmob

November 17th, 2004, 11:27 AM

I'm getting a compile error during a make, while i followed the complete guide here. Funny thing is it used to work the last time i did it, but now, with a fresh install, something is wrong.
Maybe i should use another gcc version? If so, how?

This is the error:

mplayer.c: In function `main':
mplayer.c:3804: internal compiler error: Segmentation fault
Please submit a full bug report,
with preprocessed source if appropriate.
See <URL:http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html> for instructions.
For Debian GNU/Linux specific bug reporting instructions, see
<URL:file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-3.3/README.Bugs>.
make: *** [mplayer.o] Error 1

mrv

November 18th, 2004, 06:04 AM

I Really don't like MPLayer. I don't know why, I just don't. I would rather use Totem. Is there a way to get proprietary codecs to work with it?

I don't like it either much. I just use it to convert video files to Ogg Theora / Ogg Vorbis formats, so that they can be played with free software programs, like the bundled Totem.

noxfu

November 19th, 2004, 05:05 PM

Add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu warty multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu warty multiverse

Run the following command:

apt-get update

Type the following command:

sudo apt-get install mozilla-mplayer mplayer-fonts

brhill

November 21st, 2004, 01:42 PM

Absolutly FANTASIC :D Your instructions could not be easier or operate better!

thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU !!!

DriftSK

November 25th, 2004, 10:37 AM

I've heard that by adding deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main to your /etc/apt/sources.list you can install MPlayer.

NOTE: that was testing -- not stable or unstable.

I can confirm that, the package in testing works fine. The one in unstable, though, is compiled against P4. The only thing missing in mplayerplugin now are controls, but it's a minor issue. Good!
:grin:

Magneto

November 25th, 2004, 11:49 AM

I had to compile mplayer from source in Hoary yesterday- very worthwhile- compiled mplayerplugin too have allcodecs -newest quicktime and I have my controls on embedded media in webpages. The testing package from marillat wouldnt work for me this time although it did in warty. Later I will post a tarball with fonts codecs some nice skins , ffmpeg, gecko-sdk, mplayer cvs sources and mplayer plugin sources and a few instructions. I did go through the list of prereqs on mplayerplug-in's page with a terminal open running apt-get for deps but its the least buggy install of mplayer ive had to date including going to fullscreen from a quicktime trailer.

and totem seems totally useless to me

easy_target

November 25th, 2004, 02:22 PM

OMG IT WORKS!!!!!
I've tried many different distros and the one true love is Ubuntu. I'm in love with phylosophy and all...

Thanks team. Now I have a complete distro. Never coming back to $indows or anything!!!!

Woooo-hooooooooo!!!!!!

brlmedia

November 25th, 2004, 09:39 PM

fantastic howto, just installed my first mplayer by command line, lol. seems to work fine!!

ubuntu_demon

November 25th, 2004, 10:10 PM

Hi,

Why not create a multiimedia meta-package (like ubuntu-desktop) and put it in multiverse ?

It could contain mplayer + all codecs and xmms. Maybe add some more multimedia meta-packages like : multimedia-totem to get full multimedia support for totem and multimedia-xine to get full multimediia support for xine etc.

see also :

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=6178&highlight=idea#post24097

Magneto

November 26th, 2004, 12:08 AM

shir0kuma

November 26th, 2004, 07:05 AM

Has anyone run into this problem with MPlayer: "audio_setup: Cant' open audio device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy"

Here is the output I get from running gmlayer from the cli:

daniel@STS-LIn:~ $ gmplayer metroid_prime_2_echoes.mov
MPlayer 1.0pre5-3.3.5 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team

CPU: Intel Pentium 4/Xeon/Celeron Foster 2680 MHz (Family: 8, Stepping: 7)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2

Reading config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf: No such file or directory
Reading config file /home/daniel/.mplayer/config
[cfg] read config file: /home/daniel/.mplayer/gui.conf
Reading config file /home/daniel/.mplayer/gui.conf
vo: X11 running at 1280x1024 with depth 24 and 32 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
Disabling DPMS
Reading /home/daniel/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/daniel/.mplayer/cod ecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 73 audio & 180 video codecs
Font /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/font.desc loaded successfully! (206 chars)
Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Using usleep() timing
Can't open input config file /home/daniel/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or d irectory
Input config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
SKIN dir 1: '/home/daniel/.mplayer/Skin'
SKIN dir 2: '/usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin'
Font /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/font.desc loaded successfully! (206 chars)
Font /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/font.desc loaded successfully! (206 chars)

Playing /home/daniel/metroid_prime_2_echoes.mov.
QuickTime/MOV file format detected.
--------------
MOV track #0: 216 chunks, 1618 samples
MOV: Found unknown movie atom SMI (21)!
Image size: 480 x 360 (24 bpp)
Display size: 480 x 360
Fourcc: SVQ3 Codec: 'Sorenson Video 3'
--------------
MOV track #1: 109 chunks, 0 samples
Audio bits: 16 chans: 2 rate: 44100
MOV: Found unknown audio atom odin (543518307)!
Fourcc: ima4
--------------
MOV: longest streams: A: #1 (109 samples) V: #0 (1618 samples)
Clip info:
author: Nintendo of America
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [imaadpcm] IMA ADPCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, 16 bit (0x10), ratio: 46856->176400 (374.8 kbit)
Selected audio codec: [imaadpcm] afm:imaadpcm (IMA ADPCM)
================================================== ========================
Xv: could not grab port 62
================================================== ========================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffsvq3] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg Sorenson Video v3 (SVQ3))
================================================== ========================
Checking audio filter chain for 44100Hz/2ch/16bit -> 44100Hz/2ch/16bit...
AF_pre: af format: 2 bps, 2 ch, 44100 hz, little endian signed int
AF_pre: 44100Hz 2ch Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian)
audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy
AO: [null] 44100Hz 2ch Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian) (2 bps)
Building audio filter chain for 44100Hz/2ch/16bit -> 44100Hz/2ch/16bit...
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 480 x 360 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [xv] 480x360 => 480x360 Planar YV12
A: 53.9 V: 54.0 A-V: -0.011 ct: -0.011 1618/1618 9% 7% 0.3% 7 0 0%
Successfully enabled DPMS

Exiting... (Quit)

Any assistance would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Daniel

Magneto

November 26th, 2004, 03:23 PM

is esd running? is this hoary?

Monika

November 27th, 2004, 03:44 PM

I got mplayer running :)

But still missing a codec I need... How do I get *.ogm files to run? Also, some *.rm files although they play, mplayer says the audio/video is unsupported. There's also something weird with some *.wmv files. It says that actually they're *.asf files and that I have to rename them and after renaming them they play but still a bit strangely like with the *.rm - i.e. once I press stop I only have a black screen next time I press play and only the sound runs and then it hangs and I have to force it to quit.

Oh, and the pause doesn't work at all! It works like the stop button, only after I press play again I only have sound, just a black screen (even though it starts from the beginning, wheras with the stop everything's ok).

Big Ed

November 27th, 2004, 03:58 PM

Magneto

November 27th, 2004, 05:31 PM

Magneto

November 27th, 2004, 05:35 PM

I just installed MPlayer on Warty and didn't find the essential-20040922.tar.bz2 so I just used the essential-20040704.tar.bz2 which was in the same directory. Then I did a quick search and found the 0922 file here: http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/

I should have done the searh before substituting files, Is there any real benefit to updating the essential package? If so, should I uninstall MPlayer and reinstall with the newer essential package or can I just rerun the commands from the point where I diverged?

Thanks,
Ed
There's a difference in when the codecs were released and the versions supported- like the new quicktime codec came out recently so if you had an older package you wouldnt be able to view those- I personally use the all codecs package - just place the contents in /usr/local/lib/codecs that's where mplayer will look when it attempts to open it- you dont have to recompile mplayer but mplayerplug-in would need it I think if you built it yourself

Monika

November 27th, 2004, 05:35 PM

.ogm is ogg media file - divx and ogg audio install the libogg0 package

It's already installed.

Magneto

November 27th, 2004, 07:24 PM

It's already installed.
do u have the right divx codec installed?
have you tried installing the all codecs pack from mplayer?

oh and I forgot try realplayer10 for .rm files it will handle them alot better some codecs are handled nasty

shir0kuma

November 27th, 2004, 08:16 PM

is esd running?
Yes

is this hoary?
Yes

Magneto

November 27th, 2004, 09:30 PM

Yes

Yes
killall esd

shir0kuma

November 27th, 2004, 11:51 PM

Worked like a charm. Major domo!

