Multimedia

Ubuntu strives to make all software that meets the licensing terms in the Ubuntu License Policy available. However patent and copyright restrictions complicate free operating systems distributing software to support proprietary formats.

Ubuntu's commitment to only include completely free software by default means that proprietary media formats are not configured 'out of the box'.

Ubuntu can play the most popular non-free media formats, including DVD, MP3, Quicktime, Windows Media, and more by following the instructions below. If this seems like unnecessary work, remember that Ubuntu is limited by patents and license restrictions in some countries, which make it illegal for Ubuntu to include them. Avoid formats suppressed by DRM (Digital Rights Management, or Digital Restrictions Management), as they are often unplayable.

See Ubuntu's Free Software Philosophy and the Free Formats page for a more comprehensive discussion of these issues.

• Legal Notice Patent and copyright laws operate differently depending on which country you are in. Please obtain legal advice if you are unsure whether a particular patent or restriction applies to a media format you wish to use in your country.

Playing Restricted Formats

Follow these steps to play most common multimedia formats, including MP3, DVD, Flash, Quicktime, WMA and WMV, including both standalone files and content embedded in web pages.

Ubuntu 7.04

• Click Applications → Add/Remove. In the top right, change the setting to All available applications. Then select Other in the left panel and then select the Ubuntu restricted extras package. Click OK.

• To play most DVDs you'll need the libdvdcss2 package. This package is available using Medibuntu. This is a third party package, and not supported by Canonical.

Note: If DVD playback fails, and you've never played any DVD before on your system, you may need the regionset package to initially set the drives region.

• Some external codecs may be needed in order to play certain proprietary formats such as Apple Quicktime or RealVideo. These external codecs are available in the third-party repository of Medibuntu.

Ubuntu 6.06 and 6.10

Install the following packages to play most proprietary formats using the Totem and Rhythmbox applications, both of which are included in Ubuntu by default. Since the version of Totem that comes with Ubuntu does not yet play DVDs, the list below also includes packages for the GXine and Ogle players, which do.

• Ensure the relevant repositories are enabled. Click System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager → Settings → Repositories and then click Add. Check the Community maintained (Universe) and Non-free (Multiverse) boxes. When you close the window, click Reload.

• Install the packages. While you could install packages individually using Synaptic, here is one case where any Ubuntu user can save a lot of time by using the command line. Quit out of Synaptic, then click Application → Accessories → Terminal and paste the following command:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gxine libxine-main1 libxine-extracodecs ogle ogle-gui

• To play most DVDs you'll need the libdvdcss2 package. This package is available using Medibuntu. This is a third party package, and not supported by Canonical.

Note: If DVD playback fails, and you've never played any DVD before on your system, you may need the regionset package to initially set the drives region.

• Some external codecs may be needed in order to play certain proprietary formats such as Apple Quicktime or RealVideo. These external codecs are available in the third-party repository of Medibuntu.

• Users of x86 systems may also install Adobe Flash Player.

Detailed Instructions and Troubleshooting

Audio

• Ripping CDs

• Converting your audio files and video to open formats

• Using the iTunes Music Store

• MP3

• Playing or ripping CDs to AAC (.m4a) files

DVD

• Playing DVDs

• Ripping DVDs

• Playing Blu Ray and HD DVD

Web

• Playing Flash

• Adobe Shockwave is not supported on Linux

Video

• Streaming Video

• Realplayer

• Smil

• Apple Quicktime and RealVideo

Other

• Java

• Installing popular fonts from Microsoft

The Ubuntu and Kubuntu Media Players

• Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) comes with Totem (a movie player) and Rhythmbox (a music player)

• Kubuntu 6.06 LTS and Kubuntu 6.10 include Kaffeine (a multimedia player) and AmaroK (a music player)

These media players support free formats (Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, and similar formats) 'out of the box'. However, they can also play most non-free media formats if you install the additional gstreamer (for Ubuntu only) or libxine1 (for Kubuntu only) packages listed above.

Alternative Media Players

• The best support for MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (for example, encoded with DivX, XviD or FFmpeg MPEG-4), QuickTime and other proprietary or non-free media formats is currently provided by Totem-xine, Kaffeine, gxine, and MPlayer. Playing Windows Media Video (WMV) or RealVideo files requires a software library that Ubuntu cannot distribute due to licensing restrictions (see Medibuntu for more information).

• Additional Ubuntu Players

  Totem-xine or gxine are recommended for most users; MPlayer provides some of the most comprehensive Free Software support for free and non-free media formats and is highly recommended, but the setup and configuration are slightly more complicated, particularly for Ubuntu Breezy users.

The two default media players for Kubuntu (Amarok and Kaffeine) both use xine by default. There are other applications that uses xine as a backend. For any xine based players, some packages need to be installed to play most media formats (MP3, DVD, etc.). These packages are:

• libxine1-ffmpeg (Support for playback of MPEG formats (i.e. MP3) and other formats.)

• libdvdread3 (For DVD playback.)

• libdvdcss2 (For encrypted DVD playback.)

libdvdcss2 is not in the Ubuntu repository for legal reasons. This package is available using Medibuntu. This is a third party package, and not supported by Canonical.

Additionally, there are some formats that do not have implementations in xine yet. Non-native codecs can be used to play such formats. These codecs are available using Medibuntu. These codecs are not supported by Canonical.

• A good media player, who allows the great functionality available in AmaroK at Kubuntu / KDE, is provided in the Gnome media player BMPx. It is currently only available in Feisty, but has to this point the most functionality of all Gnome media players, especially for those who switch from Kubuntu.

  • Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake)

    • Install the following packages

      • totem-xine

      • gxine

      • libxine-extracodecs

      • mplayer

  • Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) and earlier

    • Install

      • totem-xine

      • gxine

    • Note for Ubuntu 5.10: See MPlayer/Breezy for details on how to install and configure MPlayer for your computer architecture.

• Additional Kubuntu Players

  • In addition to the default Kaffeine player, you could try KMplayer and Codeine.

  • Kubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) and Kubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)

    • Install

      • kmplayer

      • codeine

      • mplayer

      • xine-ui

      • libxine-extracodecs

See Multimedia Applications for an overview of the most popular media players for Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

Warning Regarding Alternative Installation Methods

Warning: EasyUbuntu and Automatix are third-party utilities for installing the most commonly requested applications in some Debian-based distributions. They are not supported or recommended by Ubuntu. While they work well for many users, they have also been known to corrupt systems and leave them in a state where they cannot be upgraded to a later Ubuntu release.