Slashdot Mirror

Here are a few choices:

http://www.mythtv.org/
http://xinehq.de/
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html

You could also by a DVD player from any of a large number of SouthEast Asia based companies that don't implement region locking, MacroVision, and customer skip lockout flags. I bought an Apex 600-A years ago for just that reason.

Why not? I'm guessing you just haven't tried very hard. http://xinehq.de/index.php/faq#WMV

This is possibly the worst solution I could imagine to the problem of complex software that is intended for normal users. Can you point to any examples of general-use software (open or closed source) that have successfully implemented a basic/intermediate/advanced toggle switch for its main interface?

Yes.

# xine doesn't play many files I try, and I don't want to figure out how to fix it.

How lazy of you! FYI: all you need to do is download the codecs and place them in /usr/lib/win32!!

Unfortunately, neither VLC nor MPlayer can be included as libraries in other multimedia applications. Having to work with an embedded instance of VLC and MPlayer is a pain and not conducive to extending functionality in object-oriented fashion.

Xine and its corresponding library Xine-lib, on the other hand, can be used as libraries inside other frontend applications such as Kaffeine and AmaroK. This allows the frontend apps to focus on what they do best: GUI, usability and eyecandy, while the multimedia-intensive parts can be neatly accessed through an API.

Unfortunately, neither VLC nor MPlayer can be included as libraries in other multimedia applications. Having to work with an embedded instance of VLC and MPlayer is a pain and not conducive to extending functionality in object-oriented fashion.

Xine and its corresponding library Xine-lib, on the other hand, can be used as libraries inside other frontend applications such as Kaffeine and AmaroK. This allows the frontend apps to focus on what they do best: GUI, usability and eyecandy, while the multimedia-intensive parts can be neatly accessed through an API.

...blinded with rage and flinging FUD around like mad dancing monkeys.

Heh, funny that you mentioned monkeys flinging FUD. It is the Ximian primates (yes, they call themselves that) who are spreading FUD against KDE and paying Google to display GNOME sites when people are searching for KDE applications.

Nevermind the fact that other desktops are using gstreamer, it's GNOME's (got it?) multimedia backend.

Care to name which? KDE is building a backend-independent multimedia framework called Phonon which will be ready by the release of KDE4. This framework will allow KDE-based multimedia apps:

Kaffeine
AmaroK
KMPlayer

to work well with backends such as Xine, which are GPLed and which have copyleft protection against DRM. GNOME, on the other hand, is stuck with DRM-crippled GStreamer.

It's clear that RMS feels that in some cases it is better to use the GPL than the LGPL.

I think RMS would say the GPL is preferable in the vast majority of cases. Else why would he urge developers -- in bold letters -- to release their libraries under the GPL?

But getting back to the topic of this thread: should GNOME's multimedia backend be licensed under the weak LGPL, when we know that the entertainment cartel has been one of the most vocal advocates of Digital Restrictions Management and Treacherous Computing?

Preventing users from skipping computers
Controlling your computer over the internet with rootkits
Instilling fear by suing innocent people
Suing independent competitors out of business
Bullying witnesses into perjury
and the list goes on...

The answer is absolutely no, and I daresay the FSF is of the same opinion, since they will include anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3.

Developers of Free and Open Source Software should use every legal tool at their disposal to protect the users' freedom. One of the best tools is to license music and video apps under the GPL, so that the entertainment cartel can't poison their hard work with draconian DRM. Otherwise, the developers might as well be working for the RIAA and MPAA!

Open Source developers who care about the users' freedom should help out multimedia projects that are licensed GPL (such as Xine, MPlayer, and VideoLAN).

Ever since a company called Fluendo joined the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board, GNOME is obligated to use GStreamer (a software product sponsored by Fluendo) as its audio and video backend. This wouldn't be bad, if it weren't for the fact that GStreamer uses Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to handcuff users and leave them at the mercy of the entertainment cartel. In order to do this, GStreamer is denying its developers the right to license their constribution under the GPL, so that Fluendo can sell closed-source, proprietary DRM plugins that let the MPAA and RIAA control the users' viewing habits.

