Karin Chan

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See What`s New In GNOME 3.10 [Video, Screenshots]

See What`s New In GNOME 3.10 [Video, Screenshots]

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page. View the original article here

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Flowblade Video Editor 0.10 Released With New Audio Mixer, Other New Features

Flowblade Video Editor 0.10 Released With New Audio Mixer, Other New Features

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page. View the original article here

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Pipelight: Use Silverlight In Your Linux Browser To Watch Netflix, Maxdome Videos And More

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://fds-team.de/cms/articles/2013-08/pipelight-using-silverlight-in-linux-browsers.html">Pipelight</a> is project that brings Silverlight to any Linux browser that supports the Netscape Plugin API. Using it, you can use services that require Silverlight, such as Netflix, in native Linux web browsers like Firefox, Chrome or Midori.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/netflix-linux-chrome.png"><img alt="Netflix Google Chrome Linux" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbE_Gs7mwOXD0VcQf03yV2nZaN07v0aUSDLeZ4XQaUy16RxnOYZreoqHggtFwS-Kbgkfff4tooWL2ee7KtLl2hvdLLjI9YwWLv2fjjAs5qCuYwD5LJ6qisqbjRv6NqIFwkjdJVu4RdM1Q/s320/netflix-linux-chrome.png" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Pipelight combines the effort by Erich E. Hoover (the <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/how-to-use-netflix-in-ubuntu-through.html">Netflix Desktop</a> developer) with a new browser plugin which - unlike Netflix Desktop which requires a Windows version of Firefox to run under Wine -, lets you access services that require Microsoft Silverlight using native Linux web browsers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This solution isn't Wine-free because the browser plugin continues to use Wine however, this shouldn't have a big impact on performance:</div><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"Pipelight consists out of two parts: A Linux library which is loaded into the browser and a Windows program started in Wine. The Windows program, called pluginloader.exe, simply simulates a browser and loads the Silverlight DLLs. When you open a page with a Silverlight application the library will send all commands from the browser through a pipe to the Windows process and act like a bridge between your browser and Silverlight. The used pipes do not have any big impact on the speed of the rendered video since all the video and audio data is not send through the pipe. Only the initialization parameters and (sometimes) the network traffic is send through them."</i></blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the Pipelight website, <b>the plugin has been confirmed to work "almost perfectly" using Microsoft Silverlight 5 for the following websites: <a href="http://www.maxdome.de/">Maxdome</a>, <a href="http://netflix.com/">Netflix</a> and <a href="https://sumo.tv2.no/">Sumo 2</a></b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've tested Pipelight with Netflix, under Chrome (Ubuntu 13.10) and I can confirm it works (and the playback was smooth!), as you can see in the screenshots in this article. Update: I've also tested it with Firefox and it works, but sometimes the browser freezes, something which doesn't happen with Chrome so I recommend using Chrome / Chromium with Pipelight.</div><br /><br /><h2>Install Pipelight in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/netflix-chrome-silverlight.png"><img alt="Microsoft Silverlight Google Chrome Linux" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/netflix-chrome-silverlight_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Before proceeding, it's strongly recommended to close your web browser. Without doing this, the plugin may fail to install or crash the browser. </b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1.</b> Pipelight is available in two PPAs for Ubuntu users: a <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mqchael/+archive/pipelight">stable</a> and a <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mqchael/+archive/pipelight-daily">daily</a> PPA. Firstly, try the stable PPA and if you encounter issues, also give the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mqchael/+archive/pipelight-daily">daily PPA</a> a try.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To add the Pipelight stable and Compholio PPAs and install Pipelight in Ubuntu, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio<br />sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mqchael/pipelight<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install pipelight</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Once installed, start your browser and try <a href="http://bubblemark.com/silverlight2.html">THIS</a> test Silverlight applet. If it doesn't work, check if Silverlight is available in your browser plugin list (e.g.: you can type "about:plugins" in the address bar).</div><br />If you didn't close the browser before proceeding with the installation and Silverlight doesn't work, run the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>rm -rf ~/.wine-pipelight/</code></pre>and then restart the browser.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> We're not done yet. Silverlight should be working now, but some websites such as Netflix check the browser user agent and won't allow you to play any videos since Linux isn't supported. A work-around for this is to use a browser user agent switcher:</div><br /><ul><li>Firefox: install <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/uacontrol/">UAControl</a> or <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-overrider">User Agent Overrider</a> extensions and use one of the following user agents:</li><ul><li>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20120427 Firefox/15.0a1</li><li>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0</li><li>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0</li></ul><li>Chrome: install <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg">User Agent Switcher</a>  extension and select Windows Firefox 15 from the extension preferences.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">That's it! If video playback is slow or laggy, try <a href="https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+faq/2356">THIS</a> work-around.</div><br /><b>Also see:</b><br /><ul><li><a href="https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+faqs">Pipelight FAQ</a></li><li><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/pipelight">Report a bug</a></li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For more information, Arch Linux installation instructions, source files and so on, visit the Pipelight page @ <a href="http://fds-team.de/cms/articles/2013-08/pipelight-using-silverlight-in-linux-browsers.html">fds-team.de</a>.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via Daniel Foré @ <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/101997050734870587600/posts/JDc2xem1rTG">G+</a></i></div>

Pipelight: Use Silverlight In Your Linux Browser To Watch Netflix, Maxdome Videos And More

Pipelight is project that brings Silverlight to any Linux browser that supports the Netscape Plugin API. Using it, you can use services tha...

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Command Line Video Download Tool `youtube-dl` Gets Support For 17 New Websites

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/">Youtube-dl</a> is a command line tool that allows downloading videos from YouTube and other similar websites. </b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Recently, youtube-dl has received support for 17 new websites</b>: hotnewhiphop.com, auengine.com, gamespot.com, RingTV, wat.tv, traileraddict.com, tu.tv, instagram.com, Statigr.am, break.com, tudou.com, Jukebox, Wimp.com, CSpan, 3sat, brightcove.com and archive.org.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwlIE9KK2Kfc8aa1dZTbM0baYxGE2ITailnzykIdIyq_Yy9Fxz4xVZGVdXgp1bH0ab7aLzj2QT7RNqUePt3mKf7j7FYJgzUqC8rMCvE23wFlUDyDF9YSiC1H0LDpj5cZ8qUoXuhreX5k/s1600/youtube-dl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwlIE9KK2Kfc8aa1dZTbM0baYxGE2ITailnzykIdIyq_Yy9Fxz4xVZGVdXgp1bH0ab7aLzj2QT7RNqUePt3mKf7j7FYJgzUqC8rMCvE23wFlUDyDF9YSiC1H0LDpj5cZ8qUoXuhreX5k/s320/youtube-dl.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Compared to the version available in the Ubuntu repositories (13.04, 12.10 or 12.04), there are many other changes in the latest youtube-dl (version 2013.07.08.1), including:</div><ul><li>Improved support for encrypted signatures in Youtube;</li><li>Improved support for videos from ArteTv;</li><li>Vimeo: allow to download password protected videos;</li><li>Youtube: A lot of work for downloading VEVO videos;</li><li>Fixed downloading from Google+ videos;</li><li>Added support for downloading automatic transcribed subtitles;</li><li>Added support for downloading subtitles in WebVTT (vtt) format;</li><li>Improved support for Youtube's crypto signing fields;</li><li>YouTube subscription feed download support;</li><li>Dailymotion: fixed the download of the video in the max quality;</li><li>Fixed bash completion.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Besides the newly added websites, youtube-dl also supports: <b>YouTube (besides single videos it also supports playlists, searches and user videos)</b>, metacafe.com, Google Video (including searches), Pinsthotobucket, Dailymotion, DepositFiles, blip.tv, Vimeo, myvideo.de, The Daily Show / Colbert Nation, The Escapist, CollegeHumor, arte.tv, Soundcloud, xvideos, infoq, mixcloud, Stanford Open Content, Youku, MTV, Xnxx, Google Plus and there's also a generic downloader that works with some other sites.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The application comes with many useful features, including <b>options to specify the video quality/format</b>, add the original title to the downloaded video filename, proxy support, <b>automatically extract audio from downloaded videos</b> and more.</div><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install youtube-dl in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu users can install the latest youtube-dl from the main WebUpd8 PPA</b> (note: the PPA contains some other packages so check out the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/webupd8">package list</a> before adding it):</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install youtube-dl</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;">You can manually <a href="https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/webupd8/+packages?field.name_filter=youtube-dl&field.status_filter=published&field.series_filter=">download</a> and install the deb if you don't want to add the PPA.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">youtube-dl can update itself if installed manually however, to make sure you have the all the required dependencies, proper bash completion, etc., it's better to use the PPA / deb above.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Other Linux distributions:</b> search for youtube-dl in the repositories or download it from <a href="http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html">HERE</a>. You can update it to the latest version using the following command: "<i>youtube-dl -U</i>". </div><br />To download a video, simply use the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>youtube-dl http://VIDEO_URL</code></pre>where "<i>VIDEO_URL</i>" is the url of the video you want to download. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To see all the available options, type the following commands in a terminal: "<i>man youtube-dl</i>" or "<i>youtube-dl -h</i>".</div>

Command Line Video Download Tool `youtube-dl` Gets Support For 17 New Websites

Youtube-dl is a command line tool that allows downloading videos from YouTube and other similar websites. Recently, youtube-dl has received...

