Max Headroom

Max Headroom was a great science fiction TV series featuring Matt Frewer in the dual role of intrepid reporter Edison Carter and his virtual alter ego Max Headroom.

Edison Carter: the man with the cam.

Rather grittier than the American remake, the British pilot was much darker overall. Being shot on film, it had much better production values. The biggest difference between the British and American versions was that the British version of the computer genius Bryce was a simply too detached from humanity, and had to be cast with a more accessible actor for the series to work. And even though it was shot on video, because it was idea driven the series worked very well indeed.

The Team: Edison Carter, Theora Jones and Max

Edison Carter didn’t tilt at windmills, he was willing to go after any story and would not let it go no matter what pressure came down from above, because the truth needed to be told. Risking his life and career more than once to get the story, Edison Carter was the Man with the cam.

I know I fell head over heels for Max Headroom (and Edison Carter) when they first played Canada in my college days.

(Yes I’m >that< old.)

Max was fun, Edison was sexy.

Theora Jones showed us that women could succeed in the male dominated technology fields. Theora was an awesome role model for young women because she played her computer terminal like a Stradivarius. Theora’s ability to go anywhere and do whatever was needed– including hacking into parts of the net that are supposed to be off limits– made it possible for Edison Carter to get out there and do his job.

Theora Jones

Theora Jones was extremely smart, totally in control of her video/computer technology, and although clearly attracted to Edison she didn’t take any guff from the guy. Apparently the boys liked Theora… the ogg Theora video format was named for her.

For a brief taste of Max in action, Youtube has this Max Headroom new Coke commercial on offer.

What is incredible is that Max Headroom was ever made at all.

How many REALLY good science fiction TV series have there actually been? Not too many, that’s for sure. The science may not have been spot on, but Max Headroom was incredibly idea driven. The prescience of some of the Max Headroom storylines is almost frightening.

In the world of Max Headroom– which was set “20 minutes into the future”– if governments exist, they are at best ineffectual. In this future world it seems that governments have abdicated their power to the media giants. Max Headroom’s world is run by the TV networks.

Blank Reg: media pirate or freedom fighter?

Max Headroom: The Human Cast

Our ostensible hero is Edison Carter, star reporter for one of the biggest networks, Network 23.

Although Network 23 gives a pretty good impression of running the world, they live in fear that their biggest account, the ZikZak corporation, will switch to a competing network.

The pilot is the story of Edison Carter’s exposé of the ZikZak “blipverts”, which have the annoying capability of causing the occasional television viewer to explode. Of course ZikZak doesn’t mind the occasional couch potato death, but Network 23 doesn’t want the story to come out. Since Edison is in fact investigating his own network, its actually his own company that attempts to kill him to get him off the story. The chase scene ends when Edison crashes head first into a parking garage barrier. The last words Edison sees are “Max Headroom”. When his mind is later electronically mined to discover just how much Edison Carter actually knows, Edison’s alter ego Max Headroom escapes into the computer network and assumes a virtual life of his own. Because Max Headroom is a virtual infant resident in the internet which connects the world’s computers and broadcasters, his character offers many ways to look at the world of big media and ask hard questions about where society is headed.

Max: all dressed up

Brilliant thought provoking science fiction. It showed us a world made up of:

• metro cops who seem to have no acquaintance with human rights,
• organ banks that can’t be bothered to check to see if the bodies delivered (by their version of Burke and Hare) are still breathing,
• a broadcast media imposing their will on the mainstream of society,
• along with a wretched marginalized underground society of blanks trying vainly to live in freedom.

In the 1980s it seemed that such a world could never exist. Human rights were a given.
George Orwell’s 1984 was a cautionary tale that could never come true.
We knew not to ever let things get to that point.

Didn’t we?

Max Headroom was cancelled. Max himself lived on for a bit as a Coke pitchman, but even Max couldn’t survive “New Coke”.

