How To Add VLC To The Ubuntu Sound Menu

The latest VLC 2.0 got support for MPRIS v2, meaning it can make use of the Ubuntu Sound Menu or other docks / extensions that support it (like the GNOME Shell Mediaplayer extension):

But the MPRIS v2 Dbus interface is not enabled by default in VLC 2.0, so here's how to enable it: in VLC go to Tools > Preferences, select "All" under "Show settings" (bottom left), then navigate to Interface > Control Interface and check the box next to "D-Bus control interface":

Then click "Save", restart VLC and it should now show up in the Ubuntu Sound Menu or GNOME Shell Mediaplayer extension, etc.

VLC uses a tray icon by default which is kind of useless now - if you want to disable it, go to Tools > Preferences > Interface and uncheck the "Show systray icon" box:

VLC 2.0 is available in the Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin repositories and in a PPA for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot users.

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VLSUB: VLC Extension To Search And Download Subtitles

VLSub is a VLC extensions to search and download subtitles from opensubtitles.org. The extension can search either based on the video hash or its IMDB title.

The extension can download subtitles in about 49 languages, including English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and more.

The extension should work with VLC 1.1.0+ (I've tested it with 1.1.x and 2.0) on Linux, Windows or Mac OSX.


Installation:

1. Download VLSub from HERE.

2. Create the ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions folder (in case it doesn't exist):

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions

3. Move the downloaded .lua file to the ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions folder (".local" is a hidden folder in your home directory so press CTRL + H to see it).

If you're using Windows, copy the .lua file under  C:/Program Files/VideoLAN/VLC/lua/extensions/

Now restart VLC and you should see VLSub under the VLC View menu:

Here, select to search for subtitles by video hash or IMDB ID, select the language you want the subtitles to be in, then click "Go". VLSub will try to find all matching subtitles and display a list: 

Select one of the found subtitles and click OK. VLSub will now download the selected subtitle file and rename it to match your video, making it ready for viewing in VLC.

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Install VLC 2.0 In Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

VLC 2.0 "Twoflower" has been released with faster decoding, support for more video formats, a reworked web interface, experimental BluRay Discs support (without menus) and more.

VLC 2.0 highlights:

• Major Video Core and Outputs rework and rewrite
• Almost every video filter can now be transcoded
• Experimental Blu-Ray Discs support using libbluray
• Support for VDR recordings folders
• HTTP Live Streaming playback support
• Mpris v2 support so it can make use of the Ubuntu Sound Menu, etc.
• PulseAudio audio input support
• One can now use ffmpeg-mt in conjunction with vlc, to split decoding load on multiple cores. H.264, VP3, VP8, JPEG-2000, Mpeg-4 ASP/DivX and RV3/RV4 are notably concerned.
• Experimental Hardware decoding using Broadcom CrystalHD cards
• New module for decoding EBU subtitles (.stl)
• Support for Lagarith Lossless video codec
• Support for images/cover art in wma/wmv/asf files
• Improvements in .ape files metadata reading and writing
• Major improvements in Matroska (mkv) chapters/segments handling and seeking
• Multiple Qt interface and Skins2 improvements
• Rewrite of the web interface, using jQuery
• Support for Vorbis and Theora in RTP

Complete list of changes, HERE.

Install VLC 2.0 in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

The latest stable VLC 2.0 can be installed in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/vlc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlc

To upgrade from an older VLC version, instead of the last command above, use:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you get a mplayer related error, reinstall mplayer and it should work.

VLC 2.0 is already available in the Ubuntu 12.04 repositories, so if you're using Precise, install VLC via Synaptic / Software Center.

Update: here's a how-to on getting encrypted blu-ray discs to work on VLC 2.0, for Windows, Mac and Linux - see HERE. Note that using the PPA in this post, libaacs.so.0 should already be installed.

Keep in mind that Blu-ray is considered experimental in the latest VLC 2.0, so it may not work with all discs or it may be buggy.

Unfortunately, there's no stable VLC PPA for older Ubuntu versions.

via LFFL

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YouTube Scope For Unity Video Lens With Support For VLC, Minitube, More

Lorenzo @ Atareao.es has created an Unity video lens and a YouTube scope for it, which lets you easily search and even play YouTube videos in either an external player (and thus, without using Adobe Flash) or your web browser.

The latest YouTube scope for Unity Video Lens comes with a tool which lets you select the external player you want to use for playing YouTube videos and it currently supports yviewer, VLC, Minitube (you'll need the latest 1.7 version) or your default web browser.

By default, the YouTube scope for Unity Video Lens search doesn't seem to work too good and it displays unrelated results, at least that was the case in my test. However, this can be fixed by selecting "Relevance" under "Order" in the lens filter.


To install Unity Video Lens and YouTube scope in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/lenses
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lens-video scope-youtube

To select the default player, search for "scope-youtube-configurator" in Dash.

via atareao.es; thanks to Jorge Ortega for the tip!

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Ubuntu Indicator For Qt Applications (Skype, VLC, Etc.) In Ubuntu 11.10

Here is something you might already know, but I for one didn't notice it until today (thanks to Georgi and Rolandixor!): Skype, VLC and other Qt applications have an indicator in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot thanks to a package called "sni-qt" that converts (automatically) Qt systray icons into indicators.

(Both Skype and VLC icons are indicators - notice the border on the Skype icon, that's indicator-specific)

The converted Qt indicators look and behave the same as regular Ubuntu indicators. All we need now is monochrome icons (I'm not sure if that's possible for Skype).

The systray is still available for Wine, Java, scp-dbus-service and Update-notifier only but you can whitelist all applications just like in Ubuntu 11.04 - and that bug that caused the non-clickable indicators issue seems to have been fixed.

via Georgi Karavasilev @ G+ and Rolandixor @ 2buntu.com

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Install VLC 1.1.10 And Pidgin 2.8.0 In Ubuntu

I'm sure many of you know about GetDeb but maybe some of our new readers don't. GetDeb is a very popular (for example, in July 2010, there were about 25144 unique Ubuntu Lucid users per day installing packages via) software portal that comes with an Ubuntu repository which you can use to install applications that are not available in the official Ubuntu repositories - this includes updated versions for various applications.

Until now I didn't really needed to use GetDeb in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, but the Pidgin PPA hasn't been updated yet with the latest Pidgin 2.8.0 (released about 3 days ago) so I though I'd check GetDeb - and indeed, GetDeb provides the latest Pidgin 2.8.0 (for Ubuntu Natty and Lucid - no Maverick it seems) as well as VLC 1.1.10 (for Natty only).

• VLC 1.1.10 changelog
• Pidgin 2.8.0 changelog

So if you want to upgrade to the latest Pidgin and VLC (as well as many other applications like FileZilla, Unetbootin, etc.), download this .deb file and install it - this will add the GetDeb repository -, then run an upgrade:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

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