Rob wrote:

>
> With native FireFox, some sites hosting videos (streaming?) require the
> installation of a plug-in. This is fine if you use Windows as it is a
> Microsoft media plug-in. If like me you use Linux, then the simplest
> solution I found was to use the 'unplug' extension and then download the
> relevant file found.
>
> Look at the 'Video News' section at http://www.theage.com.au/
>
> That was until last night!
>
> Then I discovered the Kaffeine Starter Plug-in. This will start the
> external Kaffeine Media Player for embedded media streams. This similar to
> how the
> Microsoft plug-in for windows works with Windows Media Player. Obviously
> you will need Kaffeine and win32 codecs installed for this to work
>
> I use Mandriva 2007.0 and the package involved is called kaffeine-mozilla.
> With Mandriva, install the plug-in and then copy
> the /usr/lib/mozilla/plug-in/kaffeineplugin.so file to the plug ins
> directory used by FireFox. This will depend on whether your installation
> is the 'native' Mandriva version or one that you have installed yourself
> using a gzipped tar available from the Mozilla site [e.g.
> firefox-1.5.0.11.tar.gz]. Also for Mandriva, the win32 codecs package is
> (surprise! surprise!) called win32-codecs
>
> If not aware where other distros store these files or installation
> details, but more info should be on
> http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=download
>
> For me anyway, this plug-in gets rid of one of the final items on my list
> of 'things that Linux does not do as well as Windows'.
>
> I hope this is useful to some other current or potential penguinistas
> here!
>
> Rob.

There is also a plugin for MPlayer in the Contrib RPM Source, which installs
without even the minor fiddling you had to do, and will open a video screen
in your browser window. Mplayer covers most formats, and extra codecs are
available for download from the site: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ (There
always seems to be a new format about, and the codecs are updated.) I
think that kaffeine supports most formats, but it wasn't installed on my
system by default while mplayer (but not the GUI or plugin) were. My
Internet connection isn't fast enough for streaming video, but the plugin
buffers as much as it can before it starts playing.

Doug.
--
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
- G.K. Chesterton.

Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> Rob wrote:
>
>>
>> With native FireFox, some sites hosting videos (streaming?) require the
>> installation of a plug-in. This is fine if you use Windows as it is a
>> Microsoft media plug-in. If like me you use Linux, then the simplest
>> solution I found was to use the 'unplug' extension and then download the
>> relevant file found.
>>
>> Look at the 'Video News' section at http://www.theage.com.au/
>>
>> That was until last night!
>>
>> Then I discovered the Kaffeine Starter Plug-in. This will start the
>> external Kaffeine Media Player for embedded media streams. This similar
>> to how the
>> Microsoft plug-in for windows works with Windows Media Player. Obviously
>> you will need Kaffeine and win32 codecs installed for this to work
>>
>> I use Mandriva 2007.0 and the package involved is called
>> kaffeine-mozilla. With Mandriva, install the plug-in and then copy
>> the /usr/lib/mozilla/plug-in/kaffeineplugin.so file to the plug ins
>> directory used by FireFox. This will depend on whether your installation
>> is the 'native' Mandriva version or one that you have installed yourself
>> using a gzipped tar available from the Mozilla site [e.g.
>> firefox-1.5.0.11.tar.gz]. Also for Mandriva, the win32 codecs package is
>> (surprise! surprise!) called win32-codecs
>>
>> If not aware where other distros store these files or installation
>> details, but more info should be on
>> http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=download
>>
>> For me anyway, this plug-in gets rid of one of the final items on my list
>> of 'things that Linux does not do as well as Windows'.
>>
>> I hope this is useful to some other current or potential penguinistas
>> here!
>>
>> Rob.
>
> There is also a plugin for MPlayer in the Contrib RPM Source, which
> installs without even the minor fiddling you had to do, and will open a
> video screen
> in your browser window. Mplayer covers most formats, and extra codecs are
> available for download from the site: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ (There
> always seems to be a new format about, and the codecs are updated.) I
> think that kaffeine supports most formats, but it wasn't installed on my
> system by default while mplayer (but not the GUI or plugin) were. My
> Internet connection isn't fast enough for streaming video, but the plugin
> buffers as much as it can before it starts playing.
>
> Doug.
Using Firefox and the Mplayer plugin the video plays perfectly.

but thanks for the Kaffeine heads up.

Rich
--
"You can lead them to LINUX
but you can't make them THINK"