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Music Players

Amarok

Amarok is the default music player in Kubuntu. Volume normalization (using ReplayGain) is a built-in option.

Amarok themes

Amarok themes can be downloaded from KDE Look and installed.

Download the theme (ending in .tar.bz2) to your home directory (or chosen directory).
Amarok -> Settings -> Appearance -> Install New Style
Select the downloaded file.

Play Shoutcast Internet Radio through Amarok

Shoutcast internet radio can be played through Amarok 2.2 or later by installing the Shoutcast script:

Amarok -> Tools -> Script Manager -> Get More Scripts -> Search: Shoutcast -> Install

-> Restart Amarok -> Tools -> Script Manager -> Shoutcast service tralala (ticked) -> Ok -> Internet -> Shoutcast service tralala

Note: Internet radio streams use many different ports. You must adjust your firewall to allow the ports over which the streams will be sent.

RecordStream

RecordStream is an Amarok plugin that enables recording of Internet Radio streams (works best with Shoutcast streams). Install:

Amarok -> Tools -> Script Manager -> Get More Scripts -> Search: RecordStream -> Install

Install the required streamripper module:

sudo apt-get install streamripper

RecordStream / Streamripper will record streams in two modes:

"Record webradio" will save each individually streamed track to its native MP3 or AAC file, preserving the original song/track title.
"Record livestream" will record continuously whatever is being streamed until the "Stop recording" option is chosen.

Of course, Streamripper can be used as a standalone command-line program as well. For instructions, enter man streamripper on the command line. The RecordStream script is not set up to pass all the variables available to Streamripper; for fine-grained control it is better to run Streamripper as a standalone program. See these tips.

Stream Amarok output to Airport Express

Make sure your firewall is not blocking ports 5353, 5000, and 6000.

To stream any audio to your Airport Express, including from Amarok, use the latest version of Pulse Audio.

QMMP

QMMP is a compact, fast Qt-based music player similar to XMMS2, Audacious, and WinAmp2 and can use the "Classic" WinAmp2 / XMMS skins. Volume normalization (using ReplayGain) is a built-in option. It supports many plugins and is ideal for streaming content. Install:

sudo apt-get install qmmp

You can switch between the "PulseAudio Output Plugin" and the "ALSA Output Plugin" under

QMMP -> Settings -> Audio -> Current output plugin.

There are many places to get .wsz skins ("Classic" Winamp2/XMMS) that are compatible with QMMP, Audacious, or XMMS2:

Audacious

Audacious is a compact, fast GTK-based music player that is a fork of XMMS. It resembles XMMS2 and WinAmp2 and can use the "Classic" WinAmp2 / XMMS skins. Volume normalization (using ReplayGain) is a built-in option. It supports many plugins and is ideal for streaming content. Install:

sudo apt-get install audacious

You can switch between the "PulseAudio Output Plugin" and the "ALSA Output Plugin" under

Audacious -> Preferences -> Audio -> Current output plugin.

Juk

Juk is a compact, fast music player with a simple iTunes-like track browser, ID3-tag editing capabilities, and playlist interface. However, volume normalization is not currently an option. It is part of the KDE multimedia project. Install:

sudo apt-get install juk

Banshee Music Player

Banshee is a Gstreamer, Mono and Gtk-based music player for Linux and Mac OS X. It supports multiple mp3 players (including the iPod).There are plugins for podcasts, internet radio, and more.

sudo apt-get install banshee

Exaile Music Manager and Player

Exaile is a GTK-based music player that supports many formats, incorporates a Shoutcast directory, a plugin for iPod, Last.FM support, tabbed playlists, and other features. Install:

sudo apt-get install exaile

Songbird Music Player

Songbird is an open source music player from Mozilla with an appearance meant to resemble iTunes. It is in current development and does not yet have full support for mp3 players (such as the iPod). It incorporates a Shoutcast internet radio interface. The current beta version can be downloaded from the website.

aTunes

aTunes is a Java-based player designed to be similar to iTunes. Installation instructions are here.

VLC Player

VLC works quite well as an audio player. See this section.

Multimedia Players

Most current video multimedia players play many video formats (as well as audio), including the Flash video .flv format.