Magneto

November 28th, 2004, 12:48 AM

Here's a file with all you need for mplayer to work right
http://ubuntu.spymac.net/mplayerfiles112704.tar.bz2

Contains
all-20041107 - all codecs for mplayer essential files + others
MPlayer-current - source code from latest cvs
font-arial-iso-8859-1 - font for mplayer
skins- DVDPlayer,proton,orange,osxbrushed, terminator3
ffmpeg-cvs - codec for mplayer and mplayerplug-in
gecko-sdk-i686 - gecko sdk for building mplayerplugin
mplayerplug-in source code

check out http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/ for instructions on how to compile the plugin

Proton is my favorite skin but those others i included are all nice high quality skins

Monika

November 28th, 2004, 09:11 AM

do u have the right divx codec installed?

I don't know... *blush* But it seems like it cause my divx videos are playing fine. Well except for not being able to pause :P Which actually for me is quite a big "except" (but as mentioned, this goes for all my videos).

have you tried installing the all codecs pack from mplayer?

No, how do I do that? :)

oh and I forgot try realplayer10 for .rm files it will handle them alot better some codecs are handled nasty

I once tried to install realplayer but got nowhere. In the repository there's some strange realplayer installer that doesn't work. And on their page I don't remember what there was but it didn't work either :(

Magneto

November 28th, 2004, 10:53 AM

To install the all codecs pack from mplayer
download this file http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20041107.tar.bz2
then
tar jxvf all-20041107.tar.bz2
cp all-20041107/* /usr/local/lib/codecs/

For realplayer10 download this http://www.real.com/R/RC.080204rpchoice_1_2_2_1_1_2.ecomm...R/forms.real.com/real/player/download.html?f=unix/RealPlayer10GOLD.bin&product=playerplus&system=linux&&src=realplayer,080204rpchoice_1_2_2_1_1_2

Installation Instructions

- Ensure that the .bin file you downloaded is executable. You can make the .bin file executable by running the "chmod a+x RealPlayer10GOLD.bin" command from a terminal window.

- Run the .bin file by typing "./RealPlayer10GOLD.bin". Follow the prompts provided to finish installing the player.

- When you launch the player for the first time, a set-up assistant will take you through configuring your player.

- Enjoy your RealPlayer10 for Linux!

Monika

November 28th, 2004, 01:42 PM

Thanks, RealPlayer works really nice :)

To install the all codecs pack from mplayer
download this file http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20041107.tar.bz2
then
tar jxvf all-20041107.tar.bz2
cp all-20041107/* /usr/local/lib/codecs/

Still can't play *.ogg files :( And have all the other problems mentioned.

Question: does Totem Xine use the same codecs as mplayer? Cause when I had it installed some time ago it seemed to work better for me (I could use the pause button ;) ). It's just that Xine is far from covering my codec needs...

Magneto

November 28th, 2004, 02:47 PM

Xine uses the same codecs just copy the files from /usr/local/lib/codecs to /usr/lib/win32 or symlink it
xine uses the codecs differently though some mpegs and avi files look alot better for me with xine than with mplayer
dont know why your ogg files wont work- you could try ogmtools i think thats the name of the package - it will let you change ogg files to another format

easy_target

November 28th, 2004, 11:16 PM

I Really don't like MPLayer. I don't know why, I just don't. I would rather use Totem. Is there a way to get proprietary codecs to work with it?

I have the same problem. Maybe I'm too picky but I would like to see the included software to work with all media formats. I also know about the issues of including the proprietary codecs for video and audio formats, but... is there a way to get proprietary codecs working with totem? If so, where can I get them??? I tried gxine but I also like to tweak my desktop and I have to remove the customizations. Any help?