GStreamer has hurt the multimedia effort on Linux and the Free Desktop because they stole talented developers from mature mutimedia projects such as Xine, MPlayer, and VideoLAN, all of which were started before GStreamer and all of which have strong copyleft protection by being licensed under the GPL. In other words, GStreamer further fragmented the Linux multimedia developer base purely for the selfish, immoral purpose of ramming DRM down Linux users' throats.

Ximian, a company instrumental in founding GNOME, sold out to big business in 2002 by switching Mono's license from the GPL to the weaker MIT X11 license. Instead of helping out the myriad of established multimedia apps such as Kaffeine, AmaroK, and KMPlayer, Ximian started a whole new app called Banshee, whose only claim to fame is that its license (MIT X11) allows linking to proprietary DRM plugins.

These are just some example of an increasing problem GNOME is experiencing: it is pandering (and in some cases outright selling out) to companies that don't necessarily have the users' best interest in mind. One can say that the whole reason GNOME was started was to allow proprietary software (including draconian DRM) to use the hard work of open source developers.

KDE, on the other hand, is licensed solely under the GPL because the toolkit it is based on (Qt) is also GPL. KDE is also committed to preventing DRM from infesting their user's computers: for KDE4, they are building a multimedia framework called Phonon that does not depend on GStreamer, but which can use any number of backends, including DRM-free ones.

I'd like to see either a version of xine that isn't totally crippled, or else take it out. If it doesn't play mpeg, it's no good to anyone, and everybody on the Kaffeine mailinglist is sick and tired of answering questions about it.

Q. What players currently support Theora?
Major players like mplayer, xine, helix player and VideoLAN supports Theora. Directshow filters are also available for use on Windows platform.

Noone is forcing anything on you. DRM plugins will be in the "ugly" module.

The whole reason why GStreamer started was to create a framework that would enable these "ugly" DRM plugins. GStreamer has hurt the multimedia effort on Linux and the Free Desktop because they stole talented developers from much more mature projects like Xine, MPlayer, and VLC. In other words, they further fragmented the developer base purely for the selfish, immoral purpose of ramming DRM down Linux users' throats.

Of course, they've tried to sugar coat this in order to attract developers (heck, their propaganda machine is quite good) but the fact remains that GStreamer is technologically inferior to Xine even now (Xine has a much cleaner, light-weight, robust API than GStreamer can hope to achieve in a long time).

Don't fight DRM itself

DRM is an insult to human dignity, and it WILL be abused, funneling money to the abusers so that they can bribe politicians, so that they can abuse some more. The buck has got to stop, and by raising this issue to the forefront of the computer user community, we just might be able to pull it off.

Closed-source software is not always bad, but its obscurity lends itself to being used in DRM schemes that enslave users. As a developer of Free and Open Source Software, I don't want Hollywood bosses to hijack my software in order to handcuff users and rip them off. I care about my users' rights and about my own, and I certainly don't want my work to make the RIAA's life any easier.

That's why I don't waste my time on GStreamer. Helping out multimedia apps licensed under the GPL (such as Xine and VideoLAN) is much better use of my time.

GStreamer, the official audio backend for GNOME, will include DRM plugins developed by a company called Fluendo, which hopes to make money by restricting the users' rights and turning GNOME/Linux/"the Free Desktop System" into a Vista-like nightmare controlled by the entertainment cartel. Why? Because Fluendo is on the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board. I can't believe I've been so stupid to actually give them money, so that they can turn around and stab Free Software in the back! Never again will I trust the GNOME Foundation after they sold out the community like this.

I hope KDE is smart enough to avoid DRM by choosing a multimedia backend that is GPL. This will ensure that users can change the code of any plugin, remove the DRM, and be left with a functional product. Xine would be an excellent choice for a multimedia backend, since it is light-weight, works with more codecs that Gstreamer (not to mention better) and can be included as a library in any program, like Kaffeine and Amarok have already done.

you can write your own custom multimedia converters using their software and its all open source.