VLC Multimedia Player

VLC is a cross-platform multimedia player that supports many formats without need for additional codecs. It can not only receive video streams (also see here to convert it to mp4), but can act as a server for video streams, as well. It is one of the only players that can view and backup almost any DVD format, no matter which copy protection is used. See these tips for using VLC to backup/rip encrypted DVDs.

sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-pulse

VLC plugins

There are many VLC plugins. You will likely only need to install a few of them, however, depending on your hardware and input/output configuration:

sudo apt-get install vlc-plugin-ggi vlc-plugin-jack vlc-plugin-pulse vlc-plugin-sdl vlc-plugin-svgalib mozilla-plugin-vlc vlc-plugin-esd

MPlayer Multimedia Player

Mplayer (and now Mplayer2) is a video player with a wide range of formats supported (including RealMedia and Windows-codecs) and a wide variety of outputs.

sudo apt-get install mplayer

or

sudo apt-get install mplayer2

There are several frontends for MPlayer. See this complete list.

Kmplayer (sudo apt-get install knmplayer) -- for KDE
KPlayer (sudo apt-get install kplayer) -- for KDE
SMPlayer (sudo apt-get install smplayer) -- Qt-based
Mplayer-gui (sudo apt-get install mplayer-gui) -- GTK-based

Dump a video stream to disc

You can dump a video stream to disc using Mplayer:

mplayer -dumpstream streamurl

If you don't know the exact URL of the stream you wish to save, you can discover it from the webpage it is embedded in by using the Firefox add-on UnPlug. Do not save streams that are illegal to download.

Dragonplayer

Dragonplayer is the default KDE media player included in Kubuntu. It does not have as many options or play as many formats as other video players, but is integrated into the KDE framework.

Kaffeine Video Player

Kaffeine is a video player for Kubuntu/KDE. It does not play as many formats as other video players. Install:

sudo apt-get install kaffeine

Xine-UI Multimedia Player

Xine UI is a multimedia player based, of course, on the xine platform. It can also play streamed video from the Internet and supports most formats, including some uncommon ones.

 sudo apt-get install xine-ui

RealPlayer 11 Multimedia Player

The Linux Realplayer is actually based on the open-source Helix player. Helix itself can be installed as a package easily (read Helix plug-in) and used instead of Realplayer. These instructions are to install the proprietary version of RealPlayer only.

Download Real Player official linux player

Open a terminal and cd to the directory you have downloaded realplayer's .bin file. Then issue the following commands

chmod +x RealPlayer11GOLD.bin
sudo ./RealPlayer11GOLD.bin

When it asks for installation path enter /usr/local/RealPlayer

For all other questions just choose default by pressing enter.

If you have installed mozilla-mplayer package you will need to delete the mplayer firefox plugin for real player videos. Other wise all real player files will open with mplayer. For that please do this

cd /usr/lib/firefox/plugins
sudo rm mplayerplug-in-rm.*

Please remember to restart firefox and when ever you click on a real player video choose the option open with and use /usr/bin/realplay

Internet TV

Miro Player

Miro Player (formerly Democracy TV Player) is an open-source Internet TV and video player that allows you to watch Internet TV and videos. Unlike other video players, it contains a structured guide that includes more than 2500 channels, has built-in BitTorrent, and has features that can automatically save videos, such as from YouTube.

sudo apt-get install miro

Myth TV

See MythTV

Sopcast Internet TV

Sopcast is an interface to play live P2P video streams through the VLC media player. Install VLC first. This is a Chinese program and most content is hosted in China and may not be legal in your area. Please consult local regulations.

You can install the SopCast Player PPA using the following commands:

 echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jason-scheunemann/ppa/ubuntu `lsb_release -cs` main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
 sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CD30EE56

If you are using Karmic or later:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jason-scheunemann/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sopcast-player

Run:

Applications->Sound & Video->SopCast Player

Zattoo

Zattoo is a free Internet TV player that allows you to watch terrestrial television from various countries in Europe. See the Zattoo Download page for further instructions on installation. For screenshots and an alternate installation guide, see this UbuntuGeek guide.

Install dependencies first:

sudo apt-get install libgtkglext1 adobe-flashplugin

Download the latest .deb package from Zattoo Download page.

 wget http://zattoo.com/release/download.php

Install the downloaded .deb package:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Run Zattoo:

K -> Application -> Multimedia -> Zattoo Player

Note: you have to register for a free account when the player starts.

TV Time (TV Viewer)

TVTime allows the display of television and other digital inputs (made available to the computer by a video capture card). A plugin for the Remuco remote control (remuco-tvtime) is also available. Install:

sudo apt-get install tvtime

ABC iView

Python-iView is a program that works with rtmpdump to record streams offered by ABC iView (Australia). Installation instructions are at the PPA repository.

