STILL TRYING TO GET STREAMING VIDEO WORKING

**redss** · 08-09-2004, 08:18 PM

I'm having NO LUCK trying to get streaming video working. All I want to do is be able to view movie trailers at imdb.com.

I'm using Knoppix 3.4 Live CD with 320 Mb Ram (no HD), and I have tried by installing (via klik) Kaffeine, kplayer, and realplayer 10.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that installing these players doesn't seem to associate the extensions or mime types for the browser, or install the necessary plugins. I have tried konqueror and mozilla, and I've clicked "scan for plugins" after installation and I've also installed all the codecs into the right directory.

But I always get a discouraging error about a missing plugin for an unknown mime type. I know how mime types relate to file extensions and I know where to add them to konqueror or mozilla, but I don't know what all the mime types and extensions are and the error message doesn't give me enough descriptive info to add that mime type/extension.

Windows users don't have to manually associate extensions when they install media players, so how can Linux compete with windows for the desktop if it takes this much more work?

And do I understand correctly that I will need to find browser plugins since they aren't part of the install?

If anybody has had luck getting streaming video to work using kaffeine or kplayer or realplayer (installed from klik using live CD with no HD) can you let me know what else was needed to get it working? (i.e. mime type associations and plugins)

And do I have to use mozilla to get embedded streaming video? I've been using konqueror since its so much faster on slower computers.

**pau1knopp** · 08-10-2004, 02:14 PM

You may want to specify which type of streaming video you are trying to run and if you are running from a hard drive install or live CD... I run everything from live CD.

For Windows Media Player (tm

I have remastered KNOPPIX with mplayer and the win32 codecs. You will NOT be able to watch Windows Media without mplayer. Supposedly you can use the klik warehouse (http://klik.berlios.de) to install kplayer (mplayer for kde) and win32 codecs to your live cd, but I haven't gotten this to work, yet.

There is a mozilla plugin for mplayer at:

http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/

but I haven't used it in a long time. I much more prefer to run it from the command line when I find the url I am looking for (usually by downloading the .asx file and looking at it through an editor). Again, I think using this involves remastering.

The command I use to watch a stream from the command line is

mplayer mms://the.url.I.want.to.run

mplayer / kplayer can open quicktime, windows, and mpeg streaming video.

for real player streaming video i use the RealPlayer 8 client, but I see there is a RealPlayer 10 client in the klik warehouse.

Working within a browser is somewhat limiting (for me) so I would encourage you to try to find the url of the stream you want to watch / listen to, and try a few things from the command line.

Good luck, hope this helps somewhat.

~pau1

**pau1knopp** · 08-10-2004, 02:24 PM

Please disregard the first part of my response... I see that you are using live cd / klik ....

**CrashedAgain** · 08-10-2004, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by redss

I'm having NO LUCK trying to get streaming video working. All I want to do is be able to view movie trailers at imdb.com.

I'm using Knoppix 3.4 Live CD with 320 Mb Ram (no HD), and I have tried by installing (via klik) Kaffeine, kplayer, and realplayer 10.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that installing these players doesn't seem to associate the extensions or mime types for the browser, or install the necessary plugins. I have tried konqueror and mozilla, and I've clicked "scan for plugins" after installation and I've also installed all the codecs into the right directory.

But I always get a discouraging error about a missing plugin for an unknown mime type. I know how mime types relate to file extensions and I know where to add them to konqueror or mozilla, but I don't know what all the mime types and extensions are and the error message doesn't give me enough descriptive info to add that mime type/extension.

Windows users don't have to manually associate extensions when they install media players, so how can Linux compete with windows for the desktop if it takes this much more work?

And do I understand correctly that I will need to find browser plugins since they aren't part of the install?

If anybody has had luck getting streaming video to work using kaffeine or kplayer or realplayer (installed from klik using live CD with no HD) can you let me know what else was needed to get it working? (i.e. mime type associations and plugins)

And do I have to use mozilla to get embedded streaming video? I've been using konqueror since its so much faster on slower computers.

I'm having the same problem. I'm using HDinstall but also have tried remastering & 'toHD' install & klik. I'm also trying to use konqueror. When you attempt to install the Mplayer mozilla plugin it also wants to install mozilla.