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QGifer Converts Video To GIF, Supports Cropping, Adding Text And More

<b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgifer">QGifer</a> is a Qt tool available for Linux and Windows, that can convert part of a video to an animated GIF file.</b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpjRGlPQ-nRMGPYc-ZcZuB2CpUGUfCMexfxFcqPR_nBLJzZiT7ScnsPOGkqTmvUJdCGWN_-ekQ-iY7lmoBq92JvQcwi0Huofz6JvqP7EvIHqvnSawXhLYLRQxor6lUqL-Mm6Ez2_pnr3o/s1172/qgifer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="QGifer Ubuntu" border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpjRGlPQ-nRMGPYc-ZcZuB2CpUGUfCMexfxFcqPR_nBLJzZiT7ScnsPOGkqTmvUJdCGWN_-ekQ-iY7lmoBq92JvQcwi0Huofz6JvqP7EvIHqvnSawXhLYLRQxor6lUqL-Mm6Ez2_pnr3o/s320/qgifer.png" title="QGifer Ubuntu" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">QGifer isn't just a simple video to GIF converter. Thanks to its feature set, the application feels almost like a video editor, except it doesn't produce videos but animated GIF files: you can easily set which part of the video should be used in your GIF, <b>crop the video</b>, <b>add text or images</b>, <b>apply filters</b> and more.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, the application comes with a <b>GIF optimizer which you can use to reduce the file size of any GIF</b>, not just those created using QGifer.</div><br /><b>QGifer features:</b><br /><ul><li>GIF extraction from a video file;</li><li>Color palette editor;</li><li>Variable color palette support;</li><li>Dithering;</li><li>Insert text and graphics - they can be displayed in all the frames or only certain frames;</li><li>Object interpolation;</li><li>Cropping;</li><li>Filtering;</li><li>Looping by appending reversed copy;</li><li>GIF optimization through ImageMagick;</li><li>Project management.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">QGifer is great but there is one downside: it doesn't support video files that come with more than 1800 frames and don't use the motion JPEG or YUV4 codecs. To be able to use these videos, you must either re-encode them using a codec like motion JPEG (the application comes with a MJPEG converter which you can access from the menu: <i>Program > MJPEG Converter</i> - however, in my test, this tool wasn't able to convert some videos I've downloaded from YouTube) or YUV4 or alternatively, cut the videos before importing them in QGifer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To cut a video to be able to use it in QGifer, you can use a video editor such as OpenShot or you can do this via command line, using <i>mencoder</i>, <i>ffmpeg</i> (or "libav" - using the command line "avconv" tool), melt and so on. For instance, to cut the first 30 seconds from a video called "in.avi" using <i>avconv</i>, use the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>avconv -i in.avi -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:00:30 -c copy out.avi</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;">The resulting "out.avi" video should only contain the first 30 seconds from the "in.avi" video.</div><br /><i>Click <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDh5ae5SlGw2TFYAVLLEedlc5ycAFYVilvFz03UY52DAdrMx2jwnc2K3MAbukqP9jwiqB0RXdmfDHDgKCPYjayjeMNhqgKNzzwsBrCyV6mtpVw537YzvWw0DyUEHqokdWQULuibvTaiu8/s1600/qgifer-test.gif">HERE</a> to see a GIF I've created using QGifer.</i><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to create an animated GIF from video using QGifer</h2><div style="text-align: justify;">Creating animated GIF images from videos using QGifer isn't as easy as using the other <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/10/easily-create-animated-gif-images-from.html">video to GIF tool</a> we wrote about, but it isn't very complicated either. Below you can watch a quick video tutorial in which the QGifer developer explains how to use the application (GIF extraction, GIF optimization and color management):</div><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SNTf5eNdL4Q" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNTf5eNdL4Q">direct video link</a>)</center><br /><br /><h2>Download QGifer</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgifer/files/">Download QGifer</a> - there are Windows, Ubuntu/Debian (32bit only), generic Linux binary (32bit only) and source files available.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For both Ubuntu 32bit and 64bit you can use Sam Rog's PPA to <b>install the latest QGifer in Ubuntu:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:samrog131/ppa<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install qgifer</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>app seen on <a href="http://www.instantfundas.com/2013/07/qgifer-is-fantastic-video-to-gif.html">Instantfundas</a></i></div>

QGifer Converts Video To GIF, Supports Cropping, Adding Text And More

QGifer is a Qt tool available for Linux and Windows, that can convert part of a video to an animated GIF file. QGifer isn't just a simp...

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ffDiaporama 1.6 Released (Tool To Create Movie Clips From Photos and Videos)

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://ffdiaporama.tuxfamily.org/">ffDiaporama</a> is an application written in Qt, available for Linux and Windows, that allows you mix videos, music, text and photos to create movie clips / slideshows. </b>The application supports adding animations such as zoom, rotation or Ken Burns Effect, add titles (text), annotations and more.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8db_j-ojK1P5wJoYY7f7z0ANjk-3QlicKkB18837JQMehEshdDZwhBa9dP5FxOJZXPkqvdknl7Wl-XuZswRhJeqU9grcAs-_sKusFLxxxXhwRqH1tf1VlkM7AZmkRxLb_4bmgswz1jI/s1600/ffdiaporama1.6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="ffDiaporama" border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8db_j-ojK1P5wJoYY7f7z0ANjk-3QlicKkB18837JQMehEshdDZwhBa9dP5FxOJZXPkqvdknl7Wl-XuZswRhJeqU9grcAs-_sKusFLxxxXhwRqH1tf1VlkM7AZmkRxLb_4bmgswz1jI/s320/ffdiaporama1.6.png" title="ffDiaporama" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>ffDiaporama 1.6 stable has been released recently, getting lots of improvements and new features, including:</b></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>a collection of hundred of textures has been added as an optional addon - this can be used as the slides or text blocks background;</li><li>24 new shapes for block text have been added;</li><li>New block type: clip art texts, which includes a collection of 67 clip arts</li><li>SVG support;</li><li>new option to export audio track;</li><li>ability to change the sample rate frequency;</li><li>complete encoding and decoding audio/video engines overhaul;</li><li>the wiki help pages are now integrated into the application as tooltips;</li><li>many bug fixes and more.</li></ul><br />Below you can watch a ffDiaporama demo video, created by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/Pepestmrdo">Jose Baeza</a>:<br /><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YJpc_z-1QPw" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJpc_z-1QPw">direct video link</a>)</center><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The video has been created using ffDiaporama 1.5 and not the latest 1.6 stable release, but it should be enough to get an idea on what you can do using this application.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install ffDiaporama in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu (and derivatives such as Linux Mint, etc.) can install ffDiaporama by using its stable PPA. To add the PPA and install ffDiaporama, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ffdiaporamateam/stable<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install ffdiaporama</code></pre>To also install the new textures collection, use the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install ffdiaporama-texturemate</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Those who want to try the latest development version can use the ffDiaporama <a href="https://launchpad.net/~ffdiaporamateam/+archive/daily">daily PPA</a> instead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://ffdiaporama.tuxfamily.org/?page_id=178">Download ffDiaporama</a> for other Linux distributions</b> (packages available for LMDE, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, ArchLinux, Gentoo, Mageia, Chakra, and Salix OS, though not all have been updated to the latest version) <b>or Windows</b>.</div>

ffDiaporama 1.6 Released (Tool To Create Movie Clips From Photos and Videos)

ffDiaporama is an application written in Qt, available for Linux and Windows, that allows you mix videos, music, text and photos to create ...