BBC iPlayer

BBC iPlayer provides replays and downloads of BBC programs to UK residents. The BBC, however, has crippled its streams to prevent downloading and legal actions against iPlayer appear to be in progress. (Flvstreamer may be required for rtmp stream recording). To install a Flash 64-bit edition of iPlayer:

sudo aptitude remove flashplugin-installer
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sevenmachines/flash
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install flashplugin64-installer

get_iplayer (BBC program recording)

get_iplayer allows BBC streams (through their iplayer service) for UK users, as well as Hulu streams for US users, to be recorded to mp4, wav and mp3 files (depending on content). Install v2.66 (may not work for all users):

sudo apt-get install get-iplayer

To install a newer version:

sudo apt-get install flvstreamer id3v2 libmp3-info-perl atomicparsley libwww-perl perl
wget ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/get_iplayer/get_iplayer-2.79.tar.gz
tar xvf get_iplayer-2.79.tar.gz
sudo ln -s iplayer-2.79/get_iplayer /usr/bin/get_iplayer

Note: When running this version, use get_iplayer instead of get-iplayer.

Add preferences:

get_iplayer --prefs-add --modes=flashhd,flashvhigh,flashhigh,flashnormal,iphone
get_iplayer --prefs-add --flvstreamer "/usr/bin/flvstreamer"

Delete ~/.swfinfo:

cd ~/.swfinfo
sudo rm *
cd ..
sudo rmdir swfinfo

See the website for usage or:

man get-iplayer

Get a current listing of what's available and save it in the home directory

get-iplayer >~/iplayer-listing.txt

Having found some interesting programmes (and noted the numbers found in the left-hand column), download them:

get-iplayer --get 123 537

For Live Streaming (with mplayer) use one of these commands.

iPlayer can be run in Wine using these instructions.

Some users will need to install rtmpdump for successful streaming.

Netflix Android App

A Netflix app for the Android market is available here. It must be installed in an Android environment.

Internet Radio

Internet radio streams through different ports, so check your firewall if you are not able to play the streams.

Last FM

LastFM is a service for sharing music recommendations and individual radio streams. It is included as an option in Amarok, or can be installed separately:

sudo apt-get install lastfm

Shoutcast Internet Radio

Shoutcast is the first and last free mp3 streaming service. Hundreds of radio streams can be played through Amarok, Audacious, or other multimedia player. Simply associate the .pls streams with your favourite player (Audacious or XMMS2 recommended).

StreamTuner Stream Directory Browser

StreamTuner lists streams available on the Internet through a GTK-based interface. It lists Shoutcast and Live365 streams, among others. Install:

sudo apt-get install streamtuner

Streamripper

Streamripper is a standalone command-line utility to record online audio streams (primarily from Shoutcast). Also see these tips. A GUI front-end for KDE is available. Install:

sudo apt-get install streamripper kstreamripper

Streamripper is also available within the music player Amarok using the RecordStream plug-in.

Media Centers and PVR (Personal Video Recorder)

There are a number of open-source Media Centers for Linux, some of which include personal video recorder functions. For a full list of open-source media centers, see this guide.

MythTV

MythTV is a media center with PVR (personal video recorder) for retrieving, recording, and playing broadcast and Internet TV and other multimedia content. It has many options and plugins for expansion. To be useful, you will need a compatible TV tuner card. For setup tips, see this guide. Install:

sudo apt-get install mythtv

Mythbuntu

Mythbuntu is an integrated Ubuntu (Xubuntu) desktop optimised for MythTV usage. In can be used instead of adding MythTV to a Ubuntu desktop.

XBMC

XBMC is a free, mature, open-source cross-platform media center. It does not have a PVR capability nor as many functions as MythTV, but has a very nice interface.

Add these third party repositories:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main

Install:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

Boxee

Boxee is an XBMC-like open source package to allow streaming video over the Internet, including from YouTube and other sites. It is a fork of XBMC, and is still in alpha development and testing stage. It is currently available for 32-bit systems only, and recommended for Hardy. A current version is anticipated soon. (Note: Boxee does not run Netflix on Linux, despite their ads). See these download instructions.

Elisa

Elisa is a cross-platform media center that uses the Gstreamer multimedia framework. Commercial plugins are available from Fluendo. It supports PVR and Music Jukebox . Install: