No movies

Hi,


I have been trying to get playing movies working in the Linux-client but have not managed so far.

Some observations:

- After some installing of plugins (base, good, bad, ugly) and some other packages, I can play the movies in totem-gstreamer.

gst-inspect-0.10 playbin | grep Version gives:
Version: 0.10.13

- I have been trying to play a movie on my own land, setting media to a http-stream. The only thing I keep seeing on the screen is the media-texture, nothing else. The secondlife-log however gives messages like: 'media playing, media paused, media stopped etc. when I use the controls. No error messages there whatsoever.

- Another resident, invited to my land could see the movie playing in windows but not in Linux.

- I joined this other resident to his land where he could see movies playing on his Freeview TV from within the Linux-client, but I only saw the Freeview TV logo on screen, no movie.

What can I do to get movies working? Any output I need to paste here? Or things to try out?

Thanks for the help!

Setup:

Second Life 1.18.1 (2) Aug 1 2007 13:32:25 (Second Life Release)

You are at 266841.2, 277574.7, 27.5 in Northern Lights located at sim4471.agni.lindenlab.com (63.210.158.121:12035)

CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Memory: 502 MB
OS Version: Linux 2.6.16.14-kanotix-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 5 21:55:57 CEST 2006 i686 (= Debian Sid)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce4 MX 420/AGP/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 1.5.8 NVIDIA 96.39
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.12_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 1/108688 (0.0%)
Viewer Digest: 43df0268-55b0-d259-b7d6-12c8061926b2

I am been trying to ascertain what formats Linux users can view, given the report that media streaming is now available in the last update, without success.... as a machinima creator in SL, would appreciate feedback.

All movie media produced to date that renders in SL, is based on the QuickTime wrapper format, using codex to stream. If the pluggin for the Linux client has those codex, then no reformatting should be required... I wouldn't like to think that having got this far in getting Linux users to be able to enjoy the prolifercation of media produced in SL, only to find out, we got to now produce a seperate format for you guys to see our work. That would really suck.

Still did not manage to get video working in SL.

I tried this movieclip which plays fine in totem:
http://images.apple.com/movies/weinstein/transamerica/transamerica-h.ref.mov

This is the output I am getting in SL (see below)

So although *see below in the end*, the output says: 'playing media' and no error messages, I keep seeing only the land media texture in my FreeView TV.
When hovering my mouse over the FreeView TV, it says: "Video mode: Playing". So nothing seems wrong, but still I don't see any video. What can be wrong? Please some advice.

2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: Found DSO: libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_init_check from 0xab143500
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_get_type from 0xab169460
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_type_get_name from 0xab1693b0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_parse_error from 0xab169750
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_parse_warning from 0xab169620
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_parse_state_changed from 0xab169b80
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_element_set_state from 0xab1584c0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_object_unref from 0xab144480
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_object_get_type from 0xab144730
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_pipeline_get_type from 0xab177610
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_pipeline_get_bus from 0xab1775a0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_bus_add_watch from 0xab14f420
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_element_factory_make from 0xab15eb70
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_element_get_type from 0xab158100
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_static_pad_template_get from 0xab176c80
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_element_class_add_pad_template from 0xab15a6b0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_element_class_set_details from 0xab15a600
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_unref from 0xab1518c0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_ref from 0xab151160
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: _gst_debug_register_funcptr from 0xab165ce0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: _gst_debug_category_new from 0xab167300
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_is_empty from 0xab151300
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_from_string from 0xab152b20
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_replace from 0xab151a70
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_get_structure from 0xab1513f0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_copy from 0xab152c70
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_caps_intersect from 0xab1532b0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_element_register from 0xab15e650
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: _gst_plugin_register_static from 0xab17aed0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_structure_get_int from 0xab183b10
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_structure_get_value from 0xab182b30
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_value_get_fraction_numerator from 0xab199620
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_value_get_fraction_denominator from 0xab1995a0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_structure_get_name from 0xab1837c0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_segtrap_set_enabled from 0xab141d30
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_parse_buffering from 0xab169ca0
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z WARNING: grab_gst_syms: Failed to grab symbol: expected_to_be_missing
2007-08-08T11:44:29Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_message_parse_info from 0xab1694f0
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: Found DSO: libgstaudio-0.10.so.0
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_audio_sink_get_type from 0xb09ed1b0
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: Found DSO: libgstvideo-0.10.so.0
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: grab_gst_syms: grabbed symbol: gst_video_sink_get_type from 0xb0998310
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: load: Setting media URI: http://images.apple.com/movies/weinstein/transamerica/transamerica-h.ref.mov
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: load returns 1
2007-08-08T11:44:30Z INFO: playing media...
2007-08-08T11:44:32Z INFO: dumpReceiveCounts: Dump: 8 messages processed in 2.50192 seconds
2007-08-08T11:44:32Z INFO: my_bus_callback: Got GST message type: clock-provide
2007-08-08T11:44:34Z INFO: my_bus_callback: Got GST message type: element
2007-08-08T11:46:05Z INFO: looping media... 0
2007-08-08T11:46:05Z INFO: playing media...

Hi AWM,

For your comfort: the Linux client *should* play the Quicktime format. And the Linux client does even support more media formats than the Windows version because it is based on gstreamer plugins. The only problem for me is getting it to work. But I have heard other Linux-users report they can see the movies in SL. So you don't need to change your media for Linux users as far as I can see.

I didnt enlarge my post too much in this thread, as I already participated in another.

There are fundementals to consider when viewing movies/media in SL. Our company carried out extensive tests and found out that there are several benchmarks to consider when producing 'streaming' content into the SL enviroment:

For those of you that only see a black screen, the fact that it is black means it has connected to the supplying server, there maybe latency/lag issues with that server, or the movie if formatted to be download and watch, not either RSTP or Progressive download. The data rate for movies in SL, from our own research, should be below 150kbps, as this stream runs alongside the SL client before being cached and rendered ingame. A lot of web hosted movies are formatted to run within a standalone player, or through a Internet Browser, of which the SL client isn't.
Our own servers are designed specifically for hosted streamed media, they come with OS's that are designed to utilise the 2bg burst ram to inject data into caches, and our combined bandwidth is over 7tb to cope with multi viewers. All our movies are post produced to stream at less than 100kbps causing the least load on the SL client, but still maintain quality.

The reason for my interest, was that during our post production, we stack codex in a unique way to make the system work across serveral platforms, and was curious if we have to make compatible profiles for the Linux users seperately.

If you want to test your system to see if it works, drop by our showrooms (WBA Advertising) and look at any of the screens we have, on the basis that if you cannot see any movies, it is your system and not the host server or format of the movie. BTW, in our showroom we have 9 Silver Stream Network screen/player combination units on 2 floors spread over 2 parcels, each screen can show an avatar a movie from its integral playlist, while others can watch different movies at different screens , breaking the 'One movie per parcel rule'.

I am glad, that LL have woken up to the Linux community and that you can now enjoy the media experiences so many of us take for granted.