Best media player for kubuntu?

[Guest]

I am a newbie to Kubuntu/Linux. In windows you could play any media formats with the help of codec players. But in Kubuntu there is a player which doesn't play anything like flv sometimes mpg. I don't know what is the problem, so I am looking for a good player which will play any media and DVD. But The pc I am using has no Internet, so I have to download the setup and transfer it to my computer.

1)In short give me a link of good media player that could be downloaded standalone.
2)Give me the shell commands how to install with or any other way.

Thanks
Abdul Fatah Shieryar
A newbie of Kubuntu and Linux

[Telengard]

Re: Best media player for kubuntu?

SMPlayer works very well for me. I think VLC is also quite good.

[KeithZG]

Re: Best media player for kubuntu?

Okay, first, if there is ANY way of even temporarily getting internet to the PC in question, please please PLEASE do that. It's about 1000x easier, trust me.

However, ignoring that and moving on . . .

Everything could be downloaded "standalone"...just that it won't merely be one file But you could easily download all the dependencies. Actually, perhaps the best option would be to find what program you want, and then on a computer that *does* have an internet connection just run "sudo aptitude -d whateverthehellpackage"; the -d switch means "Only download packages, do not install or remove anything" so it will automatically download all the packages you'd need (if for some reason you have a spare computer but it *doesn't* have Kubuntu installed, that's what live discs are for!).

Another option is to just look at the package's page and see what all the dependencies are. Then you can just get all the packages, copy them over somehow into some directory on your Kubuntu PC, and then from that directory in Konsole run the command "sudo dpkg -i *.deb". For example, one of the best (IMHO) media players for KDE is Kaffeine.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/kaffeine

From there you can see all the requirements for the package; as far as I can tell, all of its core dependencies should be installed in Kubuntu 9.10 anyways, so you'll only have to download it and install the package (just running it from the file manager should do the trick in that case, no need for command line magic). Now, the problem is to actually play anything you'll still need some codecs, and many won't be installed. Again, this all could be done automatically if you had an internet connection . . .

The default backend for Kaffeine is Xine (much like how most media players in Windows use DirectShow as their backend/collection-of-codecs). So you'll want to download that, then the dependencies listed there, and then also probably libxine1-ffmpeg, which provides the ffmpeg library of codecs . . . which I almost entirely guarantee is what you were using for most of the media formats you played in Windows, ffmpeg is pretty ubiquitous these days. Now, libxine1-ffmpeg itself has quite a few dependencies; libavcodec52 is the core one which contains almost all of the codecs you'd probably need.

So that's the basic idea. It shouldn't be too hard to manually download all the required .deb's for Kaffeine and libxine1, which should then let you play almost everything.

DVDs are another matter, since most commercial DVDs are encrypted, which means in many places it would be illegal for Kubuntu to ship with ways of decrypting them. Boo copyright laws! So you'll basically need a copy of libdvdcss2 (warning: illegal in the United States, and potentially other places. Not illegal in any country that has sane laws in regards to infringement, however, ie. any country which allows you to watch media you've paid for without paying a third party as well).

Firstly you'll simply need libdvdread4, which is in the normal *buntu repositories. It might in fact be already installed for you (worth checking). This is the library that almost any program that wants to read DVDs will use to, surprise surprise, read DVDs. However, for the aforementioned legal reasons, it doesn't include the necessary code to actually decrypt encrypted DVDs. It does, however, include a script for automatically downloading the required libdvdcss2. But you don't have internet access! So, first if you need to download libdvdread4 (and you'll probably also want to download libdvdnav4, which is linked to on that page), then go over to the Medibuntu page and download libdvdcss2.

A bit complicated, I know! But this is actually the result of one of the strengths of Linux in general, and (K)Ubuntu in particular; all these individual libraries stand on their own, and any program can use them. So, for example, once you have the Xine libraries installed, any other media players you try out that use Xine don't have to carry along their own copies of all that. You only have to install these backends and libraries once. That's why Kaffeine is a fully-featured media player, but the program package itself is only about 300kB in size!

Oh, and the media players mentioned by Shieryar are good alternatives, but I mention Kaffeine because it's KDE-based and thus doesn't require much more (other than some codec libraries, as mentioned above) to run. VLC, however, is GTK+ based, which would mean a LOT more dependencies to download; no problem at all if you've got an internet connection, but a pain manually SMPlayer though is Qt-based, and KDE itself is based on Qt. It uses MPlayer as a backend instead of Xine; you'll notice both of them require libavcodec52, another example of the sharing that Linux applications do

So yeah. If you just try to download all the dependencies, then try to install the .deb files with "sudo dpkg -i *.deb" then dpkg will tell you if you're still missing any dependencies, and you can go download those ones from the Ubuntu packages site. Again, it is SO much easier if you have an internet connection (I've been in your situation before, I speak from experience), so if it's at all possible even just temporarily, do it. If you were able to, then a simple

sudo apt-get install vlc kaffeine smplayer xine-ui libdvdread4

would automatically download and install four alternatives for you to play with, and following that up with

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

would automatically download and unlock the ability to play DVDs.

[ultrageeky]

Re: Best media player for kubuntu?

Assuming you're connected to the Net:

add the Medibuntu repositories from here. It's easy to do. Then add the only one of w32codecs, w64codecs or ppc-codecs (w32 if your operating system is for 32-bit architectures, w64 if it's for 64-bit architectures or ppc if it's for powerPCs. For example, if you have installed Kubuntu i86 then you have a 32-bit architecture). Also install libdvdcss2. It's all explained at the provided link.

Install VLC and Amarok. VLC will play just about anything, it's fast, efficient and comes with a good set of codecs. Amarok looks nicer and has a lot of multimedia experience enhancing bonuses such as Lyric, artist info and video gathering from the Net.

If you're not connected to the Net then you will need to get the above packages from here