Originally Posted by pau1knopp

You may want to specify which type of streaming video you are trying to run .....

All types, especially Realplayer .ram video. Also cannot get Mplayer to play Quicktime .mov files. Also cannot get ANYTHING to play 'streaming'....some play OK but you have to download the file first then play it (this is also an issue trying to play audio files).

I much more prefer to run it from the command line when I find the url I am looking for (usually by downloading the .asx file and looking at it through an editor).

This is not really an option. I have kids who want to watch vid clips from kid sites (eg marykateand ashley site) & they are not capable of CLI.

for real player streaming video i use the RealPlayer 8 client, but I see there is a RealPlayer 10 client in the klik warehouse.

There is also a linux/realplayer10 package available from realplayer....but I was not able to get it to work. In fact I couldn't get the one from klik to work either.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

**Durand Hicks** · 08-10-2004, 09:38 PM

Try the realplayer10 from this site. It works fine on my install. https://player.helixcommunity.org/2004/downloads/

I would suggest downloading the rpm and use alien to convert it to a deb file which you can install using dpkg afterwards. It requires a little configuration, and then you'll be able to run it inside mozilla without a problem. Realplayer8 did n't work, it was unable to stream any video and locked up mozilla if I attempted to watch any video..... it might be too old.

**redss** · 08-11-2004, 05:22 AM

Durand, you used a harddrive installation to use dpkg to install, correct?

I'm using live CD with no HD, and got an error: unable to access dpkg status area: Read-only file system

If I can find the time, I may try with a HD install, but so far I've only used live CD. I get the idea the only way to get streaming working is to hack up a harddrive installation.

**pau1knopp** · 08-11-2004, 01:20 PM

I think the last two posts are getting a little off topic... This person wants to run from a live CD and not do a disk install. I fall into that same camp.

I did do a little experimenting last night. I tried to use RealPlayer 8 to watch items from www.liketelevision.com With RP8 I got audio, but no video. I tried the RP10 from the klik warehouse (klik.berlios.de) but it gave me some benign error that said my version didn't have the software necessary to play the stream.

Interested in hearing what other live CD users are doing for streaming video... MS, Real, and company.

**redss** · 08-12-2004, 08:30 PM

Well I've learned a bit about streaming video lately. I learned that on windows, if you want to view quicktime video, you download quicktime and your done. If you want to view windows media, download latest media player and your done. The same with realplayer.

Not so simple with linux though. You have to jump through many hoops. You have to find and install a plugin for the browser you want to use, and most plugins are for mozilla. Mozilla runs very sloooooow on a slower computer (like my pentium 266) while konqueror runs nicely on slower hardware. Most browser plugins for mplayer or xine seem to be "unsupported" and hard to find. I've yet to find anyone who was successful viewing streaming video in their browser. bummer. But I plan to seek out those plugins and try to get them working.

Knoppix comes with xine installed but I hate xine's default gui. But you can download the kaffeine frontend for the xine backend from klik.berlios.de. On the other hand, there's another video library called mplayer that is not included with knoppix, Kplayer (available from klik) is apparently just a frontend for mplayer. But since mplayer doesn't come with knoppix, the klik kplayer install actually installs the mplayer backend libraries as part of the install. I think I have all this info correct now. But I think the procedure of extracting a URL from the html source (in order to get it into the address bar or command line) is much more of a pain, compared to getting a browser plugin to show the video in the browser. The mplayer plugin for mozilla requires compilation and extra mozilla libraries not included with knoppix. What a pain. Streaming video is obviously not something the has been made user friendly on linux yet.

I guess the question that remains is:

Which is the best way to go in trying to get streaming video to render in the browser.... xine (kaffeine) or mplayer (kplayer)?

**CrashedAgain** · 08-13-2004, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by pau1knopp

I think the last two posts are getting a little off topic... This person wants to run from a live CD and not do a disk install.

I don't think so. The issue here is getting steaming video to work, not just for live CD users. Installing applications with live CD is limited to what is available from klik but if something can be found that will work, the klik people will be able to make it available.
So far it appears nobody has successfully made steaming video work.