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SimpleScreenRecorder: Powerful Screen Recording Software For Linux

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://www.maartenbaert.be/simplescreenrecorder/">SimpleScreenRecorder</a> is a Qt screen recorder for Linux</b> which, despite its name, comes with more features than other similar tools. The application is very easy to use and the default settings should be enough for most cases, so usually you won't need to change any settings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Using it, you can <b>record the entire screen</b> (with multi-monitor support), <b>record a fixed rectangle</b>, <b>follow the cursor</b> or <b>record OpenGL</b> applications (can be used to record <b>games</b>).</div><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Launching the application, you'll notice a simple user interface that lets you select the video input, choose if you want to record the cursor or if you want to record the microphone and set the frame rate:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SFQrjjwogfY/UbXo1y2vosI/AAAAAAAAPes/HTvf8R6p1Y8/s1600/simplescreenrecorder_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SFQrjjwogfY/UbXo1y2vosI/AAAAAAAAPes/HTvf8R6p1Y8/s320/simplescreenrecorder_1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Clicking "Continue", you can select the container for your screencast (MP4, Matroska, WebM, OGG or "Other", which you can use to select any container supported by Libav), file name, video codec (H.264, VP8, Theora or, just like the container, select "Other" which allows you to use any codec supported by Libav), set the video quality or preset:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bt5PYnfywM4/UbXo67nWhxI/AAAAAAAAPe0/rdsO2Ynuy5U/s1600/simplescreenrecorder_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bt5PYnfywM4/UbXo67nWhxI/AAAAAAAAPe0/rdsO2Ynuy5U/s320/simplescreenrecorder_2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In the next screen, you can start the recording, enable recording hotkeys so you can pause / resume the recording via a keyboard shortcut and more:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnSw9RZA6r4/UbXo_saWdTI/AAAAAAAAPe8/4p3TrwktHSs/s1600/simplescreenrecorder_3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnSw9RZA6r4/UbXo_saWdTI/AAAAAAAAPe8/4p3TrwktHSs/s320/simplescreenrecorder_3.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SimpleScreenRecorder features:</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">records the entire screen or part of it, or records OpenGL applications directly (similar to Fraps on Windows);</li><li style="text-align: justify;">synchronizes audio and video properly (a common issue with VLC and ffmpeg/avconv);</li><li style="text-align: justify;">faster than VLC and ffmpeg/avconv;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">reduces the video frame rate if your computer is too slow (rather than using up all your RAM like VLC does);</li><li style="text-align: justify;">fully multithreaded: small delays in any of the components will never block the other components, resulting is smoother video and better performance on computers with multiple processors;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">pause and resume recording at any time (either by clicking a button or by pressing a hotkey);</li><li style="text-align: justify;">shows statistics during recording (file size, bit rate, total recording time, actual frame rate, ...);</li><li style="text-align: justify;">can show a preview during recording, so you don't waste time recording something only to figure out afterwards that some setting was wrong;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">more.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Please note that OpenGL support is currently experimental and it might be buggy for now or it may not even work at all for you. Furthermore, the application tries to capture the frames before they are displayed on the screen and this might be considered a hack in some games and you might be banned so check if you're allowed to record a game before using this feature.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Below you can watch a quick video I've recorded using SimpleScreenRecorder in Ubuntu 13.04:</b></div><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mbC_n0S-CzA" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbC_n0S-CzA">direct video link</a>)</center><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install SimpleScreenRecorder</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu users can install SimpleScreenRecorder by using its official PPA. To add the PPA and install the application, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder</code></pre><b>Ubuntu 64bit: </b>if you want to record 32bit games, make sure you also install <i>simplescreenrecorder-lib:i386</i>:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder-lib:i386</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Arch Linux</b> users can install SimpleScreenRecorder via <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/simplescreenrecorder/">AUR</a> (64bit: just like in Ubuntu, make sure you also install the <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/lib32-simplescreenrecorder/">32bit libs</a> if you plan on recording 32bit OpenGL applications.</div><br /><b>For other Linux distributions, get the source code via <a href="https://github.com/MaartenBaert/ssr">GitHub</a>.</b>

SimpleScreenRecorder: Powerful Screen Recording Software For Linux

SimpleScreenRecorder is a Qt screen recorder for Linux which, despite its name, comes with more features than other similar tools. The app...

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Fix: Shadow Displayed On Top Of Full-Screen Videos / Windows In Ubuntu 13.04

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>In Ubuntu 13.04, the top Unity panel shadow is displayed on top of full-screen videos / windows</b>.<b> The <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1170958">bug</a> has been fixed a while back but it hasn't landed in Ubuntu 13.04 yet so here are two fixes / workarounds you can use until then.</b><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x-w9o5h4nrY/UZOZQWlgR8I/AAAAAAAAPSE/bQn6LsJPgh8/s1600/unity-video-shadow-bug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x-w9o5h4nrY/UZOZQWlgR8I/AAAAAAAAPSE/bQn6LsJPgh8/s320/unity-video-shadow-bug.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shadow displayed on top of full-screen video</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The <b>first workaround is very simple but it's only useful for videos</b> (the window is unfocused so if you need to type something inside the full-screen app, it won't work, thus it's not very useful for Firefox, text editors, etc.): when playing a video in full-screen, <b>press the Super</b> (Windows logo) <b>key</b> <b>or the Alt key</b> and the shadow displayed at the top of the video should disappear. That's all you have to do, however, remember that you must do this each time you play a full-screen video until this is fixed in Unity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The second workaround removes the panel shadow </b>(even when there are no full-screen windows)<b> and it works with any full-screen window</b>. To apply this work-around, use the following command in a terminal:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo dpkg-divert --local --rename --divert /usr/share/unity/6/panel-shadow.png_disabled --add /usr/share/unity/6/panel-shadow.png</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Then, you need to restart Unity</b> so either press ALT + F2 and enter: "unity" or log out and log back in.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Workaround thanks to <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1170958">bwat47</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If later on you want to revert this change and get the Unity panel shadow back, use the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo dpkg-divert --local --rename --remove /usr/share/unity/6/panel-shadow.png</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;">And once again, restart Unity by pressing ALT + F2 and entering "unity" or log out.</div>

Fix: Shadow Displayed On Top Of Full-Screen Videos / Windows In Ubuntu 13.04

In Ubuntu 13.04, the top Unity panel shadow is displayed on top of full-screen videos / windows . The bug has been fixed a while back but ...

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Convert Audio, Video, Image And Document Files With FF Multi Converter

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ffmulticonverter/home">FF Multi Converter</a> is a utility that allows you to convert audio, video, image and document files between various formats, using tools such as FFmpeg, unoconv and PythonMagick.</b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/ffmulticonvert.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="ff multi convert" border="0" height="227" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QF7lWby24vA/UWKzfZ45hxI/AAAAAAAAO5E/9XxNny6DMgU/s320/ffmulticonvert.png" title="ff multi converter" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /><a name='more'></a><b>FF Multi Converter supports the following formats:</b><br /><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">audio/video: aac, ac3, afc, aiff, amr, asf, au, avi, dvd, flac, flv, mka, mkv, mmf, mov, mp3, mp4, mpg, ogg, ogv, psp, rm, spx, vob, wav, webm, wma, wmv;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">image: bmp, cgm, dpx, emf, eps, fpx, gif, jbig, jng, jpeg, mrsid, p7, pdf, picon, png, ppm, psd, rad, tga, tif, webp, xpm;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">documents: doc > odt, pdf; html > odt; odp > pdf, ppt; ods > pdf; odt > doc, html, pdf, rtf, sxw, txt, xml; ppt > odp; rtf > odt; sdw > odt; sxw > odt; txt -> odt; xls > ods; xml > doc, odt, pdf.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">FF Multi Converter also comes with quite a few presets (which can be edited and you can also import / export presets) for Android, iPod, Blackberry and more, however, they are a bit confusing and it would be very useful to have a description for each preset.</div><ul style="text-align: justify;"></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">The application tries to display missing dependencies (without which you can't convert to some formats) in the status bar, however, this won't detect if you have FFmpeg built with or without libfaac support for instance so for that you should use the <a href="http://www.medibuntu.org/">Medibuntu</a> repository and install "<i>libavcodec-extra-53</i>".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And speaking of Medibuntu, its current maintainer is looking for new maintainer(s). <b>Unless a new maintainer is found, Medibuntu will stop working</b> soon. More info <a href="https://launchpad.net/medibuntu/+announcement/11219">HERE</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/ffmulticonvert_2.png"><img alt="FF Multi Converter" src="http://img.netupd8.com/ffmulticonvert_2_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>FF Multi Converter 1.5.0</b>, which has been released recently, comes with a <b>new user interface</b> that allows users to select <b>multiple files for conversion</b>, supports <b>drag and drop</b> via file manager or pass the files as command line arguments, <b>parallel conversions</b> so you can converts different formats in the same time (e.g.: convert videos, images and documents simultaneously) and some bug fixes.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install FF Multi Converter in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu users can install the latest FF Multi Converter by using its stable PPA. Add the PPA and install it using the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ffmulticonverter/stable<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter</code></pre><br /><b>Arch Linux </b>users can install FF Multi Converter via <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=54114">AUR</a>.<br /><br /><b>For other Linux distributions, see the FF Multi Converter <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ffmulticonverter/download">download page</a>.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://www.lffl.org/2013/04/ff-multi-converter-150-arriva-la-nuova.html">lffl.org</a></i></div>

Convert Audio, Video, Image And Document Files With FF Multi Converter

FF Multi Converter is a utility that allows you to convert audio, video, image and document files between various formats, using tools such...

