X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/ca6e2f2e9925f2802157cd3f333af475b71e405b..0ef8c8a0a862a1038c25839b1e02ed3e60d9c40b:/blog/archive/2016/06/06.rss diff --git a/blog/archive/2016/06/06.rss b/blog/archive/2016/06/06.rss index 93fbcee37c..9f735bec00 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2016/06/06.rss +++ b/blog/archive/2016/06/06.rss @@ -6,6 +6,47 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html + Mon, 6 Jun 2016 12:50:00 +0200 + <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out +<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which +multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats / +MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types +the various players claimed support for. The range was from 55 to 130 +MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all +players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in +their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types +listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p> + +<p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of +the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files, +and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my +favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable +yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the +<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia +player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p> + +<p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by +totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and +kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support +several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc, +toten and parole.</p> + +<p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as +supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their +desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl, +audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg, +video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska, +video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find +it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media +players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both +formats.</p> + + + A program should be able to open its own files on Linux http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html @@ -38,7 +79,7 @@ while back I discovered that the screencast recorder gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand such file. I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt> -returning the application/ogg mime type, which no video player I had +returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked @@ -57,10 +98,10 @@ how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p> <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types. -There are two sources for a given files MIME type. The output from +There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the -shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file mime -type is mapped to programs supporting the mime type, and this +shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME +type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this information is collected from <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is @@ -68,10 +109,10 @@ one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general -this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good mime +this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME type (preferably <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a -MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared mime +MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>