Comprehensive Multimedia & Video Howto

[Payteer]

Hello Nathan, You do know you stuff, yep it worked, many thanks as always.

[go_lanche]

Flash was the last thing that I was using MS for and I just wanted to say that thanks to this tutorial I am out of reasons to boot windows instead of Ubuntu ever again.


reassuringlyoffensive FTW!

[gordiemac]

Thanks nathan for this post and your work i,m new too ubuntu and i,m loving it already cheers

[instantkarma]

Rendering is only slow when Firefox is running? I don't understand that. What graphics device do you have? Most problems like this can be (temporarily) solved by disabling effects in System > Preferences > Appearance > Effects. You may also improve Flash rendering performance by following the instructions in my troubleshooting section.

Thanks for getting back to me.
First of all in xubuntu there is no System > Preferences > Appearance > Effects so I disallowed xfce to manage the desktop through Settings Manager. I have no icons nor background on my desktop. I think this is what you meant by disabling desktop effects. I did that a few weeks ago after reading thru your troubleshooting section but my problems still remain. Basically when I try playing streaming mms videos like on http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.ph...nk&nbasite=nba
the quality is terrible and the video constantly skips if it at all can be seen (sometimes I just hear audio). It behaves like this regardless of the driver i designate in mplayer.
The more burning issue though is that firefox has a tendency to become very slow to respond to keystrokes and mouseclicks. This especially is evident when I scroll up or down a page and it takes a few seconds for the scrolling to start and then once it starts it takes it a few seconds or sometimes a few minutes to stop. Or if i have multiple tabs open it takes many seconds if not minutes to respond to my mouse click. Or if I'm watching a flash video the fps becomes very slow and the video unwatchable. I basically in that situation am not in control of the browser. Additionally (not sure if this is related) System Monitor in those cases most of the time shows high memory usage by firefox and I have to kill it and start it again. Even firefox at its freshest behaves slightly in the manner I've just described but only with regars to scrolling and switching tabs.

I figured that this has to do with my graphics card which is a

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8636A [ProSavage KN133] AGP4X VGA Controller (TwisterK) (rev 01)

and I have to install the driver, so I tried following the instructions given at http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-244307.html, but I cant reconfigure xserver-org to recognize my graphics card.

To prove my point about the horrendously low fps, here's

glxgears

:

232 frames in 5.1 seconds = 45.656 FPS
214 frames in 5.0 seconds = 42.764 FPS
248 frames in 5.0 seconds = 49.524 FPS
271 frames in 5.0 seconds = 53.919 FPS
518 frames in 5.0 seconds = 103.085 FPS
578 frames in 5.0 seconds = 115.574 FPS
676 frames in 5.0 seconds = 134.731 FPS
574 frames in 5.0 seconds = 114.794 FPS
326 frames in 5.0 seconds = 65.190 FPS
245 frames in 5.0 seconds = 48.824 FPS

glxinfo

gives me:

name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, 
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_OML_swap_method, 
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, 
    GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
client glx vendor string: SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, 
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_allocate_memory, 
    GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_swap_control, 
    GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control, 
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync, 
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, 
    GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
GLX version: 1.2
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, 
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_OML_swap_method, 
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, 
    GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
OpenGL vendor string: S3 Graphics Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Twister 20061110 AGP 1x x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE
OpenGL version string: 1.2 Mesa 7.0.3-rc2
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture, 
    GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_ARB_texture_env_add, 
    GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, 
    GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, 
    GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, 
    GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_convolution, 
    GL_EXT_copy_texture, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_histogram, 
    GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_polygon_offset, GL_EXT_rescale_normal, 
    GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, 
    GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_subtexture, GL_EXT_texture, GL_EXT_texture3D, 
    GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, 
    GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_object, GL_EXT_vertex_array, 
    GL_APPLE_packed_pixels, GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, 
    GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_MESA_window_pos, 
    GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_OES_read_format, 
    GL_SGI_color_matrix, GL_SGI_color_table, GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp, 
    GL_SGIS_texture_lod

   visual  x  bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
 id dep cl sp sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------
0x23 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x24 24 tc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x25 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x26 24 tc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x27 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x28 24 tc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x29 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x2a 24 tc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x2b 24 dc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x2c 24 dc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x2d 24 dc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x2e 24 dc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x2f 24 dc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x30 24 dc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  0 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x31 24 dc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x32 24 dc  0 24  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  0 24  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 Slow
0x4c 32 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 Ncon

And also

glxgears -printfps

gives me:

Usage:
  -display <displayname>  set the display to run on
  -stereo                 run in stereo mode
  -fullscreen             run in fullscreen mode
  -info                   display OpenGL renderer info

I have no idea if the video driver is installed, or maybe if it is why is firefox so messed up? Thanks.

[javafiend]

Wow! This post has been extremely helpful! I'm on 64-bit Ubuntu Hardy and have not been able to get flash working or my microphone working up until now. I really wish I knew exactly what part of your How-to fixed it, but at this point I am just so elated that it's working.

Thanks again!

[rafaghano]

Thanks !

[hbostrom]

Is that with the lower quality streams only? Some have said that the HD streams worked fine. I haven't really noticed any problems, so I'm not sure what to suggest. Have you tried Gecko Media Player? It's an improved mplayerplug-in basically.

Hi,

First, thanks for an excellent guide! Everything works great for me except the Quicktime problem reported by others. I run Ubuntu 8.04, Firefox 3, and I followed your guide to the letter and thus have the Gecko Media Player plugin for Quicktime installed. However, on the Apple movie trailer site I can't launch the lowres streams, and instead I get a message to "Get the latest Quicktime".

As you mention above, the HD streams work by launching an external instance of the Gecko Media Player. Lower resolution versions seem to instead try to embed the movie in the web page, could this have anything to do with the problem? Do we need an update to the Gecko plugin, or what's going on?

[vitorio]

Hi,

1.
I might look realy dumb but I cannot get what did you mean by these:

UBUNTU FAMILY 8.04 HARDY users
vs.
PRE-UBUNTU FAMILY 8.04 HARDY users???

Did the first means people with a fresh install and the second - people upgraded from Gutsy?

2.
BTW. I have an upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy system on my laptop and a clean Hardy install on my destop. I'm not having any problems with neither streaming or playing media with the default clean Hardy install.

And I'm not having them with the upgraded Gutsy to Hardy system either. Though the last was twicked back in Gutsy.

But I'm going to keep your tutorial for future reference since it is really comprehensive.

Thanks.

[vitorio]

Sorry, I've forgotten one more question.

What this

apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

has to do with the tutorial subject.

Does it have any affect on a system multimedia capabilities? E.g. I do not have it istalled since I do not use compiz and as I stated in my previous post I do not experience any problems.

Thanks.

[Gavin31]

hi.

i just went through the mplayer + realplayer install.

have rebooted, and yet there is no sign of realplayer being active inside firefox.

any clues?