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    New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

    Are there ANY video converters that work in Kubuntu 9.10?

    I've searched this forum for a problem like mine and haven't found it, so I apologize if this is a repeat.

    Some background on me: I'm an audio engineer, musician, and a closet computer geek on the side. Most of my experience has been with, *cringes* Windows. I've just recently made the switch with the new 9.10 release. And BTW, I can handle the code, I'm just learning the commands and syntax. As I've said for the past week..."Windows has spoiled me."

    Anyway, on to my question. I recently got a Philips GoGear Vibe 4 gig mp3 player that plays video as well. I know it's a tiny screen, but I was hoping to at least get to test out some of my videos, just to see what it was like.

    I have to add at this point in my journey, I've already faced and fixed most of what I'm seeing as the usual problems with Kubuntu and audo/video. Already had issues with Alsa/Pulse...already had the issue with losing the panel at the bottom of the screen somehow? I can't remember how it happened but it somehow got deleted. I've already learned that you have to mount your cdrom drive for it to read. I've even had to clean install after trying to get my sound to work. I got it back working again, but it's really low on the speakers, fine through headphones. I can deal with that.

    But this has been the ongoing issue with something I'm not understanding, and I'm hoping somebody could point me in the right direction.

    My Philips GoGear Vibe came with media conversion software, that I was under the impression would work with WINE. Intalled ok. The device manager installed ok. Then I plug in the GoGear player. It's not detecting that it's plugged in, but I can transfer music files onto it just fine with Dolphin. When I try and start up the media converter, it crashes every time, subsequently causing Dolphin to crash, and then, you know, a reboot's required to get anything working right again.

    I mean, I could just use my wife's XP machine to handle the conversions, but I'd like to get this figured out for use on my laptop. Any help for a noob would be appreciated. Thanks!


    #2
    Re: New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

    Lol! Welcome to Linux!

    Some general advice: Sometimes you can save a lot of grief (especially with devices designed for Windows) to use...uh...Windows. Take a look at VirtualBox for running Windows on your Kubuntu desktop.

    For straight video conversion, mplayer/mencoder is the most powerful (though not user-friendly) tool available. Open konqueror and use this url to view the man page:
    man:mplayer

    Spend some time reading that, and you'll see it will do just about anything you could want.

    Also, make sure you check out medibuntu (for additional codecs, etc.):
    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
    Kubuntu 9.10 i386; Ubuntu 8.04 on Xen; Maemo 5

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      #3
      Re: New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

      I appreciate the help. I figured I'd need to use my wife's XP machine, but I was going to try on my Kubuntu machine first...just to see. As far as being user friendly, I have a little more knowledge about computers than the average user, so I feel I'm not a complete noob. I am, however, new to Linux, and how it works, and the code. I absolutely love the fact that I can control things with the right command. Oh, and the fact that the commands make sense. Like make directory? It's mkdir...makes sense to me. All in all, I like a good challenge, and I was going to see if I could get this to work on my laptop. I really like the fact that after so many years using Windows, learning Windows, fixing computers with Windows, and networking in Windows, I'm learning something new. It's bringing back the closet computer geek in me again. I haven't really done a whole lot of "coding" in the past few years since Windows is so friggin' user friendly. So this transition is bringing back the feeling I used to get when I used to write programs for my programming class in college, and see them actually work better than any of the other students' in the class. Anyway, I digress. I love this distro, I'm really liking Linux, and I'm not regretting the switch.

      Thanks for the links and info! I have one question though. Whenever I try and sudo apt-get install packages to help, it cannot find them, or says it does not exist...something like there is no install candidate or something like that. What are some names of packages that would be helpful for me to install? I could be mistyping them. Oh, and I do make sure and sudo apt-get update before anything else.

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        #4
        Re: New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

        Are there ANY video converters that work in Kubuntu 9.10?
        ffmpeg (backend) http://ffmpeg.org/
        and WinFF (GUI frontend) http://winff.org/html_new/.

        Another option is avidemux http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/.

        They should all be available from Repository

        Have you tried video conversion online e.g. Zamzar http://www.zamzar.com/.

        ...On Ubuntu Forum at the moment "video converter" at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1340634
        "A problem well stated is a problem half solved." --Charles F. Kettering
        "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."--Dr. Seuss

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          #5
          Re: New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

          Originally posted by MagicRabbit
          I have one question though. Whenever I try and sudo apt-get install packages to help, it cannot find them, or says it does not exist...something like there is no install candidate or something like that. What are some names of packages that would be helpful for me to install? I could be mistyping them. Oh, and I do make sure and sudo apt-get update before anything else.
          type sudo apt-get install adept

          That will install adept, which is a much better package manager than the default one which is kpackagekit. You will find it quite user friendly, However, development work on that program has ceased and you can expect it to be dropped altogether at some time in the future. Another good package is synaptic (sudo apt-get install synaptic) although I do find adept easier to use.

          I'm not sure what video format your player requires but I would be a little surprised to find that there is no linux package to do the conversion, although it's likely that the process will be more convoluted than with the supplied software.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

            Hey, you guys rock. Thanks for all the useful information. I've got the audio/video on my laptop working just fine, I was just curious if I could use my laptop to convert files. I've read a lot about synaptic and adept, but did not know they were going to drop it. I think I'll check out some of these links.

            THANKS!!!!

            Comment


              #7
              Re: New to Linux altogether...need help with a video converter

              After installing and playing around with winff, (I had already installed ffmpeg) I see that the file format I'm needing to convert to, is not yet supported. Or at least I'm finding it difficult to find a converter that will do it. I need to convert from .mpg to .smv...however, winff looks to be quite a handy tool that I know I'll need for video production. So all is not lost. In the mean-time, I'm using the Windows machine to get my files converted for use on my player. Thanks guys! Very helpful!

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