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Watch LOVEFiLM, Maxdome And RedBox Videos In Ubuntu Using The Netflix Desktop PPA

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/how-to-use-netflix-in-ubuntu-through.html">Netflix Desktop Ubuntu PPA</a> has been updated with separate packages for LOVEFiLM, RedBox and </b><b><b id="yui_3_5_1_1_1366034780450_969">Maxdome</b>, three video streaming services similar to Netflix.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">LOVEFiLM, Maxdome and RedBox, like Netflix, are on demand TV shows and movie streaming services that require Microsoft's Silverlight plugin to play so they don't work natively under Linux, but thanks to Erich Hoover's custom WINE build, it's now possible to use all these services on Linux.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NwOR8KIw1sQ/UQZyAzEJgVI/AAAAAAAANAQ/mYHt1YhoesI/s1600/lovefilm-silverlight-ubuntu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="LOVEFiLM silverlight ubuntu wine" border="0" height="176" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NwOR8KIw1sQ/UQZyAzEJgVI/AAAAAAAANAQ/mYHt1YhoesI/s320/lovefilm-silverlight-ubuntu.png" title="LOVEFiLM silverlight ubuntu wine" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Installing any of the four supported service packages: Netflix, LOVEFiLM, Maxdome and RedBox will automatically download and install Firefox for WINE (Windows) as well as Microsoft Silverlight, through a package called "wine-browser-installer", so the user doesn't have to configure anything.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once installed, launch Netflix Desktop, LOVEFiLM Desktop, Maxdome Desktop or RedBox Desktop from the menu or Dash and a full-screen Firefox (under WINE) window will be launched with only one tab (and no chrome: no menu, titlebar, tabs, etc.), for the selected service. Then, you can log in and start watching your favourite TV shows or movies, in Linux. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the screenshot above, I've unmaximized the LOVEFiLM Desktop window. If you want to do this, you can press F11 to exit full-screen.</div><br /><br /><h2>Install Netflix, LOVEFiLM, RedBox and Maxdome Desktop in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Compholio PPA, which provides the custom WINE build along with Netflix, LOVEFiLM, </b><b>Maxdome and RedBox Desktop is available for Ubuntu Raring, Quantal, Precise, Oneiric, Natty, Maverick and Lucid. Add it using the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio<br />sudo apt-get update</code></pre><br />Then, <b>install Netflix Desktop</b> using this command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop</code></pre><br />For <b>LOVEFiLM Desktop</b>, use:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install lovefilm-desktop</code></pre><br />For <b>Maxdome Desktop</b>, use:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install maxdome-desktop</code></pre><br />And finally, for <b>RedBox Desktop:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install redbox-desktop</code></pre><br />More about the Netflix Desktop PPA in our initial post: <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/how-to-use-netflix-in-ubuntu-through.html">How To Use Netflix In Ubuntu Through Wine (PPA Available)</a>.<br /><br />Report any bugs you may encounter @ <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/netflix-desktop">Launchpad</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For other Linux distributions, you can get the patched WINE "Compholio" from <a href="http://www.compholio.com/wine-compholio/">HERE</a>.</div>

Watch LOVEFiLM, Maxdome And RedBox Videos In Ubuntu Using The Netflix Desktop PPA

The Netflix Desktop Ubuntu PPA has been updated with separate packages for LOVEFiLM, RedBox and Maxdome , three video streaming services si...

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Install MPlayer With VA-API (Hardware Acceleration For Intel / AMD GPUs) Support In Ubuntu

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>VA-API is an open source library/API which enables hardware accelerated video processing. It uses the GPU to accelerate video processing in order to offload the CPU.</b><br /><br />Supported hardware includes <b>Intel HD Graphics and G45 chipsets and newer</b> as well as <b>AMD Radeon GPUs</b> (there's also a Nvidia VDPAU backend for VA-API). <b>You can find a list of supported hardware, drivers and video codecs <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API#Supported_hardware_and_drivers" rel="nofollow">HERE</a></b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's an example: on my laptop (Ubuntu), the CPU usage is around 40-50% when watching an 1080p H.264 video using MPlayer without VA-API and around 2-5% when watching the same 1080p video using MPlayer with VA-API. You can see some screenshots below:</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/mplayer-novaapi.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="CPU usage: MPlayer without VA-API"><img alt="mplayer without vaapi" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/mplayer-novaapi_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CPU usage: MPlayer without VA-API</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/mplayer-vaapi.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="CPU usage: MPlayer with VA-API (on an Intel GPU)"><img alt="mplayer vaapi" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/mplayer-vaapi_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CPU usage: MPlayer with VA-API</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br /><h2>Install Intel / AMD VA-API drivers in Ubuntu</h2><br />Before installing MPlayer with VA-API support, <b>install the VA-API drivers:</b><br /><br /><b>- for Intel GPUs (for Intel HD Graphics as well as G45 and later):</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install i965-va-driver</code></pre><br /><b>- for AMD Radeon GPUs (you also need the proprietary drivers!):</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install xvba-va-driver</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The Intel VA-API driver is available in the official Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin (and newer) repositories. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Nvidia users: MPlayer supports VDPAU by default so everything you need for hardware accelerated video decoding is already in the repositories. See <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/use-mplayer-with-vaapi-support-hardware.html">THIS</a> old post for more info (unless something has changed, but I can't test it since I have Nvidia Optimus and Bumblebee doesn't support VDPAU). You can also use the "vdpau-va-driver" driver which is a VDPAU-based backend for VA-API and follow use the instructions below to install Mplayer with VA-API.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><h2>Install MPlayer with VA-API support in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">By default, the MPlayer version available in the official Ubuntu repositories doesn't support VA-API, but you can use a PPA which provides custom MPlayer builds with VA-API support.</div><br /><b>To install MPlayer with VA-API support in Ubuntu 13.10, 13.04, 12.10, 12.04 or 11.10, use the following commands:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sander-vangrieken/vaapi<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install mplayer-vaapi</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Once installed, open SMPlayer (or whatever MPlayer GUI you're using: <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/install-gnome-mplayer-107-in-ubuntu-1210.html">Gnome Mplayer</a>, KMPlayer, etc.) and in its Preferences, on the Video tab (in SMPlayer: <i>General Video > Output driver</i>) <b>set the video output driver to "vaapi"</b>:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/smplayer-vaapi.png" rel="image_group" title="SMPlayer VA API video output settings"><img alt="SMPlayer vaapi" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/smplayer-vaapi_thumb.png" /></a></div><br />That's it!<br /><br /><br /><b>Other Linux distributions:</b><br /><ul><li>Arch Linux users can install MPlayer with VA-API support from the <a href="https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/i686/mplayer-vaapi/">community repository</a>.</li><li>The mplayer-vaapi source can be downloaded via <a href="http://gitorious.org/vaapi/mplayer">gitorious.org</a></li></ul><br /><b>Note: I've tested this on an Intel GPU only!</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://help.ubuntu.ru/wiki/%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%BA%D0%B0_hd_%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE">Ubuntu.ru wiki</a></i></div>

Install MPlayer With VA-API (Hardware Acceleration For Intel / AMD GPUs) Support In Ubuntu

VA-API is an open source library/API which enables hardware accelerated video processing. It uses the GPU to accelerate video processing in ...

