Fedora 11 User Guide - Chapter 12. Playing multimedia

Chapter 12. Playing multimedia

Media formats not supported by default in Fedora

$9.99

Because of licensing and patent encumbrances, Fedora cannot ship with certain audio and video playing capabilities, known as codecs. An example is the MP3 codec. Refer to Fedora Project's Approach to Multimedia Support, for more information.

Fedora includes several tools for listening to audio and viewing video on both the GNOME and KDE desktops. These applications will run in either Fedora desktop environment. To install software packages not already installed, refer to Chapter 17, Managing software . You can install applications by either using the PackageKit application or on the command line by using Yum

Fedora provides the following applications for audio and video by default:

Amarok is a music player that features tools for organizing music, CDs, Internet radio stations, and more, and is included in KDE by default.
CD/DVD Creator is an application for listening to audio CDs in GNOME.
Cheese Webcam Booth takes photos and videos with your webcam is installed in GNOME and KDE.
Dragon Player is a simple video player in KDE.
JuK is a collection and playlist manager as well as a music player installed in KDE.
Kaffeine is an application for viewing videos in KDE.
KMix is a Sound Mixer for KDE.
KsCD is an application for listening to audio CDs in KDE.
Rhythmbox is a music player that features tools for organizing music, CDs, Internet radio stations, and more, and is included in GNOME and KDE by default.
Sound Juicer is an application for converting CDs to music files (also known as ripping) in GNOME and KDE.
Sound Recorder can record and play .flac, .oga (OGG audio), and .wav sound files.
Totem Movie Player is an application for viewing videos in GNOME and KDE.

To open these programs, in the GNOME desktop, click on their entries in the Applications > Sound and Video menu in the top menu bar. In the KDE desktop, click on their entries in the Kickoff Application Launcher > Applications > Multimedia menu.

12.1. The Fedora Project's approach to multimedia support

In short, the Fedora Project encourages the use of open formats in place of restricted ones.

Fedora includes complete support for many freely-distributable formats. These include the Ogg media, Vorbis audio, Theora video, Speex audio, and FLAC audio formats. These freely-distributable formats are not encumbered by patent or license restrictions, and provide powerful and flexible alternatives to popular yet restricted formats such as MP3 that are not legally distributable with Fedora. For more information, refer to the Fedora Multimedia wiki at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia.