Comprehensive Multimedia & Video Howto

[ubuntu-freak]

ok, i found that guide i was referring to.

http://ubuntutip.googlepages.com/multimediaubuntustep1
And then this:
http://ubuntutip.googlepages.com/multimediaubuntustep2

but it think it's similar to your guide.

anyway, i downloaded two more rmvb files.

one of them plays in movie player except the aspect ratio was squeezed horizontally. however, it won't play in VLC.

the other file plays perfectly in movie player but won't play in VLC.

i guess not rmvb files work. XP

Did you try MPlayer?

[InspiredIndividual]

Your brilliant post is the main reason I registered at this forum. I spend hours and hours trying to get it fixed, mostly with google and some other fora. Shows how much of noob I am that I only just managed to fin compared to mplayerd your excellent work...

So hereby I dedicate my first post to a most heartfelt thank you for this great effort . As pointed out previously, the thanks button isn't there anymore. Still, I really wanted to show my appreciation...

Thank you very very much for your clear explanations!

For me, gecko is a big improvement. Still, it's a bit unreliable in my personal situation: the video formats worked great the first time, but all next tries I only got audio. I wonder how that's possible... any hints to this noob are welcome!
Furthermore, .mid, .ram and .asx still aren't working. I wonder if those things are fine with other users?

I used amongst others the following links for testing:
http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/mediatests.html
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/brows...ktimetest.html

I hope those are useful for some others trying to get it fixed, as they give the opportunity to test many different file formats and situations (for example embedded or not).

[Izek]

Edit: Nevermind =/

[ubuntu-freak]

Your brilliant post is the main reason I registered at this forum. I spend hours and hours trying to get it fixed, mostly with google and some other fora. Shows how much of noob I am that I only just managed to fin compared to mplayerd your excellent work...

So hereby I dedicate my first post to a most heartfelt thank you for this great effort . As pointed out previously, the thanks button isn't there anymore. Still, I really wanted to show my appreciation...

Thank you very very much for your clear explanations!

For me, gecko is a big improvement. Still, it's a bit unreliable in my personal situation: the video formats worked great the first time, but all next tries I only got audio. I wonder how that's possible... any hints to this noob are welcome!
Furthermore, .mid, .ram and .asx still aren't working. I wonder if those things are fine with other users?

I used amongst others the following links for testing:
http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/mediatests.html
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/brows...ktimetest.html

I hope those are useful for some others trying to get it fixed, as they give the opportunity to test many different file formats and situations (for example embedded or not).

Thanks, I really appreciate your comments.

I can't check those links at the mo, as I'm not on Ubuntu today. Have you followed the instructions for purging Gecko Media Player and GNOME MPlayer, then installing the Intrepid versions? It certainly improved streaming performance for me.

Edit: Here's the post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=500

[InspiredIndividual]

Have you followed the instructions for purging Gecko Media Player and GNOME MPlayer, then installing the Intrepid versions?

Sorry for wasting your time on this particular point... Of course, I should have mentioned the things I tried already (noob kicking himself for his stupidity...)

Upon a fresh install, I followed your complete instructions (including the purging, as I checked all pages in the thread as well). Furthermore, I deleted all plugins from Firefox with the exception of some that were installed by default and shouldn't interfere (Shockwave Flash, Default Plugin, Demo Print plugin, GCJ Web browser). Your 'default action' comment in the 'Troubleshooting' section was also very useful. It works quite well, although the quality is often very bad (trembling view, video 'hanging' and going on again, not sure how to say this in english).

Of course I googled and browsed fora, and at this point I fixed a few more things. I fixed the unreliability by switching to x11 (special effects were already disabled by default) and rebooting. Unfortunately, it didn't work with either gl or xv. I unsuccessfully tried searching the web for a way to get xv working, as you recommended somewhere in this thread (don't know where exactly, so many pages!).
I found a forum post somewhere on the web claiming .mid compatibility for mplayer is not very probable in the near future, although the gecko-mediaplayer.so part does mention it at the overview of installed plugins. Am I misunderstanding something here? I partly worked around it by installing timidity. Now I can just download MIDI-files in the future and play them anyway.

Both .ram and .asx aren't working so far. This is quite strange, especially for .ram, as this did work at some point with the Mplayer plugin (now using Gecko, as you advised). As for .asx, I found that some people managed to get it working with Mplayer, although under slightly different circumstances. Still, this keeps me trying! If I find a solution for my situation, I'll be sure to post it here, as it could hopefully help someone else.
UPDATE FOR .RAM: maybe there are just errors in the files I tried before. This link is working for me: http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu:8080...1_halfframe.rm, as well as the BBC live, but this link is not: http://thegreenmile.warnerbros.com/med/green-56.ram . Could anyone check it out to see if the problem is the file or my system? Thanks in advance.
UPDATE FOR .ASX: I found a workaround that seems to work, at least for some audio streams. For example the live BBC radio at http://www.bbc.co.uk/live doesn't work in Firefox: nothing happens. I worked around this by executing the following in the terminal:

mplayer -playlist http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/me...news_au_nb.asx

Video asx still aren't working, but most asx are online radio streams, as far as I know. So I hope this might be helpful for anyone else with this problem anyway.