:confused:

Magneto

November 29th, 2004, 12:01 AM

as far as I know totem uses gstreamer or xine as a backend - so u can play whatever files gstreamer or xine is setup to work with

the stranger

November 29th, 2004, 12:00 PM

im having trouble finding the following file:

essential-20040922.tar.bz2 from the 1st page, does anyone have a direct link for the file?

srry im a newbie

Magneto

November 29th, 2004, 12:03 PM

im having trouble finding the following file:

essential-20040922.tar.bz2 from the 1st page, does anyone have a direct link for the file?

srry im a newbie
http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html

the stranger

November 29th, 2004, 12:23 PM

srry to b a pain but which option do i click on to get the file?

Magneto

November 29th, 2004, 12:40 PM

srry to b a pain but which option do i click on to get the file?
Codecs

These codec packages come without installer and are unusable by normal Windows movie players. Get the essential codec package for Linux or choose from the other codec packages.
description HTTP FTP
essential codecs package [ HU | HU2 | US | US2 | CH ] [ HU | US | US2 ]

the stranger

November 29th, 2004, 01:06 PM

trying to complie MPlayer, but when i go to hit the "make" command i get the following message

Makefile:7: config.mak: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `config.mak'. Stop.

Magneto

November 29th, 2004, 01:27 PM

trying to complie MPlayer, but when i go to hit the "make" command i get the following message
./configure
make
sudo make install
?
have you followed all the instructions precisely?

LongTooth

November 29th, 2004, 03:47 PM

I had problems with one step in disposable's instructions. In particular 'sudo apt-get install libpng-dev'. Apt-get could not find it and it informed me I had to make a choice. Don't ask me how I came across it but I ended up using 'sudo apt-get install libpng12-dev'. After that the rest of of the install when smoothly. You see, at first when I could not install libpng-dev I went on but at the 'make' it failed. After using libpng12-dev I encountered no problems. It did scare me when at the 'make' step apt-get just kept going and going until I thought I had done something wrong or this was going to fail again. But that was not the case. I now have Mplayer working. The fly in the oinment is that I can not play inbedded Quicktime clips as when I go to the Apple trailers site. It doesn't load (play). But if I donwload and save a .mov (Quicktime) file Mplayer works fine. One word of advice, change your audio option in Mplayer to 'oss OSS/loctl audio output' for sound. Right click Mplayer>preferences> audio>OSS.

Now if someone can tell me how to view embedded Quicktime clips...

the stranger

November 29th, 2004, 03:52 PM

got over the last problems, thanks for you help!

however, just stuck on this:

sudo cp MPlayer-1.0pre5/etc/* /usr/local/etc/mplayer/

then i go to run gmplayer

and get the following:

bash: gmplayer: command not found

any ideas?

Magneto

November 29th, 2004, 04:24 PM

got over the last problems, thanks for you help!

however, just stuck on this:

then i go to run gmplayer

and get the following:

bash: gmplayer: command not found

any ideas?

Did you compile mplayer with the option --enable-gui ?

./configure --enable-gui

LongTooth

November 29th, 2004, 08:53 PM

the stranger, to sudo cp MPlayer-1.0pre5/etc/* /usr/local/etc/mplayer/ you must be in the directory where Mplayer-1.Opre5 ...is. When you extracted it, where did you do that. In most cases, folks make a folder in their home directory and lable it downloads. If you have done that and extracted Mplayer-1... in that directory, then cd to downloads. You'll be in the proper directory. Procede with sudo cp Mplay... Do a ls to see what's in a certain directory. When you find it that you can continue.

kris kincaid

November 29th, 2004, 10:39 PM

disposable, you deserve a medal for that How-To! I tried for hours to get mplayer to work. 15 mins after reading your post and I'm in business. Thanks! :D

kamstrup

November 30th, 2004, 07:02 AM

SUB-HOWTO :)

Installing mplayer to handle video mime types
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you've followed disposable's (great) howto you will have a file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.desktop . Add the following line to the bottom of this:

MimeType=video/x-msvideo;video/mpeg;video/quicktime;video/x-ms-asf;

(You could do this for example with
'sudo gedit /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.desktop' )

After doing this run these two commands:

sudo desktop-file-install --vendor mplayer /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.desktop
sudo update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications/

There you go! Rightclicking an avi,mpg,mov,wmf-file will now give you "Open with MPlayer". Hope it works for you! :D

-------
FIXME: Might add even more mime-types in the .desktop ??
FIXME^2: Why doesn't 'make install' do this? This sub-howto might also be included in disposables howto.

the stranger

November 30th, 2004, 10:21 AM

done it!

but for some reason it just plays in the terminal, how do i make it so it does i have a graphical display?

adbak

November 30th, 2004, 08:19 PM

Are you typing "gmplayer" in the CLI?

steffen

November 30th, 2004, 08:26 PM

I installed mplayer, streaming and all codecs from Marillat. I worked for ages to find out how to resize a window properly, and where my Play, Stop, FFW, Sound, etc. buttons were. I discovered through this thread that the default Marillat package doesn't have a GUI (for some odd reason).