Originally Posted by Durand Hicks

Try the realplayer10 from this site. It works fine on my install. https://player.helixcommunity.org/2004/downloads/

That is what I tried, used alien to make the .deb, installed it, then did a 'what now???' since there was no indication how to start it. eventually found where dpkg had put it (usr/local/RealPlayer) & got it to "configure" & told Konqueror where the plugins were. It's still not working yet, it will run from command line but won't actaully play anything.

Originally Posted by redss

Well I've learned a bit about streaming video lately. I learned that on windows, if you want to view quicktime video, you download quicktime and your done. If you want to view windows media, download latest media player and your done. The same with realplayer.

Not so simple with linux though. You have to jump through many hoops. You have to find and install a plugin for the browser you want to use, and most plugins are for mozilla. Mozilla runs very sloooooow on a slower computer (like my pentium 266) while konqueror runs nicely on slower hardware. Most browser plugins for mplayer or xine seem to be "unsupported" and hard to find. I've yet to find anyone who was successful viewing streaming video in their browser. bummer. But I plan to seek out those plugins and try to get them working.

Knoppix comes with xine installed but I hate xine's default gui. But you can download the kaffeine frontend for the xine backend from klik.berlios.de. On the other hand, there's another video library called mplayer that is not included with knoppix, Kplayer (available from klik) is apparently just a frontend for mplayer. But since mplayer doesn't come with knoppix, the klik kplayer install actually installs the mplayer backend libraries as part of the install. I think I have all this info correct now. But I think the procedure of extracting a URL from the html source (in order to get it into the address bar or command line) is much more of a pain, compared to getting a browser plugin to show the video in the browser. The mplayer plugin for mozilla requires compilation and extra mozilla libraries not included with knoppix. What a pain. Streaming video is obviously not something the has been made user friendly on linux yet.

I guess the question that remains is:

Which is the best way to go in trying to get streaming video to render in the browser.... xine (kaffeine) or mplayer (kplayer)?

I have to agree with all of this. Reputation says mplayer is a better choice since it supposedly supports more file formats. mozilla plugins are usually compatible for konqueror, all you have to do is set up kong for where the plugin is. currently trying to install mozilla-mplayer plugin; apt required also to install mozilla, hopefully the plugin will remain when I remove mozilla (I have very little HD space).

**eco2geek** · 08-13-2004, 12:20 PM

For those running hard disk installs of Knoppix (I'm actually using Kanotix BH5 and using Mozilla as my main browser):

There is a Debian "wrapper" for RealPlayer 8, but you have to add a site to /etc/apt/sources.list to get it (see this thread for more info). After adding it, you can run "apt-get install realplayer" and the "wrapper" starts up, tells you where to go to download the realplayer binary (it's an RPM file), has you specify where on your system you downloaded it, and proceeds to install it. (I don't recall having to do anything to get Mozilla to use it.)

That was all well and good until "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" decided to ditch the RealPlayer format and go with WMF. So here's a big thank you to pau1knopp for the timely mention of the Mplayer plugin for Mozilla. Running "apt-get install mozilla-mplayer" was all it took to install both Mplayer and the Mozilla plugin! And it works beautifully.

The output from apt-get:

Code:

root@badonkadonk:/home/andrew# apt-get install mozilla-mplayer
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libasound2 libasound2-dev libdirectfb-0.9-20 libdivxdecore0 libfaad2-0
  libgcc1 libggi2 libgii0 libgii0-target-x libmad0 libmad0-dev libpostproc0
  libstdc++5 libtheora0 libxvidcore4 mplayer-386 slang1 slang1-dev
Suggested packages:
  libasound2-doc libggi-target-emu libggi-target-monotext libggimisc2
  w32codecs mplayer-doc
Recommended packages:
  libggi-target-x libggi-target mplayer-fonts
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libdirectfb-0.9-20 libdivxdecore0 libfaad2-0 libggi2 libgii0
  libgii0-target-x libpostproc0 libtheora0 libxvidcore4 mozilla-mplayer
  mplayer-386
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libasound2 libasound2-dev libgcc1 libmad0 libmad0-dev libstdc++5 slang1
  slang1-dev
8 upgraded, 11 newly installed, 0 to remove and 927 not upgraded.
Need to get 6449kB of archives.
After unpacking 11.8MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

I guess it's using the Win32 codecs for xine I manually installed to /usr/lib/win32.