Hi,

(The following is NOT a Linux bash!)

As a recent convert to Linux I can say that webiste embedded streaming audio and video is a downer. I am accustomed to watching and listening to A/V streams in Windows that do not work in Linux. As you probably know, in Windows you click the link and watch or listen, that easy... This is one of the most frustrating disparities between the OS's. I bet that some of you experienced users have found many fixes.

I have heard rumors that with the right editing of config files and the right plugins: Flash, gxine, Mplayer, VLC, Real/Helix one can play almost everything that Firefox in Windows can play. Yahoo.com videos, BBC videos and radio, some Fox sports video and many others just open a dead Mplayer page or a dead Flash window in Linux. The problem seems to be that the plugins overwrite eachother and squabble over formats.

Have any of you figured out how to make Firofox in Linux as handy as it is in Windows (or Internet Explorer, for that matter)? Care to share, if so? In fact, a tutorial like that deserves a sticky or its own website. Users of every distribution would be indebted to you. I tried to switch my step-dad to PCLinuxOS but he could not get videos to play from his favorite racing website. So he bought a new computer (needed one) with Vista on it. That is too bad.

Thanks,

B.

A tutorial might be nice, but generally it's as easy as this:

- for Java and Flash (etc.) you just get the plugin which is usually either a .bin or other kind of executable installer OR binary package which your system can handle; manually done one just copies the <somepluginfile>.so file to the Firefox plugins directory (~/.firefox/plugins or similar)

- for video and audio, make sure you have (for example) firefox-totem-plugin and then see which backend your totem is using: xine or gstreamer for example. then get plugins for that backend, and it ought to work. Should work for any other player too: you need a firefox plugin to get the player "embedded", then get the codecs for that player, and because totem (For example) is not a real player but more a front-end for some non-graphical player (like Xine engine), it means installing the codecs for that engine: libxine-extraplugins or gstreamer-plugins-pluginpackagename for example.

It's not more difficult than that. No editing of configuration files. Simply install what's needed: plugin for browser, codecs/plugins for the player's engine. In modern distributions this is a matter of opening the distribution's package manager (like Synaptic on Ubuntu, or if you prefer commandline, apt for Debian or yum for Fedora, ...), then point-and-click to install.

EDIT: most if not all distributions do come with a media player (Totem for Gnome for example). Your job, because of copyright law issues etc., is to get plugins/codecs for that: there are a lot of how-tos for this on the net. After you can play your media formats in the media player of your choice, your next step is to obtain a browser plugin for that player, and it works. Nothing more you do on Windows, except that on Windows things work a bit differently when it comes to installing software.

Hello brjoon

Would you please place a distro in your profile? It really helps.

I'll admit to having my own battles with this. Even after doing all bouncer suggested there always seems to be a few unco-operative sites. The wise person would avoid these sites but, well, some of us (me for instance) can't resist.

Is the site with the video a free one? I would gladly test it.

Folks,
I have chased codecs and players and plug-ins and parts for some time. I continue to have no luck listening to online streams from several radio stations. I believe they are all win-dose/win-doze variant streams, but I don't even know enough to discover what it is they are using ...
... and the support folks won't or can't tell me.

I'd prefer to avoid ripping all of the parts out and starting cold -- I need Firefox for school and such --
but this topic needs someone to make it deterministic.

~~~ 0;-/

RestrictedFormats - Community Ubuntu Documentation
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Streaming video in Firefox Web Browser - Community Ubuntu Documentation
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FirefoxStreamingVideo

Play Streaming Video from the Internet - Community Ubuntu Documentation
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...StreamingVideo

SaintDanBert post the urls you are having trouble playing please.

Here are the station home pages.
Follow the "Listen Now" or "Listen Live" link
that you find there. [I've had trouble trying
to jump into the listen link directly.]

KLBJ 590AM Austin, TX
http://www.590klbj.com/

KJCE 1370AM Austin, TX
http://www.talkradio1370am.com/

WOAI 1200AM San Antonio, TX
http://www.woai.com/home.aspx

WSB 750AM Atlanta, GA
http://wsbradio.com/

WGST 640AM Atlanta, GA
http://www.wgst.com/

A major part of my trouble stems from inability to
discover which format each stream uses. [I don't know
how to do that.] If I can learn this, and fix the above
stations, I should be able to solve any other stations
that give me grief.

One more thing [sorry]...
In trying to fix this, I've loaded who know what for players, plug-ins, codecs, whatever. When we are finished,
I'd like to clear the kruft if you can help with that.

~~~ 0;-/

All those links worked on my system.I use Opera and have mplayer,mplayer-mozilla plugin,mozplugger,and w32codecs.Only one did'nt woerk the way i would want it to.It opend a another tab and mplayer plugin spent a bit buffering it.I tried to switch it to use gxine to play back..But couldnt figure out what extension opera was opeing it as.It had a GenerateASX2.asf extesion..But right clicking button and saving link..then clciking it on desktop and opeing it with gxine worked.But all those links will play back streaing from web browser with mplayer setup.

Same here using iceweasel with mplayer, mplayerplugin-mozilla. A couple of them open in a new tab in a flash window as well.

So, folks, how do I proceed? My initial reaction includes full removal of the various mplayer parts named in the posts followed by a re-install. I really cannot do this for Firefox because it would stake my online school work.
From this thread, I see that I need the following packages:

mplayer
mplayer-plugin-mozilla
mozplugger
w32codecs

I could not find "mplayer-plugin-mozilla" in the Ubuntu Hardy repositories. I did find "mozilla-mplayer" which might be a new name for the same package. Assurances welcome?

Where does xine and friends fit into all of this?
There are so many implementations of each of the parts
and so many combinations that might work. All of this
is very confusing.

What about totem and related parts do I need any of that
or is it simply another family at the same level as mplayer?
Apparently I get Totem as part of a generic Ubuntu install.

Here is my current dpkg --list output for the relevant parts.
~~~ 0;-D

=============================================
$ dpkg --list
ii gnome-mplayer 0.6.0-0ubuntu2
ii mozilla-mplayer 3.55-1ubuntu1~hardy1
ii mplayer 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13.1
ii mplayer-doc 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13.1
ii mplayer-fonts 3.5-2
rc mplayer-nogui 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu13+medibuntu1
ii mplayer-skins 2-7
ii mplayerthumbs 0.5~b-0ubuntu1
ii mozilla-mplayer 3.55-1ubuntu1~hardy1
ii totem-mozilla 2.22.1-0ubuntu2

$ dpkg --list | grep codec
ii libavcodec1d 3:0.cvs20070307-5ubuntu7.1
ii libcommons-codec-java 1.3-4
ii libsbc0 0.0cvs20070728-1
ii libwavpack1 4.41.0-1
ii libxvidcore4 2:1.1.2-0.1ubuntu3
ii non-free-codecs 1.1
ii w32codecs 20071007-0medibuntu2
=============================================

You will need to add a repo to apt source list..this page should answer all your question.How,why,the meaning of life,etc..
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
Basically you have 4 main media players in Linux..libxine,mplayer,vlc,and gstreamer plugins.There are front-ends for each them except vlc.Totem is a front end for gstreamer and also libxine.Theres also gxine,kaffeine which are also front ends for libxine.For mplayer you have smplayer.Along with Kmplayer and Kplayer in Kde.So it just seems like there are alot.Personally i prefer libxine using xines front end.It looks good and it play everything.As long as you have the codecs...which are the win32codes..and libdvdcss to play dvd's..

I'll go read at Medibuntu. I think I tried something
over there without success. I kept getting various
complaints from apt or Synaptic or similar.
Time to try again...

~~~ 0;-D