video thumbnails in nautilus

shtik · #1 2nd December 2004, 04:19 PM

hi everyone,

i've got this issue with nautilus: it shows no video thumbnails instead of standard symbols (no matter what video type i try). images are okay, but no previews for video.

this problem is connected to nautilus 2.8.1 (as shipped with core 3) and same problem has konqueror.

ideas welcome!

shtik

shtik · #2 7th December 2004, 10:32 PM

okay, i figured this out:
nautilus uses a program called "gst-thumbnail" to create thumbnails. you can start this from a terminal. when starting by hand with "gst-thumbnail aaa.mpg aaa.png" i always get the encouraging message

Code:

format index is 3
segmentation fault

well, if i can't handle this, i'm sorry to say goodbye nautlius, goodbye gnome, welcome xfce, welcome windows (hate to say this, but why can't even simplest things JUST WORK??!)

shtik

le_random · #3 16th November 2005, 03:31 AM

The answer is (possibly) to check you have the latest gstreamer and appropriate codecs installed. yum install gstreamer installs the main gstreamer libraries etc. You'll also need the plugins (codecs) for each format. Because some of these are of dubious legal status - ie. there's a possibility of patent/copyright infringement, they aren't hosted on the main redhat repositories. You'll need to make sure that the livna repos are available to yum (eg. by following the instructions in the Fedora FAQ), if you want to install them.

The output from yum list (livna repos only)

Code:

gstreamer.i386                           0.8.7-4.FC3.0          
gstreamer-ffmpeg.i386                    0.8.3-0.1.fc3.fr       
gstreamer-plugins.i386                   0.8.5-1                
gstreamer-plugins-extra-audio.i386       0.8.6-2.1.fc3.fr       
gstreamer-plugins-extra-dvd.i386         0.8.6-2.1.fc3.fr       
gstreamer-plugins-extra-video.i386       0.8.6-2.1.fc3.fr       
gstreamer-plugins-mp3.i386               0.8.5-0.lvn.2.3

This is also the reason these aren't installed "out-of-the-box". RedHat et al. did not want to expose themselves to litigation or demands-for-payment from the copyright holders on various codecs and code. It's the same reason mp3 support is not available "out-of-the-box", and non-Free (as in speech) software is not included. You may hate RedHat for "crippling" the distro - but it's hard to run a business when you're in court every day, and have lawyers overlooking your coders (unless you're a much richer corporation - no names!).

nokollonzo · #4 16th November 2005, 08:55 AM

mmhh...and what about switching to KDE?

only 10 packages.
simple, clean and bugfree.

imdeemvp · #5 17th November 2005, 03:11 AM

Which format are the video thumbnails? if it is in .mov format you need mplayer to play them.