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Primus: Better Performance And Less Power Consumption For Bumblebee [Optimus Hybrid Graphics Chipsets]

<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Nvidia Optimus is a technology used to increases battery life by switching between two graphics adapters (a low-performance integrated Intel graphics adapter and a high-performance one by Nvidia) within a computer system. Optimus GPU switching is officially only supported on Windows, but it's also unofficially available on Linux thanks to the Bumblebee project.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://github.com/amonakov/primus">Primus</a> brings better performance and less power consumption when using <a href="http://www.bumblebee-project.org/">Bumblebee</a></b>, by replacing VirtualGL. According to the Bumblebee <a href="http://www.bumblebee-project.org/g+">G+</a> page, this has the following <b>advantages over the optirun (VirtualGL) solution</b> used by default in Bumblebee:</div><a name='more'></a><ul><li>Less overhead (better framerates) and cleaner solution (no networking or compression involved at all)</li><li>Fixes the "bug" that causes Bumblebee to shut down the GPU too early sometimes (no more need for the "optirun bash" workaround)</li><li>Less buggy/glitchy, easier to debug</li><li>Only uses/starts secondary GPU for OpenGL parts of applications - everything else remains on your main GPU (power savings)</li></ul><br />The Bumblebee developers explain what Primus does and the difference between Primus / optirun in simple terms in a comment on their G+ page:<br /><br /><blockquote>Bumblebee uses VirtualGL to copy the image generated by the second (faster) GPU to your display. VirtualGL was intended for use over a network though, so it takes a great many steps to enable this (compression, sending the image over a network link, decompression, etc).<br /><br />Primus doesn't perform all these "extra" steps, instead taking a more direct route (copying the rendered image in memory to the other GPU, then displaying there). In theory this should get you better performance as well as better compatibility. Running applications will "see" the OpenGL implementation of your real hardware, nothing virtual is presented to them.</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For comparison, here are the framerates I get on my laptop when using the integrated Intel graphics, when using the Nvidia graphics card using optirun and using primusrun (this is just for FPS and not an indicator for the whole performance!): </div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/glxspheres-regular.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Using integrated (Intel) graphics"><img alt="glxspheres intel gpu" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/glxspheres-regular_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Integrated (Intel) graphics</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/glxspheres-optirun.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Using optirun (default in Bumblebee) with Nvidia GPU"><img alt="glxspheres optirun bumblebee" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/glxspheres-optirun_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">optirun (default in Bumblebee) using the Nvidia GPU</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/glxspheres-primus.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Using Primus with Nvidia GPU - best performance of the 3"><img alt="glxspheres primusrun bumblebee" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/glxspheres-primus_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Primus using the Nvidia GPU</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">As you can see, the FPS using  Primus is a lot better than using the integrated graphics or using optirun with the Nvidia GPU.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Note: I've used "vblank_mode=0 primusrun" instead of simply running "primusrun" because that was recommended by the Primus GitHub page for benchmarking. Without it, I get just 60 FPS because of vblank synchronisation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Update: Primus has been integrated into Bumblebee and is now available in the Bumblebee Ubuntu PPA.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to install Primus for Bumblebee in Ubuntu</h2><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Update: <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/02/bumblebee-31-released-with-primus.html">Primus is now available in the Bumblebee Stable PPA</a>. To add the Bumblebee PPA and install Primus and Bumblebee, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus</code></pre><b>64bit: </b>you also need to install the "primus-libs-ia32:i386" package:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install primus-libs-ia32:i386</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For other Linux distributions, see the <a href="http://bumblebee-project.org/install.html">Bumblebee Wiki</a> for installation instructions.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Once installed, use "primusrun APP", to launch an application or game</b> - this works just like the "optirun" command available in Bumblebee ("APP" is the application or game executable which you want to run using the Nvidia GPU). You can also use "<b>bumblebee -b primus APP</b>".</div>

Primus: Better Performance And Less Power Consumption For Bumblebee [Optimus Hybrid Graphics Chipsets]

Nvidia Optimus is a technology used to increases battery life by switching between two graphics adapters (a low-performance integrated Intel...

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How To Use Netflix In Ubuntu Through Wine (PPA Available)

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Netflix is finally working on Linux! No, there's no native Linux Netflix application, but with a patched Wine build, you can now use Netflix under Linux.</b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a title="Netflix on Ubuntu" href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/netflix-ubuntu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" rel="image_group"><img alt="netflix ubuntu" border="0" height="180" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/netflix-ubuntu_thumb.jpg" title="netflix ubuntu" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Thanks to a campaign by <a href="http://www.iheartubuntu.com/">IHeartUbuntu</a> to get Netflix running on Ubuntu and the work of Erich Hoover, Ubuntu users can now use Netflix through Wine (with some patches) and Microsoft Silverlight, all installable from a PPA.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For those who are not familiar with <a href="https://netflix.com/" rel="nofollow">Netflix</a>, this is an on-demand TV shows & movies streaming service available in USA, Canada, South America, UK, Ireland, Sweden, Danmark, Norway and Finland.</i></div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Netflix Desktop application (with patched Wine) in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a title="Netflix on Ubuntu" rel="image_group" href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/netflix-ubuntu-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="netflix ubuntu" border="0" height="200" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/netflix-ubuntu-1_thumb.png" title="netflix ubuntu" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I like to test everything I post, but <b>since Netflix is not available where I live, I was unable to test this</b>. Hopefully it will work for you using the instructions below.</div><br /><b>To add the PPA and install the patched WINE and everything required to use Netflix in Ubuntu Raring, Quantal, Precise or Oneiric, use the commands below:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The commands above will install a patched WINE which doesn't overwrite your current Wine installation, along with a Netflix web app that automatically downloads and installs Firefox for Windows and Microsoft Silverlight. The Netflix app is available for both 32bit and 64bit while the patched Wine package is only available for 32bit, but it should work on 64bit thanks to Ubuntu's multi-arch support.</div><br /><b>If you get the following error on 64bit: </b><br /><pre class="source-code"><code>netflix-desktop : Depends: wine-compholio (> 1.5.16) but it is not installable</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;">make sure the universe, multiverse and restricted repositories are enabled via Software Sources (on the first tab). To open Software Sources in Ubuntu 12.10, go to <i>System Settings > Software Sources</i> or, in Ubuntu 12.04 or older, you can access it via Ubuntu <i>Software Center > Edit menu > Software Sources</i>. Then run an "sudo apt-get update" and try to install netflix-desktop again and it <a href="http://i.imgur.com/63LAA.png" rel="nofollow">should work</a>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Once installed, you can launch the Netflix Desktop web app through Dash / the menu</b>. By default, the application runs in full screen but you can exit full screen mode by pressing F11.</div><br /><br /><h2>Using Netflix Desktop app & patched Wine in other Linux distributions</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For other Linux distributions</b>: to get Netflix to work, see the instructions available @ <a href="http://www.iheartubuntu.com/2012/11/netflix-on-ubuntu-is-here.html">iheartubuntu.com</a> and <a href="http://www.compholio.com/wine-compholio/">compholio.com</a> (use the patches from compholio!).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fuduntu users: the patched Wine is <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/113644080780903084842/posts/UzD5cXDgirn">already available</a> in the Fuduntu repositories, so all you have to do is install Firefox for Windows and Microsoft Silverlight to be able to use Netflix.<br /><br />For <b>Arch Linux</b>, Netflix Desktop can be installed via <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/netflix-desktop/">AUR</a>.</div><br /><br /><h2>Using the custom Netflix Wine build for other websites that require Silverlight</h2><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a title="Silverlight in Firefox under Wine" rel="image_group" href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/firefox-wine-silverlight-ubuntu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="firefox ubuntu silverlight" border="0" height="168" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/firefox-wine-silverlight-ubuntu_thumb.png" title="firefox ubuntu silverlight" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Tip: since the Netflix Desktop web app comes with just a window titlebar (no menu, tabs, address bar, etc.), if you want to use this custom Wine build with other websites that require the Microsoft Silverlight plugin, launch Firefox for Windows (Wine) from the newly created desktop shortcut. Or, to launch it from Unity's Dash, search for "Mozilla Firefox" (the native Firefox application for Linux should show up as "Mozilla Firefox Browser" so the names are not identical).<br /><br />Alternatively, in the Netflix Desktop web app, you can use F11 (to exit full screen), then press ALT + V and from the <i>View > Toolbar</i> menu, enable the Menu Bar and Navigation Toolbar.</div><br /><b>Update:</b> the Netflix Desktop app for Ubuntu has a Launchpad page now, so if you encounter bugs, report them @ <a href="http://bugs.launchpad.net/netflix-desktop">http://bugs.launchpad.net/netflix-desktop</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>thanks to <a href="http://www.iheartubuntu.com/2012/11/ppa-for-netflix-desktop-app.html">iheartubuntu.com</a> for the info and screenshots</i></div>

How To Use Netflix In Ubuntu Through Wine (PPA Available)

Netflix is finally working on Linux! No, there's no native Linux Netflix application, but with a patched Wine build, you can now use Net...

