Add 264 Codec to Ekiga

[HuckleSmothered]

I'm trying, reeeeally trying to use Ekiga. But the video quality is horrible. So I started messing with the settings, lo-and-behold I find info about h.264 and how fantastic it is. Well, I say to myself, let's try that on for size.

What? No h.264 option in Ekiga. That's weird, especially considering they have supported it since 3.0 and I'm using the version in the Karmic repos, 3.2.5. Not free, ok, I'll just install it then, right?

x264 package didn't do it. A little ffmpeg install as well. libavcodec52, which uninstalled a buttload of other stuff also. Even dl'd and installed libopal3.6.4-plugins-non-free. All to no option for the h.264 codec option in Ekiga.

Oddly enough, the libopal non free plugins DID add the iLBC audio codec into Ekiga as on option. Why not h.264? What am I missing? Also, why is this SO difficult? There is not any decent documentation that I can find out there that goes over this. Google has failed me.

All I have in the video codecs is theora and h261.

[mc4man]

You could try to install the 'extra' versions of the ffmpeg libs (libavcodec-extra-52, ect. or maybe even add the karmic medibuntu repo to your sources, install the 'extra' versions and then see.

is so, don't remove your current ffmpeg libs, just search ffmpeg in synaptic and mark the extra packages for install

(myself don't know ekiga at all, so other than that....?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

[HuckleSmothered]

Thank you for the reply.

I installed the libavcodec-extra... and it conflicts with libavcodec52. After removal, and installation of the -extra package, I still lacked the h.264 option and actually lost the audio iLBC option.

I also already have the Medibuntu repo's enabled.

Still no h.264 video codec ability in Ekiga. I suppose I should see if the x264 package even works, besides showing as installed. I'm not familiar with it and will play with that. In the meantime, more suggestions welcome.

[mc4man]

A quick look in the ubuntu ekiga source shows this ( sorta interesting that you get iLBC, but fairly clear about h264

The following non-free codecs have been stripped from ekiga (in fact,
from opal library):
- audio: iLBC
- video: H.263-1998 (aka H.263+), MP4V-ES, H.264.
More information is at http://wiki.ekiga.org.

You can find help at:
- http://wiki.ekiga.org
- ekiga user mailing list
- irc.gimp.net, channel #ekiga

-- Eugen Dedu <Eugen.Dddu@pu-pm.univ-fcomte.fr>, Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:25:08 +0200

Which if you check the description of the libopal package you'll see it says..

This package contains the shared version of the OPAL library, together
with several free audio codecs and theora and H261 video codecs.

So you'd probably need to build an un-stripped opal source and then possibly ekiga itself.

Best first bet is to search for a ppa that has done this for you if one exists

Edit:
here's a ppa that will enable all the codecs (karmic and jaunty packages
https://launchpad.net/~bojo42/+archive/ekiga

the bug report page, I'd look thru first ( I haven't
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...al/+bug/316971

[HuckleSmothered]

Is it me?

Before the last post's edits with the PPA, I was looking for just that. I figured ekiga themselves would have something. I found and used their ppa which unfortunately did not include the non-free plugins either, to my surprise.

However, they have a link for the libopal3.6.6-plugins-non-free. Which then quickly failed due to a lacking dependency of libx264-76. I was unable to find this package anywhere on God's green Earth. I found that odd.

So, I moved onto the ppa that is in the previous post, ppa:bojo42/ekiga. I've added ppa's before and used them successfully. However, I feel stupid with this one and could not get the package manager to recognize the new packages that should have been available, which are all named opal-*, I'm probably needing the opal-h264 package. The correct software sources show in the Third Party Software tab in Software Sources. No errors on an apt-get update, but no packages by the opal- names found.

How the heck do I get this?

[mc4man]

well i'm going to dump this karmic install as soon as lucid is a bit more mature so I'll add the ppa and see what I can see.

Otherwise i'll see if I can find a link to a libx264-76 - shouldn't be to hard, have it here (one can have multiple libx264-XX's installed, one per core version (XX)