To me thats an excellent tool to use in this adventure.

now if you have some time and want to play with converting this video (its 20 mb in size) check out:

http://www.thunderbirdnest.com/pictures/thunderfev er/movies/incar.avi It's a Racetrack street legal cars movie. It's an avi so that might be fun to play with converting to other formats.

if nothing else you can use xine to play the movie on linux.

Deploying Linux in business environments, I haven't seen a site that absolutely required IE in a long time. Even the banks I deal with have long supported Mozilla and Firefox.

But, just for fun, last week I did a little experiment. I made a list of as many sites with embedded videos that I could, mostly news sites, and tested them against Konqueror and Firefox. I came up with 18 sites in total. The results were that eleven sites worked with both Konqueror and Firefox, three more worked in Firefox only, and only four had absolute requirements that precluded any Linux browser. These ranged from Flash 8.0, which doesn't yet exist for Linux, to ActiveX detection routines.

So, from a small, completely unstatistical sample of the most popular sites I could find, 77% were compatible with Firefox on Linux. 61% were compatible enough to work even in Konqueror. And of the sites that required IE, one was msnbc.com, and two were Viacom companies, mtv.com and vh1.com, that excluded Linux intentionally, citing "Windows DRM" as the reason.

For the tests, I used KMplayer and Xine as the video player, with both Real and Windows Media codecs. I needed the KMplayer plugin for Konqueror and the MediaPlayerconnectivity and User Agent Switcher extensions for Firefox.

except it doesn't rhyme with 'sign' and 'line'. it rhymes with 'scene' and 'lean'
http://xinehq.de/index.php/faq#PRONOUNCE

1. mplayer

2. xine

Not that tough, really, now is it?

http://xinehq.de/index.php/about is the only one I know of off the top of my head.

-everphilski-

This should help you out:

1. File associations

Edit your /etc/mailcap or /etc/mime.types file!


2. Multimedia

Xine is easy to compile and install: to get the extra codec support you need to install the mplayer libraries, instructions are here. Regarding audio I'm not sure what your problem is, I can play more than 1 movie in xine at a time reciving sound from all of them - getting a noise from IM shouldn't be a problem.


3. Corporate groupware

You could use Open Exchange as the server and Evolution 2 as the mail client - haven't treid them myself but ave heard good things.


4. Firefox

I haven't come across any major sites that only allow IE recently (excluding MS itself of course). I'm not going to get in to the discussion of web standards and FF vs IE here - that's been covered thousands of times before.


5. Wifi

Kismet will scan for AP's (and even try and get the wep codes if you're that way inclined). Unfortunately you will need to use ifconfig yourself to connect to the ap though. Also drivers for wireless are really easy in linux thanks to ndiswrapper.


6. Fonts (minor)

If you miss the windows Arial font why not install it in Linux??

Haydn.

Both Xine and VLC are based on the mplayer code. In Linux GUIs, Xine is the clear choice (mplayer beating it out for consoles). Many of my Windows friends extol the virtues of VLC, but it leaves much to be desired in its Linux implementation.

Totem with the xine backend and the codecs have been able to play every file I've thrown at them, including Real audio/video formats.

I've been using free-software only for about 10 years now...the freedom and power that gives me is far more valuable than an hour and a half of the latest car crash scenes.

Umm.... MPlayer, Xine, or Ogle, with libdvdread and libdvdcss work fine under Linux to play any and every DVD I've ever tried.

XineHQ

You'll need to also grab the extra codecs off the MPlayer site, check the Xine FAQ for the one about playing WMVs.

Jeff

How about this player, it seems to play WMV files just fine**!

**Hunt down the Win32 Codec pack and you're good to go

So what you're saying is that since we have WINE for running Windows apps on Linux, we could run OS X apps with XINE.

Actually, I think the fact that it no longer accepts casts as lexpressions is pretty annoying, because last time I looked it stopped Xine from compiling. Unless there's some switch to enable this that I don't know about...

This is a welcome move in some respects, it certainly shows that VIA now considers the Linux user as a valuable customer base that must be supported.

However, there is already a thriving open source driver implementation for this platform: link providing code that was based on a version of VIA's code that they released to a limited number of open source developers a few years ago.

It is also worth noting that the "VIA Open Source" package still relies on a proprietary binary library to provide MPEG acceleration on their hardware. This library provides a completely non-standard API that applications must interface to to implement MPEG support. This is in contrast with the Unichrome project's solution, providing full source code for their MPEG implementation and implementing the standard and well established XvMC API in their driver.

The Unichrome project has also been responsible for implementing support for VIA MPEG acceleration in Xine, MPlayer , MythTV. Again this contrasts with VIA's solution to application support which has resulted in them producing forked VIA specific versions of Xine [VeXP] and MPlayer [VeMP] without involving the donor projects in the process or contributing back to them.

Along with many performance, feature and stability enhancements to the codebase the Unichrome project has also been responsible for reorganising and cleaning the codebase to a state that is now acceptable for inclusion in the base X.org source tree and resolving the security issues in the DRM code so that it can be included in the official Linux kernel.

It is, therefore, a shame that VIA decided to make this grandiose eye catching announcement, rather than just getting involved in the existing open source communities and simply helping and contributing to the Unichrome, Xine, MPlayer and MythTV projects. That might have been less eye catching or press release friendly, but it would certainly be a better way to win friends in the Linux community.

Well, I'm still downloading it (75MB) but it's a .mov file, i.e. Quicktime so you should be able to play it if you have the right codec. You can use either Xine or Mplayer and probably others. Once installed, download the codec for Quicktime (the standard package available from the Mplayer site includes this) and then once in the appropriate directory, you should be ready to go.

xine and mplayer both work for me.

A neat piece of work. Unfortunately, a quick glance at the features page seems to indicate no support for current streaming formats. Open formats for multimedia will be lagging behind proprietary formats for some time, so it looks like we will be stuck with proprietary codecs and crappy players for some time.

Actually, I like Xine better than any windows media player. Set it up right and you'll never need to download a codec again.

And you forgot to mention P2P (especially for youths). I think MLDonkey and Sancho do the job.

"Multiple vulnerabilities were discovered in MPlayer by iDEFENSE, and more were found by us while reviewing the code"
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

"New xine-lib released. This version adress multiple security vulnerabilites on PNM and Real RTSP clients. All users are advised to upgrade to 1-rc8. The release also includes several bug fixes and new features"
http://xinehq.de/

1. Windows Network Neighborhood visibility and UNIX/Linux visibility in the same panel.

Check. It's called Samba.

2. Active Directory password management which includes single sign-on and password expiration policies.

Check. It's called Samba with Winbind. Though it could do with being better integrated with most distributions.

3. Interoperability with Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000.

http://www.novell.com/products/connector/

4. Font compatibility with Microsoft Office and Openoffice.org and/or StarOffice.

TrueType fonts work fine for me. Though again, a well-designed installation program would be nice.

5. Windows Terminal Server clients using RDP out of the box for home grown applications and special Windows applications.

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rdp.png

6. Ability to click on a file in a Windows or Samba share and initiate the associated application.

Have they used Konqueror lately?

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/useprog. png

7. Device management for hardware compatibility.

One already exists, it just doesn't (yet) integrate to the point whereby it can install drivers automatically.

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/infocent er.png

8. Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

Which ones? Xine supports most:

http://xinehq.de/index.php/features

I watch quicktime movies and trailers under Linux and BSD all the time, with Xine and the associated DLLs, available here. Life is good. There are instructions on how to get it working on Xine's website.

I watch quicktime movies and trailers under Linux and BSD all the time, with Xine and the associated DLLs, available here. Life is good. There are instructions on how to get it working on Xine's website.

The video is is WMV format. So if you don't have something that plays WMV I recommend heading over here and grabbing a copy of Xine which will be able to play the video.