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XBMC Media Center 12.0 Beta 1 Released With Raspberry PI And Android Support

<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://xbmc.org/">XBMC</a> Media Center, a free, open source digital media hub and HTPC (Home theatre PC) software has <a href="http://xbmc.org/natethomas/2012/11/15/xbmc-12-0-frodo-beta-1/">reached</a> version 12.0 beta 1. <b> </b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Besides new features and improvements, the latest XBMC 12.0 beta 1 codenamed "Frodo" is now available on some new platforms like Raspberry PI or Android.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12.png"><img alt="Xbmc 12 Ubuntu" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><b>Here's what's new in the latest XBMC 12.0 beta 1:</b><br /><ul><li>HD audio support, including DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD, via the new XBMC AudioEngine</li><li>Live TV and <a href="http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PVR/Backend">PVR</a> (personal video recorder) support. This allows users with a TV tuner to watch live TV, listen to radio, view an EPG, schedule recordings, and more</li><li>h.264 10bit (aka Hi10P) video software decoding for anime</li><li>64bit support in OSX to match the 64bit support in Linux</li><li>Improved image support, allowing the database to accommodate numerous additional image types</li><li>Improved Airplay support across all platforms</li><li>Advanced Filtering in the library</li><li>Advanced UPnP sharing</li><li>Raspberry PI is now fully supported</li><li>Initial support for Android</li><li>More </li></ul><br /><br />Below you can see a few XBMC 12.0 beta 1 (running in Ubuntu) screenshots:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-video.png"><img alt="XBMC 12.0 Ubuntu" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-video_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-video-addons.png"><img alt="XBMC 12.0 Ubuntu" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-video-addons_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-music.png"><img alt="XBMC 12.0 Ubuntu" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-music_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-pvr.png"><img alt="XBMC 12.0 live video pvr" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-12-pvr_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install XBMC 12.0 beta 1 in Ubuntu</h2><br /><b>The latest XBMC 12.0 beta 1 can be installed in Ubuntu (12.10, 12.04 or 11.10) using the following commands:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/unstable<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install xbmc</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Even though XBMC 12.0 beta 1 comes with initial Android support, <b>there are no Android builds available on XBMC download page</b> and the XBMC Android <a href="http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_for_Android_specific_FAQ">FAQ</a> advices the users to compile it. But if you want to download pre-built Android binaries, <b>you can download XBMC 12.0 for Android from <a href="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=29737205">xda-developers</a></b>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Here are a few <b>screenshots with XBMC 12.0 running</b> on my <b>Android</b> phone:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-android.png"><img alt="Xbmc android" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-android_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-android_2.png"><img alt="XBMC android" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-android_2_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-android_3.png"><img alt="XBMC Android" src="http://netupd8.com/w8img2/xbmc-android_3_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>For other Linux distributions, Windows, Mac OSX, iOS and AppleTV2, see the XBMC <a href="http://xbmc.org/download/">downloads page</a>.</b>

XBMC Media Center 12.0 Beta 1 Released With Raspberry PI And Android Support

XBMC Media Center, a free, open source digital media hub and HTPC (Home theatre PC) software has reached version 12.0 beta 1. Besides ne...

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Kazam Screencaster 1.3.2 Gets New UI, Screenshots Support

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A new Kazam Screencaster version has been released today, which brings a complete UI overhaul, support for taking screenshots and other new features</b>.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Kazam is a screen recording tool - or better said, it was, because with the latest 1.3.2 version, it's not just for screencasts and it can be used to take screenshots as well: fullscreen (current monitor), all screens, window or area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new version also brings a new user interface which lets you easily switch between the screencast and screenshot mode:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FOEP7K28WOI/UJEYdOCVOHI/AAAAAAAALc8/eB_9MOaul_Y/s1600/kazam_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FOEP7K28WOI/UJEYdOCVOHI/AAAAAAAALc8/eB_9MOaul_Y/s320/kazam_1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q0Kj4TNwIfI/UJEYd8kSP0I/AAAAAAAALdA/uayiDT5UFXg/s1600/kazam_screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q0Kj4TNwIfI/UJEYd8kSP0I/AAAAAAAALdA/uayiDT5UFXg/s320/kazam_screenshot.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The encoder type, framerate and other options have been moved from the main window to a new preferences dialog:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O14JWpqwF3w/UJEYiJwTj5I/AAAAAAAALdM/fh1DzkLmcbE/s1600/kazam_3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O14JWpqwF3w/UJEYiJwTj5I/AAAAAAAALdM/fh1DzkLmcbE/s320/kazam_3.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In the preferences, you can select the speakers and microphone source, enable/disable the countdown splash, set the framerate, encoding type, if the files should be automatically saved, the directory where to save the files and the filename prefix. There's also an option to set the screenshot shutter sound (or to turn it off).</div><br /><br /><b>Other changes in Kazam Screencaster 1.3.2:</b><br /><ul><li>Support for Gstreamer 1.0</li><li>Automatic file saving. You can set the prefix filename separately for screenshots and screencasts</li><li>Support for selecting a single window to screencast</li><li>Theme-able shutter sounds. Included sounds: Canon 7D and Nikon D80.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The latest Kazam should also support keyboard shortcuts:</b></div><ul><li>start recording: Super + Control + r</li><li>pause recording: Super + Control + p</li><li>finish recording: Super + Control + f</li><li>show Kazam: Super + Control + s</li><li>quit: Super + Control + q</li></ul><br /><br />If you want to see some screencasts recorded using Kazam, take a look at our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvLwRGg6r3s">Lubuntu 12.10</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzkJ-zaa1bc">Xubuntu 12.10</a> videos.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Kazam Screencaster in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To add the stable Kazam PPA and install it in Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 or 12.04, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazam-team/stable-series<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install kazam</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For other Linux distributions, you can download Kazam Screencaster via <a href="https://launchpad.net/kazam/+download">Launchpad</a>.</div><br />Report any bugs you may find @ <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/kazam">Launchpad</a>.

Kazam Screencaster 1.3.2 Gets New UI, Screenshots Support

A new Kazam Screencaster version has been released today, which brings a complete UI overhaul, support for taking screenshots and other new ...

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How To Enable Intel SNA Acceleration In Ubuntu

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SNA</b> is a 2D acceleration architecture for the open source Intel Linux graphics driver that provides improved X.Org driver performance, and thus, better desktop user experience. The name stands for "Sandy Bridge New Acceleration" and contrary to its name, it not just for Sandy Bridge but for previous Intel graphics generations as well.<br /><br /><b>Here's how to enable Intel SNA in Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10.</b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the x.org wiki (<a href="http://www.x.org/wiki/IntelGraphicsDriver">link</a>; <a href="http://bit.ly/RgEm7e">cached copy</a> since the page seems down right now), SNA should work with i830-i865G and newer Intel chipsets.</div><br />You can see some old UXA (used by default) vs SNA benchmarks at <a href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_glamor_first&num=1">Phoronix</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dzdps9WNyvg/UIfrdRITYTI/AAAAAAAALPw/1wVWV6Q8OmM/s1600/intel-sna.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="intel sna ubuntu" border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dzdps9WNyvg/UIfrdRITYTI/AAAAAAAALPw/1wVWV6Q8OmM/s320/intel-sna.png" title="intel sna ubuntu" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Enable Intel SNA in Ubuntu 12.10</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Intel SNA is available in Ubuntu 12.10 without installing any extra packages, but it's not enabled by default. </b></div><br />To enable SNA, you need to create a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf</code></pre><br />And paste the following:<br /><br /><pre class="source-code"><code>Section "Device"<br />        Identifier "intel"<br />        Driver "intel"<br />        Option "AccelMethod" "sna"<br />EndSection</code></pre><br />Then save the file, log out and log back in.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In my test (using an Intel HD 3000 GPU), there were some artefacts when using Intel SNA in Ubuntu 12.10, which don't occur after adding the Xorg Edgers PPA so if that's the case for you too, follow the steps under the alternative method below.</div><br />Or, if you just want to revert the changes, remove the xorg.conf file:<br /><pre class="source-code"><code>sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf</code></pre><br />Then log out and log back in.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Enable Intel SNA in Ubuntu 12.04 (alternative method for Ubuntu 12.10)</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For Ubuntu 12.04</b> (<b>or for Ubuntu 12.10</b>, if the method above doesn't work properly for you), you can use the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa">Xorg Edgers PPA</a> which has packages with <b>SNA enabled by default for Intel.</b></div><b><br /></b> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Warning:</b> <i>this PPA uses Xorg packages from GIT and while I didn't encounter any issues (I've used it for Ubuntu 12.04 and I'm using it now in Ubuntu 12.10), things may break. Use it at your own risk!</i></div><br />Add the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa">Xorg Edgers PPA</a> using the following command:<br /><pre class="source-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Then launch the Update Manager (now called Software Updater in Ubuntu 12.10) and update your system. Once the update finishes, log out and log back in (though a restart is probably better since this PPA upgrades many system packages).</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you want to revert the changes and go back to the drivers available in the official Ubuntu repositories, firstly <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/install-ppa-purge-with-multi-arch.html">install ppa-purge with multi-arch support</a>, then run the following command:</div><pre class="source-code"><code>sudo ppa-purge ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa</code></pre><br />

