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Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Fedora 15 KDE 4.6.x - Install phonon-backend-vlc for better multimedia support

If you are a Fedora KDE user who wishes to have better multimedia support, use the VLC phonon-backend!

1. Install the RPM Fusion repos - http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

su -c 'yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'

2. Install phonon-backend-vlc

su -c 'yum install phonon-backend-vlc'

3. Remove the gstreamer backend

su -c 'yum erase phonon-backend-gstreamer'

4. Reboot

4 comments:

  1. Is this hint appropiated to Kubuntu users too ? I mean, switching to "phonon-backend-vlc" from "phonon-backend-gstreamer"... Is it too much asking for a small explanation why (if it is) this change advisable?

    Thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fedora doesn't have the equivalent of Kubuntu's restricted package which pulls in various multimedia codecs.

    However, installing the RPM Fusion repo and then the vlc-backend is just a very quick and easy way of enabling better multimedia support in Fedora KDE.

    As a Kubuntu user you can also install the vlc-backend, some believe it provides better sound quality than xine/gstreamer and in general is a much better sound engine.

    I can't seem to find any up to date references to the phonon-vlc backend that provides a decent explanation of the project but these may be useful,

    April 2010

    http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/1171-Rapid-Progress-in-KDE-Multimedia.html

    December 2010

    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODg1NA

    http://apachelog.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/phonon-vlc-0-3-rock-solid/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Adam,

    I have found some updated (6 June 2011) information from http://userbase.kde.org/Phonon ... where it's said :

    Backend libraries

    Phonon makes use of backend libraries to provide sound.

    Phonon-GStreamer: GStreamer is a multimedia library from the GNOME project. Phonon-GStreamer is currently the recommended Kubuntu backend, and under heavy development.

    Phonon-VLC: VLC is a very popular cross-platform media player. This is also under active development, and is receiving a lot of work from both VLC and Phonon developers.

    Phonon-Xine: Formerly the most popular backend for Phonon; now unmaintained, and deprecated.



    ... so I think I will stay with 'phonon-backend-gstreamer' for now ... BUT ... thanks to the links you provided I think I have understood WHY 'phonon-backend-vlc' is so INTERESTING ... its MULTIPLATFORM nature. So probably in the mid-term 'phonon-backend-vlc' will be the real KING.

    Thank you again.

    ReplyDelete
  4. thanks bro !!

    it really helped me out

    worked for me :)

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    ReplyDelete