To play video, Ubuntu comes with Totem Movie Player which looks and functions similar to Windows Media Player. Some features of Totem include custom playlists, DVD playback and more. You can start Totem by clicking: ->-> from the desktop menu system.
To read video files, Totem uses the Gstreamer framework. To play some video formats, you may need to add further codec support (see the section called “Multimedia Codecs”).
There are also other multimedia applications available. Examples include Mplayer, Xine and Totem-xine (which uses the Xine framework, instead of the Gstreamer framework. Some users may benefit from trying alternative video players.
The movie players provided in Ubuntu are capable of reading DVDs that are not encrypted. However, most commercial DVDs are encrypted with CSS (the Content Scrambling System) and currently for legal reasons it is not possible to include support for these DVDs in Ubuntu. However it is possible to enable support as follows:
![[Warning]](../../images/admon/warning.png)
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The legal status of this library is not fully clear. In some countries it is possible that the use of this library to play or copy DVDs is not permitted by law. Verify that you are within your rights in using it. |
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Install the libdvdread3 package (see Chapter 2, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).
![[Note]](../../images/admon/note.png)
You will need to use Synaptic Package Manager to install this package
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To activate DVD decryption, type the following line into a terminal prompt:
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh
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To play DVDs with Totem, you will need to install some extra codecs (see the section called “Multimedia Codecs”).
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However, the Gstreamer framework (used by Totem) does not support menus or subtitles for DVD playback. For this reason, you can install a separate DVD player, Xine, which supports these. To install Xine, install the gxine package from the Universe repository (see Chapter 2, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).
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You can then open gxine from the Sound & Video menu.
Backing up your DVDs to files or onto DVD+/- discs can be done with DVD::RIP. To install DVD::RIP:
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Before backing up a DVD, you must ensure that you are legally permitted to make copies of it. |
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Install the Multimedia Codecs (see the section called “Multimedia Codecs”).
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Enable DVD video playback (see the section called “DVD Playback”).
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Install dvdrip and transcode from the Multiverse repository (see Chapter 2, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).
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You can run the program using the command dvdrip (see the section called “Start a Program Manually”). If you wish, you can add a menu entry for the program dvdrip (see the section called “Menu Editing”). We recommend you enter it in the Sound & Video menu, and that you use the file
/usr/share/perl5/Video/DVDRip/icon.xpmfor the icon. -
To start dvd::rip, choose ->->.
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Install the libstdc++5 package (see Chapter 2, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).
You will need to use Synaptic Package Manager to install this package
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Download the Realplayer package from here.
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Install the package you have downloaded (see the section called “Install/uninstall .deb files”).
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To run Real Player 10, choose ->->.
Kino is an advanced video editor. It features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera. It captures video to disk in Raw DV and AVI format, in both type-1 DV and type-2 DV (separate audio stream) encodings. For more information, see the Kino website. To use it:
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Install the kino package (see Chapter 2, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).
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To run Kino, choose ->->.
You can also try the PiTiVi video editor by installing the pitivi package from the Universe repository (see Chapter 2, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications). PiTiVi is a video editor for the GNOME desktop. It is still in fairly early development, but worth a try.