How To Enable Intel SNA Acceleration In Ubuntu

SNA is a 2D acceleration architecture for the open source Intel Linux graphics driver that provides improved X.Org driver performance, and ...

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Alternative YouTube Video Lens Updated With Previews, More [Ubuntu 12.10]

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sSkIFOo9HTM/UHQAJBK9JGI/AAAAAAAAKjg/vyb74J8UH5Q/s1600/youtube-scope_11.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sSkIFOo9HTM/UHQAJBK9JGI/AAAAAAAAKjg/vyb74J8UH5Q/s320/youtube-scope_11.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">A <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/01/youtube-scope-for-unity-video-lens-with.html">while back</a>, <a href="http://www.atareao.es/">Lorenzo</a> has created an alternative video lens and YouTube scope for Unity, which can be used to easily search and play YouTube videos using an external player of your choice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Unity in Ubuntu 12.10 does have its own video lens, but it only supports YouTube Shows, Movies and Educations, so most YouTube results won't show up in the default Ubuntu video lens.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Lorenzo's YouTube lens/scope has been updated for Ubuntu 12.10 recently, getting proper video previews</b> (I say "proper" because the default Ubuntu 12.10 video lens previews are kind of broken) which display the license, view count, likes and dislikes, the video description along with a video image and options to play the video using the player selected from the YouTube scope settings or open it in a web browser - check it out:</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7z3Gouw_CtA/UHQAQCX9QeI/AAAAAAAAKjo/vnl1is8_kJA/s1600/youtube-scope_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7z3Gouw_CtA/UHQAQCX9QeI/AAAAAAAAKjo/vnl1is8_kJA/s320/youtube-scope_2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For those not familiar with this YouTube scope, besides being able to easily search for YouTube videos,<b> it comes with a tool that lets you select an external player for viewing YouTube videos</b>, so you don't have to open your browser (and without Flash). In the latest version, more players are supported and <b>you can download videos as well</b>, feature for which <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/update-youtube-dl-to-get-it-working.html">youtube-dl</a>, a command line tool to download YouTube videos, is used.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fdh-D8OCb3I/UHQAe_dcumI/AAAAAAAAKjw/LkkkjSBejdQ/s1600/youtube-scope-gui.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fdh-D8OCb3I/UHQAe_dcumI/AAAAAAAAKjw/LkkkjSBejdQ/s320/youtube-scope-gui.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>The new version also comes with speed improvements and better search results, along with other new features, such as:</b><br /><ul><li>filter videos by length (short: less than four minutes, medium: less than twenty minutes, long: videos longer than twenty minutes)</li><li>filters for HD or 3D videos</li><li>new supported video players like Totem or SMPlayer</li><li>option to download videos which supports selecting the downloaded video format</li></ul><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install YouTube scope/lens in Ubuntu 12.10</h2><br /><b>Add the PPA and install the alternative YouTube scope/lens in Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal using the following commands:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/lenses <br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install yavol scope-youtube youtube-dl</code></pre><br /><b>Once installed, restart Unity:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>setsid unity</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To configure which video player to use for viewing YouTube videos, launch Yavol from Dash</b> (shows up as "yavol-scope-youtube-configurator"). In my test, VLC didn't work properly, so I suggest using something like Totem or Minitube to play the videos.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://www.atareao.es/ubuntu/unity/scope-youtube-yavol-quantal-quetzal-y-previews/">atareao.es</a></i></div>

Alternative YouTube Video Lens Updated With Previews, More [Ubuntu 12.10]

A while back , Lorenzo has created an alternative video lens and YouTube scope for Unity, which can be used to easily search and play YouTu...

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Easily Create Animated GIF Images From Videos With Video2Gif

<div style="text-align: justify;">There are <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/107726/how-to-create-animated-gif-images-of-a-screencast" rel="nofollow">various</a> <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=747523" rel="nofollow">ways</a> of creating animated GIF images from video files under Linux, but most require cutting the video into images, then combining the images using GIMP or some other tools, but here's an easy way that only requires selecting the video, and optionally, changing the frame rate: <b>Video 2 Gif</b>.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tekPMoKFSqI/UFHEkuLdY1I/AAAAAAAAKFo/TE_j9OIZFjY/s1600/video2gif.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="video2gif" border="0" height="175" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tekPMoKFSqI/UFHEkuLdY1I/AAAAAAAAKFo/TE_j9OIZFjY/s320/video2gif.png" title="video2gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Video 2 Gif is a python tool created by Lorenzo from <a href="http://www.atareao.es/">atareao.es</a> which uses Mplayer to convert the video to GIF and lets you configure the start and end frame, video size and the frame rate</b>. It doesn't have many options, just the basics that allow you to create an animated GIF image from a video in seconds.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To see GIF created using Video2Gif from an YouTube video, click <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s6aB-D5hZQY/UFHXPJAL5OI/AAAAAAAAKGM/eUH287pKYDs/s1600/RObotzi_S01_Ep.15_Kidnapare.gif">HERE</a> (I've used 3 frames per second). The quality isn't great, but you can get better quality by using a higher frame rate (though this will increase the GIF file size). The GIF quality also depends a lot on the source video, so you'll get mixed results, depending on what video you use.</div><br />Before downloading and using Video 2 Gif, make sure you have mplayer installed:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install mplayer</code></pre><br />Then, <b>download Video2Gif from here: <a href="http://webupd8.googlecode.com/files/video2gif_0.1.tar.gz">English</a> | <a href="http://www.atareao.es/ubuntu/software-para-tu-ubuntu/como-crear-una-imagen-gif-animada-de-un-video/">Spanish<br /></a></b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Once downloaded, extract the archive, double click "video2gif", select "Run" and you're ready to convert a video to GIF. The tool doesn't have a progress bar so once you click "OK", wait until Video 2 Gif closes!</div><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Thanks to Lorenzo @ <a href="http://www.atareao.es/ubuntu/software-para-tu-ubuntu/como-crear-una-imagen-gif-animada-de-un-video/">Atareao.es</a> for Video 2 Gif!</i></div>

Easily Create Animated GIF Images From Videos With Video2Gif

There are various ways of creating animated GIF images from video files under Linux, but most require cutting the video into images, then ...