Anyone know how I can add the GUI to my Mplayer, so that Gmplayer would work?

Also - Ubuntu put a menu icon for Mplayer in the Multimedia menu - this links to Gmplayer, which then doesn't start, because GUI isn't enabled. Very odd and confusing, indeed!

LongTooth

November 30th, 2004, 08:38 PM

the stranger, try the alt/F2 combination. That will give you a 'Run' window. Key in gmplayer, ( or what ever program you want to run ). That should get Mplayer going.

adbak

November 30th, 2004, 08:42 PM

Make sure that your Marillat repository is set to "testing" instead of stable or unstable.

the stranger

December 1st, 2004, 05:58 AM

if i type gmplayer noting happens i just get a bash error message, but if i type mplayer then sumthing happens, ie it allows me to play within the terminal, and it give me all these options aswell

poofyhairguy

December 1st, 2004, 05:27 PM

if i type gmplayer noting happens i just get a bash error message, but if i type mplayer then sumthing happens, ie it allows me to play within the terminal, and it give me all these options aswell

ewww. Don't use gmplayer. After trying them ALL, gxine is by far the best in ubuntu!

Roptaty

December 1st, 2004, 05:41 PM

Steffen, I guess you installed the mplayer-custom deb package? Try installing mplayer-386 or mplayer-586. :) The mplayer-custom deb package does not provide gui, but I think the rest of the mplayer packages do. :)

LongTooth

December 2nd, 2004, 08:15 PM

puffyhairguy, will installing gxine cause any conflict? After a lot of work, I've got mplayer up and running but it has it's shortcomings. For one, when I play a clip straignt from the browser, no controls are shown. On the other hand if I first download and save the file and then open mplayer I have controls. Another annoyance is no embedded Quicktime streaming video. Once again, if I first downloand and save it, no problems. To be honest if I could get Totem to play all the types of streaming videos I'd use it. I'm thinking of trying gxine but I have concerns with any conflicts. Let us know. Thanks.

Any steps you could share with us on the installation and configuring of gxine? I'd appreciate it.

Infatuated_iPod

December 2nd, 2004, 10:14 PM

Have your Warty Warthog CD handy and accept any extra packages, e.g. the
libtool install will also install gcc. We'll use a US mirror for (most of)
the MPlayer packages and assume you're working in your home directory.
Download MPlayer, codecs, English fonts and the default blue skin.
Internationalization and slick graphics are up to you.

$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/re...1.0pre5.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/re...0040922.tar.bz2
$ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/re...-8859-1.tar.bz2
$ wget http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/Skin/Blue-1.4.tar.bz2

I dont understand what to do there...
when i typed the code into the terminal it said host not foudnd.

2fargon

December 3rd, 2004, 01:10 AM

I dont understand what to do there...
when i typed the code into the terminal it said host not foudnd.

You should probably try and click those links, and copy the urls from there, using the dots (...) in the urls will not work, dude :)

Also, if that is not the problem, earlier in the thread someone said something about there being replacement urls, for when a particular download sub domain is down.

2fargon

December 3rd, 2004, 02:11 AM

$ sudo apt-get install libpng-dev gave multiple choices so I used:
$ sudo apt-get install libpng12-dev

wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/codecs/essential-20040922.tar.bz2 was down so I used:
wget http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-20041107.tar.bz2

Also change the icon line from :
Icon: /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default/icons/32x32.png
to:
Icon: /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default/icons/icon32x32.png

I followed the new version at
http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/hack/ubuntu.txt

Thanks!