Now I don't have to use that pesky, non-intrusive, non-commerical, non-irritating, non-email-address-asking Xine!

which DVD menu doesn't work with xine? And I watch DVDs on my 500MHz PIII so a 700MHz Celery should manage it.

...because I just don't like it. I find its interface more complex to use for a power user. For example, I find the K Menu much more straightforward than the Start Menu because it's all organized into submenus, not just a big long scrolling list of unorganized programs in the Programs menu.

Another thing I like about KDE/Gnome are their User Interface guidelines. Any program worth its salt follows these uniform guidelines and it makes applications much more straightforward to get the hang of. Even different apps that Microsoft releases look entirely un-uniform together (for example, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player, and even Microsoft Office (to an extent) feel different than the rest of Windows.

I think KDE is also much nicer looking. I can get a variety of themes and styles and customize them in ways you just can't in Windows (at least not easily).

I also like that I can use one media player for all my media files. And it matches with the rest of KDE (fyi, I use Kaffeine, a Xine frontend). Plus music piped through ALSA sounds much nicer than what sound on Windows did.

I also like the flexibility of being able to build most Linux apps from source. I like being able to use the command line for things that seem to use complex GUIs on windows. And I like having a tabbed Konsole. Tabs make your taskbar so much cleaner.

Overall, I keep off Windows because it just doesn't fit my wants. I've grown comfortable with the Linux way of things, and I'd like to stick with them.

Oh quit whining will you?

They have a perfectly good reason for not providing a binary directly from their homepage, and finding it on other sites like doom9 is very easy.

This is a place where using linux pays off. Because if you only need decoding, your favorite movie player already has built in support for it.

Try Xine for playing video. It's great.

According to this FAQ, Xine can *already* play Windows media and other formats. Here is the quote.

"Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?

While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias) is fully supported in xine, for newer windows media 9 based streams you'll need to install windows binary codecs (.DLLs). Possibly the most convenient way to get the windows DLLs is to download them from the mplayer website http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ . The package is called "Win32 Codecpack". Unpack it and move everything you find inside to /usr/lib/win32 (actually you can place them anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your homedirectory, but then you'll have to set codec.win32_path in your xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be able to watch windows media streams. "

Then, according to this press release, the Turbo Media Player (which hasn't even been released yet) is actually dependent of Xine. Here is the quote.

"...Turbolinux engineers developed new software called Turbo Media Player that works with xine, a widely-used Linux media engine, to make it possible for customers to watch streaming video in Windows Media format."

What am I missing here? I expected my previous post to be modded up, not down.

1. pico for quick editing before I've got X up and running.
   
2. NEdit the best programmers' text editor ever!
   
3. fvwm2 a good, fast, customizable window manager (I suffer through twm until this is in place)
   
4. ddd a simply wonderful front-end to gdb.
   
5. mozilla my browser of choice, warts and all (though konquerer is giving me second thoughts)
   
6. xscreensaver nothing makes me happier than xmatrix.
   
7. xpdf simple PDF viewer, no frills.
   
8. ROX-filer a fast and simple file system browser (though I've been leaning towards konquerer for about a year)
   
9. unclutter makes the mouse cursor disappear after several second of inactivity.
   
10. xv in case I need to fiddle with image files.
    
11. xine in case I need to watch a movie.
    

On top of this I have a set of configuration files archived for several of the above programs (i.e. fvwm2 and NEdit) and general system setup (fstab, XFree86, and bash/sh profile).

Thanks to the hard work of the Xine team, i can do the same, but using more front-ends and a more flexible architecture.

http://xinehq.de/

Why don't you get put the quicktime codecs to work with Xine. Nice and easy to do too.

Check part of xine's faq for details

Xine on the other hand does what you tell it.

why choose GNOME to do this? Is there no Bengali support in KDE?

There's support for this on KDE, but it seems like there are no translations.

Why isn't there a KDE media player based on Xine, dammit?!?

Wasn't there kxine or something? In xine's homepage there's a list of frontends, and I remember several KDE ones.

xine tells me that it can't play these because they're in "gif video format," something that seems unlikely. Any advice?

Do you have the right codecs?