Streaming Media (HOW-TO)

Ryan@warpfive · n00b Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Kettering, UK

A few days ago I posted a message asking for help in getting streaming media working using mplayer & RealPlayer as I wasn't having much luck. I got a few pointers and after a weekend of messing around I've managed to get it working. Here is what I've done and if anyone wants to make suggestions etc please feel free to do so.

My configuration is

AMD 2600+ (Barton)
512Mb RAM
60GB IDE Hard disk
ABIT NFORCE-2 mother board
NVIDIA MX400 based graphics card

Running Xorg & the latest ~x86 builds of the Nvidia kernel & X drivers.

All of this needs to be done as root, and only appears to work with firefox or mozilla.

1. Getting Portage Setup

The first step is to make the right packages available in portage as some of them are masked and a few are still marked ~x86

fctk · Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 10:28 am Post subject:

is it possible to use Realplayer10 instead of that one in the portage? RP10 has gtk2 support...

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

well the good thing is that the BBC are making their own format up soon and that should be the definitive in streaming video shortly
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bernard604 · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 51

Thanks for the mplayer plugin how-to.

I followed your procedures, and got most things to work, like movie trailers from the above link.
But I have not gotten the video from MLB.com to work, I just get the
audio.

Is this possible using mplayer plugins ?

Ateo · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:57 am Post subject:

fctk · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:32 am Post subject:

Psycam · n00b Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 17

thanks for the howto! Firefox plays media fine now.

damsos · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:59 pm Post subject:

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

because the BBC says they are going to make their own format soon...
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Ryan@warpfive · n00b Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Kettering, UK

Hi fctk,

Sorry for not replying sooner. I should imaging you can use RealPlayer 10, all you would need to do is download the binary from real.com and then do

Ryan@warpfive · n00b Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Kettering, UK

Hi bernard604,

I've had a look at mlb.com and it appears that all the video is coded up using the Windows Media 9. mplayer which is what the mplayerplug-in calls to display the video has support for Windows Media 9 codecs on x86 platforms. The only thing I can't tell is how new the codecs are as I don't understand what the ${PN} means in the ebuild for the win32codec package. The only reason I mention this is if you go to http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/codecs.html you'll see the Win32 (complete) codec package is dated 20040703.

You could try backing up you current codec directory /usr/lib/win32 and putting whats in that file in there and trying again. If it breaks then restore the backup.

Hope this helps
Ryan

bernard604 · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 51

Thanks for the suggestion. It did not work, but it was a good idea.

damsos · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:09 am Post subject:

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

ah-ha, ask the right question then you might get the right answer!

Well they are a non-profit organisation paid for by the British taxpayer so they are not trying to make money out of it (have a look on the website, tell me how many adverts you see). And they are not out to make a fast buck

When they do something they tend to do it right otherwise there is a huge backlash from the British public because they have just wasted a load of our money.

They have one of the biggest archives of videos for viewing on the web (in sheer number, not MB) and they want to get it all working right.
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mlsfit138 · Guru Joined: 20 Sep 2003 Posts: 406 Location: Washington

I think xiph has been working on this as well.
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fctk · Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 2:01 pm Post subject: Re: Streaming Media (HOW-TO)

Ryan@warpfive · n00b Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Kettering, UK

fctk · Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:51 am Post subject:

but... why should i recompile mplayer? maybe in order to be able to play streams directly with mplayer? isn't better to use realplayer for that?

Ryan@warpfive · n00b Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Kettering, UK

fctk,

If all youre interested in is RealPayer streams then you don't need to have mplayer on your system at all. All you would have to do is download RealPlayer 10 from http://www.real.com and install it. Once it is installed the plugins for mozilla and firefox are in the wrong place so you need to do the manual step of

TheWoopWoop · n00b Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 30

Great thread. Thanks for the help!

Cartroo · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 41

I've managed to get mplayer working fine, but it seems to refuse to embed itself in a web page. Is this normal? The download bar appears in the page, and when it's finished the controls go there, but the video itself appears in a new window instead of in the web page. Is there any way to stop this?

My mplayerplug-in.conf is:

Wi1d · Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 6:57 pm Post subject:

Thanks alot for the howto. Worked like a charm.

Wi1d · Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject:

paranode · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 679 Location: Texas

chrisdupre · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 120

Ryan@warpfive,
I tried what you said about downloading it from the realplayer site and extracting .bz2 file. I symlinked the files you said to symlink, but still no go? I really want to use realplayer instead of mplayerplug-in or mplayer. I use mozilla-firefox 0.9.3.
code:
ln -s /home/chris/realplayer/RealPlayer/mozilla/nphelix.so /usr/lib/nsbrowser/plugins/nphelix.so

ln -s /home/chris/realplayer/RealPlayer/mozilla/nphelix.xpt /usr/lib/nsbrowser/plugins/nphelix.xpt

I checked the directories and they are their nphelix.so and nphelix.xpt.

I went to apple.com and tried the trailers, but it says I have to download quicktime?

Thanks