Jason-X

December 4th, 2004, 03:20 PM

Thanks for the HOW-TO. It worked a treat. :D

pavkonti

December 7th, 2004, 08:20 PM

I have a problem with mplayer. It is working fine, but it do not want save my preferences and I couldn't make subtitles to work. My subtitles are with cyrilic windows 1251 encoding.

Hikaru79

December 9th, 2004, 06:13 PM

I've been having a few problems with streaming video; I have an mms:// stream which is vital to my continued happiness :P If I try it with totem, the video shows up, but freezes constantly and has no audio whatsoever. If I try it in mplayer with the live.com library, it goes EXTREMELY slow with clipped audio and video. Trying it with gxine was best of all: I was able to get almost freeze-less video, but the audio seems to be several seconds behind. (or ahead, not sure-- it's Korean). Gxine seems to be the closest to what I'm after, so I'm asking -- any ideas what could be causing this slow down? In mplayer, I DO get an actual warning message that says that this file will be very slow. The most common reason stated for this (in this message) is an outdated or buggy audio driver. Their reccomended solution is using an ALSA/OSS emulator. Is this what the alsa-oss package is in Hoary/Warty? Because if it is, then I already have it. Is it not configured right? What can I do?

Thanks in advance :D

GavinX

December 10th, 2004, 06:58 PM

A great 'How To'. Rated as one of the very best that I have seen anywhere on the net. This article is really accessible, even to newbies of linux. You make Ubuntu as easy as eating good food!

sonetti

December 11th, 2004, 11:08 AM

I have mplayer installed is there a way I can make it the default player for all my movie files (mpeg1&2, mpeg4, quicktime etc) at the moment Totem trys to open them unsucessfully. I'd like to be able to click on any supported movie file and have it open in mplayer, (I'm new to linux & ubuntu, thanks to all who contributed to the mplayer & mplayer plugin installation guides)

adbak

December 11th, 2004, 04:24 PM

Open up Nautilus, which is the file explorer for Gnome. On any movie that you have downloaded or on your computer, right click, click Properties, then click the Open With tab. At the bottom of that window click the Add button and type in "gmplayer" without the quotation marks. Do that to any file type you want MPlayer to open up.

sonetti

December 11th, 2004, 06:17 PM

.... ah yes, that works a treat, many thanks!

mauron

December 12th, 2004, 09:11 AM

Thanks for the HOWTO, worked great.

I do however have 1 problem, and that is that whenever I play a video in Firfox (I use version 1.0), Firefox crashes shortly after thet video has finished playing. I have tried setting my video preferences to X11, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

LongTooth

December 12th, 2004, 12:56 PM

Disposable's HowTo was invaluable in getting my video needs met. Couldn't do without his help. Though there are a few changes I made along the way I'd like to pass on. It might help others. The most important being the substitution of $ sudo apt-get install libpng-dev with $ sudo apt-get install libpng12-dev. Also somewhere deep into this thread is an another link to $ wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/re...0040922.tar.bz2. Use that one as Disposable's link is down. With the exception of not being able to view embedded Quicktime (.mov) files- see http://www.apple.com/trailers/ - , Disposable's help solved most of my problems.

For downloaded files of all types, Mplayer did just fine. Mplayer popped up and just worked when viewing .mov, wmv, mpg, mpeg files. It worked equally well with streaming viewing with the exception of embedded .mov files. For my embbeded .mov needs, Mozpugger picked up the slack. In essence what I have is two packages working for me, Mplayer and the browser pluggin (mozplugger) which I can easily remove. At a terminal, a quick and painless sudo apt-get install mozplugger will give me browser viewing of streaming videos. When not in need, a just as quick, sudo apt-get remove mozplugger, will bring Mplayer back to usage.

It might seem a bit too cumbersome for most but its a solution that works for me. The adding and removing Mozplugger via a terminal is quick and painless. In this case bringing Synaptic on line takes too long. CLI is a faster solution in this case.

All which bring up a request of my own. If anyone can provide a solution for viewing embbeded .mov files without the use of Mozplugger, please feel free to post it. I'd like to check it out.

One complaint if I may. When viewing downloaded files I have full controls showing on Mplayer. When viewing files on the fly so to speak, there are no controls showing. Just the file playing. Thus no control over replay, stopping, back-up, etc. I'm looking for a solution for that as well.

Good luck and good viewing.