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Get HDMI Working With Nvidia Optimus On Ubuntu By Using Bumblebee And Synergy

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>HDMI doesn't work with Optimus hybrid graphics chipsets under Linux for most laptops, even if you use Bumblebee, but there is a way to get HDMI to work: by using a separate session.</b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Using the instructions below, you'll get an LXDE session (you can use XFCE or others, but the instructions below are for LXDE) to show up on the external monitor (which is connected via HDMI), and in this session, all the applications you launch use your laptop's Nvidia graphics card and you can play games, watch movies, etc. The LXDE session runs in the same time as your regular session, so on your laptop's screen you get your regular (main) session. Also, the mouse and keyboard are shared between the two sessions / monitors.</div><br />Here's how this looks like:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D5QhFODEaLc/UDFTFmHI8rI/AAAAAAAAJuY/XLyI8E5dObk/s1600/dell-xps.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D5QhFODEaLc/UDFTFmHI8rI/AAAAAAAAJuY/XLyI8E5dObk/s320/dell-xps.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fq-zGu1VVcg/UDFTHM8t7oI/AAAAAAAAJug/CoDHcZEiE3M/s1600/lxde-hdmi.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fq-zGu1VVcg/UDFTHM8t7oI/AAAAAAAAJug/CoDHcZEiE3M/s320/lxde-hdmi.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The first image above is from my laptop's screen (Dell XPS L702X which comes with Nvidia Optimus) while the second image is the separate LXDE session which is also running on my laptop, but is displayed on a TV connected via HDMI. As you can see, the first one is using the Intel graphics chip while the second one uses Nvidia.</div><br /><br />However, there are some things to consider when using this:<br /><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">the sound won't work (if you know a way to get it to work, please let us know in the comments!) through HDMI so you'll only get sound through your laptop's speakers</li><li style="text-align: justify;">you can't move a window from your current desktop to the monitor connected via HDMI. The only way to run applications on the device connected via HDMI is to either run it from its session menu, or by using "export DISPLAY=:8.0" (see the end of the post for more info on this). The mouse is however, shared between the two desktops.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">when loading the extra session, you may get double indicators / tray icons on your current (main) session. There is a way around this though (see the "tips" section at the end of the post)</li></ul><br /><br /><br /><h2>Get HDMI to work with laptops using the Optimus technology under Ubuntu using Bumblebee and Synergy</h2><br /><b>1.</b> <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee">Install Bumblebee</a> if you haven't already.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> Unity doesn't work with Bumblebee (and I'm not sure if you can run two sessions using the same window manager without them interfering anyway), so you'll need to use a different desktop environment / session, like LXDE, XFCE and so on - use whatever you want. I've used LXDE so using the instructions below, you'll get an LXDE session on the monitor connected via HDMI.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To get the mouse and keyboard working on the external monitor connected via HDMI we'll use Synergy, a tool that lets you share the mouse and keyboard between multiple computers.</div><br /><b>Let's install the required packages (LXDE and Synergy):</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install synergy lxde lxde-common</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>3.</b> To be able to use Synergy, you'll need to create a configuration file. You can download mine from <a href="http://webupd8.googlecode.com/files/synergy.conf">HERE</a> - copy the file to your home folder and rename it to ".synergy.conf" (notice the dot in front of the filename - that makes the file become hidden).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The file I've provided above should be enough, but if you want to change it, you can read about the Synergy configuration file <a href="http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/configuration.html">here</a>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>4.</b> To start LXDE on the external monitor connected via HDMI, you can use a script which you can download from <a href="http://webupd8.googlecode.com/files/hdmi-0.1.tar.gz">HERE</a>. Extract the archive, copy the "hdmi" script to your home folder and make it executable using the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>chmod +x ~/hdmi</code></pre><br />Now, to run the script, use the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>~/hdmi</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">LXDE should now start on the external monitor connected via HDMI. Give it some time (around 10 seconds) and moving your mouse to the left of your screen should make it show up on the HDMI device.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's what the script does (this is just an explaination, you don't need to run these commands, just use the above script):</div><br />- exports the display to the one we're going to use for the HDMI monitor (8):<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>export DISPLAY=:8.0</code></pre><br />- runs LXDE with optirun (Bumblebee):<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>optirun startlxde &</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">- runs the Synergy server in the foreground on the main display (on your laptop's main session) with 127.0.0.1 as the address: </div><pre class="linux-code"><code>synergys -f -a 127.0.0.1 --display :0 -n ubuntu &</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">- runs the Synergy client in the foreground on the HDMI display and it connects it to the 127.0.0.1 server address:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>synergyc -f -n hdmi --display :8 127.0.0.1 &</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">And finally, it exports the display back to your laptop's (main) display:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>export DISPLAY=:0.0</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The script also uses some "sleep" commands which add a delay to make sure the commands have enough time to get executed before running the next command.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Tips</h2><br /><b>Launching applications:</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To launch an application on the monitor connected via HDMI, you can use the LXDE menu on the external monitor or use the following command on your main session:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>export DISPLAY=:8.0 APPLICATION</code></pre>where "APPLICATION" is the executable name for the app you want to launch.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Optionally, you can also run "export DISPLAY=:8.0" in a terminal window on your main session, and then all the applications you launch from that terminal window should show up on the external monitor.</div><br /><br /><b>Configuring your Nvidia graphics card:</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Using the above instructions to launch applications on the external monitor, you can launch "nvidia-settings" (if you're using the proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers):</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>export DISPLAY=:8.0 nvidia-settings</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;">Launching this on your laptop session displays an error message saying that you're not using Nvidia drivers, but launching in on the HDMI-connected device (which uses Bumblebee with "optirun"), you can configure various Nvidia settings: the screen resolution, etc.</div><br /><br /><b>Fixing double autostart applications / tray icons:</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To avoid getting double indicators (two network indicators, etc.) in your regular session when launching the extra LXDE session, you can make all autostart applications / applets to not load in our LXDE session, using the following commands:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>for f in /etc/xdg/autostart/*; do if [[ ! `grep "NotShowIn=LXDE" $f` ]]; then echo "NotShowIn=LXDE;" | sudo tee -a $f; fi; done<br />for f in ~/.config/autostart/*; do if [[ ! `grep "NotShowIn=LXDE" $f` ]]; then echo "NotShowIn=LXDE;" | tee -a $f; fi; done</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">You can also do this manually, by going to <i>/etc/xdg/autostart</i> and <i>~/.config/autostart</i> and adding "NotShowIn=LXDE;" (without the quotes) to each .desktop file corresponding to the application(s) you don't want to start in LXDE. More about using NotShowIn and OnlyShowIn, <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2011/11/make-applications-autostart-only-in.html" title="Make Applications Autostart Only In A Certain Environment (GNOME, Unity, KDE, Etc.)">HERE</a>.</div><br /><br />References:<br /><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee-Old-and-abbandoned/issues/75#issuecomment-2797298">https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee-Old-and-abbandoned/issues/75#issuecomment-2797298</a></li><li><a href="http://itviking.net/blog/m11xr3-bumblebee-and-the-dual-screen-setup">http://itviking.net/blog/m11xr3-bumblebee-and-the-dual-screen-setup</a></li></ul>

Get HDMI Working With Nvidia Optimus On Ubuntu By Using Bumblebee And Synergy

HDMI doesn't work with Optimus hybrid graphics chipsets under Linux for most laptops, even if you use Bumblebee, but there is a way to g...

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Fix MP4 Playback In Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 [Gstreamer Bug Affecting Totem, Minitube, Etc.]

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UhVm6NJdRbo/T-2UA4fTdHI/AAAAAAAAJNQ/P6Pmi6J6-q4/s1600/mp4-playback-gstreamer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="mp4 playback gstreamer" border="0" height="206" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UhVm6NJdRbo/T-2UA4fTdHI/AAAAAAAAJNQ/P6Pmi6J6-q4/s320/mp4-playback-gstreamer.png" title="mp4 playback gstreamer" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>There's a GStreamer <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gst-plugins-bad0.10/+bug/973014">bug</a> </b>(in the gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad package)<b> in the latest Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin and other possibly distros that breaks MPEG4 (.mp4) playback</b> for applications such as Totem, Minitube and others.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Luckily, there's a<b> work-around for getting MP4 playback working (tested under Ubuntu 12.04)</b> - renaming the "libgstvideoparsersbad.so" file:</div><br /><a name='more'></a><b>- 32bit:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo mv /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so.bak</code></pre><b>- 64bit:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo mv /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so.bak</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">That's it, MP4 videos should now work under Ubuntu 12.04. There aren't any visible side effects to using this work-around, but in case you find one, you can simply rename "libgstvideoparsersbad.so.bak" back to "libgstvideoparsersbad.so".</div><br />Update: this bug still exists in <b>Ubuntu 12.10</b> and the above workaround works for Quantal Quetzal.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">And speaking of Minitube, there's a new version out, available in the main WebUpd8 PPA: <a href="http://ppa.webupd8.org/post/26136750530/minitube-1-8-0-released-with-quicklists-support">Minitube 1.8.0 Released With Quicklists Support, Compact Mode</a>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://flavio.tordini.org/forums/topic/gstreamer-bug-affecting-ubuntu-12-04-and-other-recent-linux-distributions">Minitube forums</a></i></div>

Fix MP4 Playback In Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 [Gstreamer Bug Affecting Totem, Minitube, Etc.]

There's a GStreamer bug (in the gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad package) in the latest Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin and other possibly dist...

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