Ubuntu Documentation > Ubuntu 8.04 LTS > Music, video and photos > Movies, DVDs and videos

Movies, DVDs and videos

You can watch movies and video clips in Ubuntu by using the Totem Movie Player.

Start Totem by clicking Applications → Sound & Video → Movie Player.

Playing DVDs

In order to play DVDs, you must install some additional software. Unfortunately, DVD support cannot be provided by default in Ubuntu due to legal and technical restrictions.

[Caution]

Many commercial DVDs are encrypted and so require the use of decryption software in order to play them. In some countries, the use of such decryption software is not permitted by law. Verify that you are within your rights in using it.

  1. Install the following packages (see Add Applications):

    • libdvdnav4

    • libdvdread3

  2. If you would like to play encrypted DVDs (see the legal note above), press Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type the following into the screen which appears, followed by the Return key:

    sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

  3. When you insert a DVD into your drive, it should now open automatically using Totem Movie Player.

[Note]

Unfortunately, Totem Movie Player has no support for the menu feature of DVDs. To use this feature, you can install an alternative program such as gxine, like this:

  1. Install the gxine package (see Add Applications)

  2. To ensure that DVDs use gxine automatically when inserted, open Places → Home Folder and select Edit → Preferences and then click on the Media tab. Choose gxine from the DVD Video option.

Playing proprietary formats

Videos can come in a range of different formats. However, some of these formats are proprietary or commercial and so cannot be included in Ubuntu by default. As a result, additional software must be installed to allow you to view such formats. The following applications may be able to play certain formats which the default applications are unable to handle:

  • gxine with Xine extra plugins

  • MPlayer Movie Player

  • VLC media player

See Add Applications for help on installing new software.

See Multimedia Codecs for information on installing support for other audio and video formats.

Watch videos in a web browser

Many videos available on the Internet can be played from within your web browser. However, many of these require an additional browser plugin to be installed first.

The plugins you require depend on the format of the videos you would like to watch. A short list of plugins available for the default Firefox Web Browser is given below:

  • For the Mplayer plugin, install the mozilla-mplayer package.

  • For the VLC plugin, install the mozilla-plugin-vlc package.

  • For the Helix plugin, install the mozilla-helix-player package.

  • For a free (open-source) Flash plugin, install the mozilla-plugin-gnash package. For the proprietary Flash plugin, install the flashplugin-nonfree package. See Flash multimedia plugin for more information.

For help on installing additional software, see Add Applications.

Restart Firefox to make the newly-installed plugins available.

Watch video podcasts

As well as online audio broadcasts (podcasts), many video broadcasts are available from the Internet too. Ubuntu provides several optional applications which you can use to watch videos from the Internet:

  • Miro

  • PenguinTV Media Aggregator

  • Kitty

See Add Applications for help on installing new software.

Record and edit video

Ubuntu comes with a selection of tools to help you record and edit video.

  • DeVeDe is a DVD authoring application capable of creating DVD discs which can be played in set-top DVD players.

    For more information, see the DeVeDe website.

  • Kino is an advanced video editor. It features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 (Firewire) 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.

  • PiTiVi Video Editor is a simple, easy to use video editor.

    For more information, see the PiTiVi website.

  • Stopmotion allows you to create videos using the stop-motion animation technique.

    For more information, see the Stopmotion website.

  • Subtitle Editor can be used to edit subtitles for videos.

    For more information, see the Subtitle Editor website.

  • Thoggen DVD Ripper allows you to back-up your DVDs onto your computer.

    For more information, see the Thoggen website.

See Add Applications for help on installing new software.

Prev     Next
Use a portable audio player  Home  What is a codec?