There's a newer version of the gecko mplayer plugin on the developer's website. I don't know exactly if it contains any critical improvements, but I don't feel comfortable enough with ubuntu to install in manually. It can't be found by Synaptic yet, so I'll just wait for that. I'm following the Moonlight project as well, because the Dutch public television has decided to offer some streams in Windows Media stream and Silverlight only... that's not what I pay taxes for!

Thanks very much again for finding time to help Ubuntu Linux noobs! It must be frustrating, all those noobs asking the same stupid questions over and over again...

[Dolmio]

What a great guide. Thank you for putting so much work into it and making life easier for all of us

/Dolmio

[InspiredIndividual]

Total weirdness with the gecko mplayer plugin! I got gl working as preferred video output for mplayer... turned out I had to change the preference in both Gnome Mplayer and Mplayer Movie Player preferences. Looking back, I should of course have interpreted reassuringlyoffensive's instructions such. I hope I will succeed to get xv fixed as well.

Now, I had Opera installed with the sole purpose to be able to follow instructions online while restarting Firefox. I have been trying to get the live news of the Dutch public television working (http://www.nos.nl, click 'laatste NOS Journaal' for testing). I was trying it again, but accidentally went to the webpage in Opera. Turns out it worked in Opera, without doing anything about it, while it still didn't work in Firefox. The thing that got me completely flabbergasted was the fact that Opera was using the gecko mplayer plugin for Firefox to do it! aboutlugins in Opera showed the gecko mplayer as a plugin, in the directory usr/lib/mozilla/plugins! I've got absolutely no idea how this is possible... anyone an idea about this? I feel Firefox should be able to manage it, as Opera manages with the same plugin that was meant for Firefox. But I've got no clue how...

By the way, yosumi's file enabled me to test rmvb, and it worked fine for me in Mplayer.

[ubuntu-freak]

Total weirdness with the gecko mplayer plugin! I got gl working as preferred video output for mplayer... turned out I had to change the preference in both Gnome Mplayer and Mplayer Movie Player preferences. Looking back, I should of course have interpreted reassuringlyoffensive's instructions such. I hope I will succeed to get xv fixed as well.

Now, I had Opera installed with the sole purpose to be able to follow instructions online while restarting Firefox. I have been trying to get the live news of the Dutch public television working (http://www.nos.nl, click 'laatste NOS Journaal' for testing). I was trying it again, but accidentally went to the webpage in Opera. Turns out it worked in Opera, without doing anything about it, while it still didn't work in Firefox. The thing that got me completely flabbergasted was the fact that Opera was using the gecko mplayer plugin for Firefox to do it! aboutlugins in Opera showed the gecko mplayer as a plugin, in the directory usr/lib/mozilla/plugins! I've got absolutely no idea how this is possible... anyone an idea about this? I feel Firefox should be able to manage it, as Opera manages with the same plugin that was meant for Firefox. But I've got no clue how...

By the way, yosumi's file enabled me to test rmvb, and it worked fine for me in Mplayer.

That issue with Opera vs Firefox vs Gecko Media Player is strange, but it could be just due to the fact that FF3 is new and sites are playing catch-up, or FF3 still has teething problems. Test the site with FF2, you can just launch it from the extracted tar in your home folder, after copying the plugins to it of course.

I don't think you should have to change both GNOME MPlayer and MPlayer to "gl" for it to set properly and work. Bit strange.

[InspiredIndividual]

Test the site with FF2, you can just launch it from the extracted tar in your home folder, after copying the plugins to it of course.

Do you mean I should install the FF2 package to my home folder? Or was your comment based on the assumption that I had FF2 installed previous to FF3 on my Ubuntu system? In fact, me calling myself a complete newbie can be taken very literally. I'm dual booting Ubuntu and Windows XP x64 Professional on my new desktop, acquired mere weeks ago. Therefor my very recent first cup of Ubuntu was Hardy with FF3 as the default browser. Unfortunately, there are a few programs I absolutely need Windows for... otherwise I would have saved myself the complications of dual-booting. Even internet connection worked automatically with Ubuntu, but not with Windows... I haven't even managed to fix it with Windows, Ubuntu is that much easier

[tinifcarter]

Very good stuff, extreeeeeemely helpful. Thanks.