Ubuntu

Playing back flash based videos on ubuntuvideo

Asked by Danny Staple

It appears the videos on Ubuntu Video (http://www.ubuntuvideo.com), which are currently hyped by the current weekly newsletter, are not easily played, with audio in Firefox on Ubuntu.

Can they be made to play using standard ubuntu stuff from apt (synaptic), on my hardware? Or should Ubuntu Video be rigourously not using flash video to promote something that they wont play properly in?

This flash video problem has really bugged me before, and am I the only one who finds great irony in seeing them on the Ubuntu letter, and having to use my Windows laptop to play them back?

Danny

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Alexandre Vassalotti
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Revision history for this message
Danny Staple (danny-orionrobots) said : 		#1

I should say this is in Dapper. Tell me, is this sorted in Edgy?

Revision history for this message
Alexandre Vassalotti (avassalotti) said : 		#2

I agree that ubuntuvideo.com should give an OGG download option. However, I think bandwidth is the problem here.

I guess its should be reported to the rest of the Marketing Team.

Revision history for this message
Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#3

Firstly, the video on Ubuntuvideo is not hosted by them, they merely provide links to video that is hosted elsewhere such as youtube and google video.

Yes, flash is a proprietary format, yes it's deeply upsetting for some people to have ubuntu marketing provided in a proprietary format, but it does work on dapper (and edgy).

There are how-tos that explain getting flash working on Ubuntu, and I'd suggest going through those.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats#flashtrouble
http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/
http://www.getautomatix.com/index.php

Revision history for this message
Danny Staple (danny-orionrobots) said : 		#4

Sorry - maybe I was misunderstood. I am not upset by the ideal of it being in a free format. I am upset by the fact that it does not work "out of the box", and even just installing the flash packages, it does not "work" with sound.

While I am happy to go in and edit whatever I like (probably using VI, I am an old hand), those users, even those using "easyubuntu" are still going to have trouble with sound or stability (your choice!) in flash. Those users being end users and not developers who are happy to hand edit config files.

Perhaps this was intended more in the spirit of a bug/issue report or suggestion. Should some effort go into enhancing gash to play flash video? Add placeholder "You need to install flash" which then uses an install script not unlike the mp3 support one? The "fix" which broke ESD/Firefox/flash be "unfixed" so you can get sound without sacrificing stability? something anyway.

Revision history for this message
Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#5

On Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 12:51:13PM -0000, DannyStaple wrote:
> Support request #2085 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/2085
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Comment:
> Sorry - maybe I was misunderstood. I am not upset by the ideal of it being in a free format. I am upset by the fact that it does not work "out of the box", and even just installing the flash packages, it does not "work" with sound.
>

Ok, I understand, but the reason I pasted those links was to assure you that
it does work. Maybe it doesn't work for you on your computer, and I'll be
happy to help you make that work, but to suggest that flash doesn't work at
all on Linux is just not true. Yes, we're currently limited to using Flash 7
natively in Linux and as I understand it all the ubuntulinux.org videos work
in Flash 7.

That aside it is possible to also get Flash 8 and 9 working under Linux if
you really need to. I have written a how-to.

http://popey.com/Making_Flash_8_and_9_Work_on_Linux

It's not ideal, and no, it doesn't work out of the box, but right now there
is no other open streaming video format that can be used out of the box on
all platforms. If you make a video available in OGG/Theora then you
immediately have problems for Windows/Mac users, if you use DivX then you
have problems for Linux users out of the box.

You have to remember that a large number of people visiting marketing sites
such as ubuntuvideo will be doing so from their current Windows machine
before they switch to Linux, or from a work machine (with high speed
internet access) which they have little or no administrative control over.

I sympathise I really do, but that's the state we're in. In most cases there
is no need to edit anything - especially not in VI to make flash work, it's
just a few clicks of the mouse (usually) and you're up and running.

Cheers,
Al.

Revision history for this message
Ubuntu User (anotherubuntuuser) said : 		#6

Following the instructions on the should help. I would suggest installing the non-free flash plugin from a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal):

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

(type your password and then hit Enter).

Restart Firefox and it should work.

If these comments solved your problem, please consider closing this request as answered. You can find useful information on managing your support requests here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportRequests

If you are still having problems, let us know and we'll keep working on them.

Thanks-

Jim Jones