Unfortunately, Max Headroom has not been released on DVD. I was able to buy a beat-up second hand video of the British pilot from my local video store (which of course has switched to DVDs). The copyright owners have not chosen to try to release Max Headroom at this point. After all, there weren’t many episodes. They probably won’t make a lot of money from a DVD release. And because of copyright law, no one else can release Max Headroom.

What is incredible is that Max Headroom may be lost forever.

This is one of the tragic effects of copyright law: Max Headroom may disappear from the sum of human knowledge. And that would be a shame. Max Headroom had things to say in the 1980's that would certainly bear repeating in the early 21st Century. Max Headroom was important to a lot of people. A great deal of creative work and thought and energy went into the creation of Max Headroom. Yet instead of protecting this wonderful work of intellectual property, misguided copyright law may consign it to oblivion.

Copyright law is currently undergoing changes around the world, as well as coming under a great deal of public scrutiny. In some jurisdictions, “due process” allows websites to be cut off of the internet connection purely because someone has made an accusation copyright infringement.

Shades of the French Revolution, Batman!
“J’accuse!”
Or Max Headroom, where due process can take the form of a game show.

One of the questions that the Canadian Copyright Consultation posed was:

“What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?”

– Canadian Copyright Consultation

Perhaps Canada could show clear headedness in stopping copyright law from being a liability to the works that it was created to protect.

Canada also has a perfect opportunity to lead the world in international copyright reform. One of the reasons the media giants are leaning so heavily on our government to criminalize personal use copying is because they value the Canadian media market. Canada isn’t as inconsequential as the modern day equivalents of the ZikZak corporation would have us believe. If Canada went emphatically on record to decriminalize personal use copying, Canadian law enforcement resources would be freed up to be able to track actual criminal bootleggers.

Canada has an opportunity to lead the way.

Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother"

Max Headroom would get along famously with M1k3y. My son loaned me his copy of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. Athough this excellent science fiction novel stars young adults and was written for a young adult audience, “Little Brother” is a rollicking good read even for old adults (which is to say any of us over twenty five). I’m still processing the new ideas it has introduced me to, and there is no chance I can give it a proper review without reading it again at least once more. But I would definitely recommend Little Brother to anyone. I’m planning to head out to hear Cory Doctorow speak at the University of Waterloo on Saturday.

You can check out Matt Frewer’s site , or catch up with the grown up Bryce…er Chris Young’s blog (the teen actor who played the American Bryce Lynch).

A few days after my first part on flash on ubuntu, I  made a greasemonkey script, that works on youtube, and (via a httprequest to a php page) downloads the video and converts it to a ogg theora. Then the embed tag is replaced by a html 5 video tag.

Script (JS):

// ==UserScript==
// @name Youtube OGGER
// @namespace userscripts.org
// @description Converts youtube's FLV files to OGG Theora files
// @version 0.1
// @include http://youtube.com/watch?*
// @include http://www.youtube.com/watch?*
// @include http://*.youtube.com/watch?*
// ==/UserScript==
var video_id = null;
var video_hash = null;
var video_player = document.getElementById('movie_player');
if (video_player) {var flash_variables=video_player.attributes.getNamedItem('flashvars');
if (flash_variables) {var flash_values=flash_variables.value; }
}
document.getElementById('watch-player-div').innerHTML='Even geduld...';
GM_xmlhttpRequest({
method: "GET",
url: "http://localhost/youtubeoggs/youtubeogger.php?fv="+flash_values+"&url="+location.href,
headers: {
"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0", // Recommend using navigator.userAgent when possible
},
onload: function(response) {
if (response.status == 200) {
var div_embed=document.getElementById('watch-player-div');
if (div_embed) {
div_embed.innerHTML='your browser does not support the video tag';
}
}
}
});


Script (PHP) :

$fv=$_GET['fv'];
$url=$_GET['url'];
$urlmap=$_GET['fmt_url_map'];
preg_match("/v\=([A-Za-z0-9]+)/",$url,$videoIDarr);
$videoID=$videoIDarr[1];
if (!file_exists("/var/www/youtubeoggs/ogg/y-".$videoID.".ogg")) {
$urlMapArr=explode("http",$urlmap);
$stanQual="http".$urlMapArr[count($urlMapArr)-1];
exec("wget -O flv/y-".$videoID.".flv \"".$stanQual."\"");
exec("ffmpeg -i flv/y-".$videoID.".flv -vcodec libtheora -sameq -acodec libvorbis -ac 2 -sameq ogg/y-".$videoID.".ogg");
}
echo "http://localhost/youtubeoggs/ogg/y-".$videoID.".ogg";


However, you need ffmpeg for it. Any room for improvement? Any idea’s on how to make it faster? (it is quite slow)

Als Webworker ist man natürlich gespannt, wie sich die neuen Techniken entwickeln. Vor über einem Monat wurde die Nachricht verkündet, dass in der HTML5-Spezifikation kein Video-Codec für das neue video-Tag festgeschrieben wird.

Die Diskussion war kurz und ergebnislos. Fakt ist, dass sich weder H264 noch Ogg Theora durchgesetzt haben. Gerrit fasst zusammen, dass es zwei mögliche Zukunftsszenarien gibt:

1. OGG Theora wird qualitativ noch besser, es wird sichergestellt, dass keine versteckten Patente im Code stecken (da ist noch ein gewisses Risiko), und es wird Hardware-Beschleuniger-Chips geben.
2. H.264 klärt die Situation mit den Lizenzkosten, so dass es sich für Firefox und Opera lohnt, den Codec zu unterstützen. Auch kleinere Firmen, die ein paar Videos ins Netz stellen, sollten nicht zu Lizenzzahlungen gezwungen sein. Dies müsste klar kommuniziert werden.

Bis dahin sollten beide Formate angeboten werden, will man nicht alle User eines bestimmten Browsers ohne Video dastehen lassen. Lösungen, wie man das implementiert finden sich bei Gerrit, bei Mozilla und an vielen anderen Stellen im Netz.

Aber als Fakt bleibt jedoch, dass man zukünftig H264 und Ogg Theora anbieten sollte. Was mich zu der Frage brachte, wie ich eigentlich auf dem Mac ein Ogg Theora-File erstelle. Und praktischerweise gibt es das Internet und in ihm diesen kostenlosen OpenSource Quicktime-Codec:

http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/

Damit können alle Quicktime-basierten Programme mit Ogg-Files umgehen inklusive Theora für Video.

My never ending search for video conversion software led me to ffmpeg2theora. Another nifty tool for converting most popular video formats to Org Theora

It can be downloaded from the following link

A simple example that I tried on my windows machine was to convert an flv to ogv and it work instantly

ffmpeg2theora-0.24.exe HD.flv

HTML 5: Ogg Theora Vs H.264 In The Battle For A Web Video Standard

Powered by ScribeFire.

We now support the new [[video]] HTML tag when viewing movies from our site.

You’ll need Firefox v3.5+ (full or beta release) or Safari v4+ for us to show you a “try the new [[video]] tag” section under the “click to play” video area.

You can even persist a choice to always use it on our site (by us setting a cookie for you) (and you can change your mind and go back to the normal flash plugin based option).

-Tracey Jaquith

If you’ve been paying attention – and I know you have – you might have heard a crazy term tossed about by video marketers and producers, particularly those in the relatively nascent open video camp. The term is Ogg Theora, and it’s making the rounds as the new covert buzzword of the video production world. But what the heck is it, anyway?

For one, it’s complicated. Without going into graphic detail, Ogg Theora is a free, open-source video compression format made by the Xiph.org Foundation that is optimized for internet video production. The Theora website hawks it as being “in the same class as MPEG-4/DivX,” and “well engineered for low-bitrate streaming.” The technology, released in November of ‘08, is the video compliment to Ogg Vorbis, an audio codec with similar benefits.

Why does any of this matter? Here’s why:

Ogg Theora will Save You Money

Open-source means closed-wallet. There are no licensing or royalty fees associated with Theora, which means that no matter how you use it, you will never pay a dime. Contrast this with, say, the MPEG-4 format, which incurs licensing and royalty fees after a certain number of distributions, and must be paired with an MPEG audio codec, which incurs additional costs. By comparison, Theora can pair with a host of other free, high-quality, open-source audio codecs, including Vorbis, at no additional cost.

Ogg Theora is Perfect for Web Video

You know that blocky, pixellated look you sometimes get when you’re watching video from a low-tech source? Don’t you hate that? With Theora, you can kiss it goodbye. Streaming online video has never looked so good. Because Theora is optimized for low-bitrate video (which is the kind you’re most likely publishing now), you can rest assured that your users can experience your Web video content without a hitch.

Ogg Theora Works on Your Machine

If you’re worried about compatibility, stop worrying. Theora works on the Mac and Windows platforms (Windows users have to download a filter), and is standard for Linux users. In fact, producing content using Ogg software is a great way to give a tip of the hat to the rapidly growing open-source community.

Ogg Theora is Here to Stay

How many times have you called tech support only to find that support for a particular piece of software was no longer available? This will never happen with Theora. Because the software source code is open, so is all the documentation. This also means that if the company ever decides to get out of the video codec business, some enterprising developer would undoubtedly continue to make the code available to the public.

Now, there are a few downsides to Theora, and Christopher Rick of ReelSEO covers them here. It’s worth noting, however, most of these problems stem from the fact that A) the software is still new, and B) not everyone is so keen on their competitors offering comparable software for free. So the premise remains: a reliable, Web-optimized, cross-platform, free video codec? How could you possibly say no?

Quem gosta de flash? Aquele plugin proprietário, que até agora só tem versão alfa para amd64, que é pesado para caramba, que consome todos os recursos de um QuadCore com 4GB de RAM, que transforma seu Iceweasel em um zumbi, que trava o X (!), e que é usado para fazer um monte de interfaces bonitas, horríveis e funcionais?

Eu não.

Por isso gostei quando li como está o andamento do HTML5, com suporte para integração de vídeo (e com Mozilla puxando para o codec ser Ogg Theora) no ArsTechnica. Também fiquei feliz que agora vai dar para integrar outros campos com vídeo e opções interessantes direto no html, sem precisar fazer grotescos e pesados sites em flash. E ainda melhor, podendo usar software aberto. O Firefox 3.5beta4 e o Opera 10 beta estão com suporte já a muita coisa do HTML5. Agora só esperar que a Micosoft não f*da o esquema.

From Creative Commons blog: Uncensored Interview, a video producer and licensor of musician interviews, is releasing thousands of videos from its interview footage archive under our most permissive license, Attribution also known as CC-BY. Previously, Uncensored Interview’s library consisted of premium content available for commercial licensing, but now includes videos available via download in Ogg Theora, a free and open video compression format. Under CC-BY, users of the content are only required to give attribution to Uncensored Interview as the content source. [ Read full article ]

Mozilla está interesado en el vídeo de código abierto en la Web, razón por la que ha donado recientemente 100.000 dolares al proyecto Theora cuyo proyecto de formato de compresión de vídeo es libre. Dicho donativo será administrado por la Wikimedia, y se ha anunciado que Firefox 3.1 tendrá soporte nativo para Theora y Vorbis, un códec de audio también libre.

Actualmente los formatos de vídeo más dominantes en la Web son Flash de Adobe y Silverlight de Microsoft, ambos de código cerrado, con varias limitantes por licencias y restricciones. Por lo tanto, la apuesta de Mozilla es hacia Theora con el que puede extender la libertad del vídeo a futuro, compitiendo con estos formatos tan populares y otros que lo son tanto.

El donativo se ha dado a conocer en el Blog de Mozilla, en donde han comentado al respecto:

“Creemos que Theora es la mejor ruta disponible para el vídeo abierto, vídeo verdaderamente libre en Internet. También creemos que puede ser mejorado en calidad, en rendimiento, y en calidad de ejecución, y Mozilla se enorgullece de apoyar el desarrollo de Theora con 100.000 dolares. Administrado por la Fundación Wikimedia, esta subvención se utilizará para el desarrollo de mejores codificaciones y una mayor potencia de reproducción de bibliotecas en Theora.”

Se espera que este donativo contribuya a la mejora del proyecto, y al mismo tiempo, sea un ejemplo para que otras empresas apoyen el formato de vídeo libre.

Mozilla por su parte comenzara la difusión completa de esta tecnología al integrarla de forma nativa en Firefox 3.1, lo que significa que no habrá necesidad de descargar un plugin para visualizar los vídeos en la Web.

Fuente.

Mozilla et Wikimedia, probablement les fondations les plus connues du Web, sont rarement citées conjointement. Hormis peut-être pour parler statistiques, leurs deux fers de lance (Firefox et Wikipédia) rassemblant des centaines de millions d’Internautes.

Le premier nommé, fort des revenus générés par Firefox (principalement grâce à Google), vient cependant de subventionner à hauteur de 100 000 dollars la fondation Wikimedia, afin que cette dernière puisse améliorer des technologies vidéo ouvertes, et plus précisément l’Ogg Theora, déclinaison vidéo du fameux Ogg Vorbis de Xiph.org.

Format de compression vidéo libre, Theora est vivement supporté par la fondation Wikimedia, qui depuis près de trois ans milite pour que Firefox gère ce format par défaut (ce qui est le cas depuis peu avec Firefox 3.1 bêta).

Mozilla souhaite cependant améliorer Theora, d’autant qu’il est (à l’instar de Vorbis) utilisé systématiquement par Wikipédia. Or quand on sait que ce dernier souhaite développer les fichiers audio et vidéo sur sa plateforme, on se dit que les formats de Xiph ont de beaux jours devant eux.

« Les standards ouverts pour l’audio et la vidéo sont importants, car ils peuvent être utilisés par tout le monde et pour n’importe quelle raison, sans payer de redevances (royalties), et peuvent être vérifiés et améliorés par une communauté open source » note Erik Möller, directeur adjoint de la fondation Wikimedia.

« Aujourd’hui, la vidéo et l’audio sur le Web sont dominés par les technologies propriétaires, la plupart du temps des codecs propriétaires sont intégrés dans des lecteurs au code source fermé. Wikimedia et Mozilla veulent aider à la construction d’un Web où la vidéo et l’audio seront des citoyens de première classe : faciles à utiliser et à manipuler par quiconque, sans les régimes obligatoires des redevances ni d’obstacles à la contribution. »

Erik Möller précise que les améliorations opérées grâce à ces 100 000 dollars seront publiées d’ici les six prochains mois.

[reposted and edited with generous consent from John Gilmore]

The Internet Archive has a collection of about 185,000 moving images,
including many cartoons and full-length movies that have fallen into
the public domain.  They offer full downloads in the best format they
have, as well as “re-derived” versions in other (typically smaller)
formats.  They also added a Flash-based video player in the last year
or two.   The “One Laptop Per Child”, or OLPC, software supports the Ogg Theora video
codec, but few movies had been uploaded in Ogg Theora, and none had
previously been re-derived into it.

The Archive actively supports the free software ecosystem, and is now
busy re-deriving copies of all their videos into both Ogg Theora and
H.264 (mp4) codecs.  So far they have more than 40% of the videos
converted, and hope to have the rest done by December 2008.
This makes each of these videos easily accessible on the OLPC XO, by
looking in the left margin for the download/stream link for the Ogg
Video version.  As each is converted, it immediately becomes
accessible at www.archive.org/details/movies.

The Archive is also noticing that the “OLPC” browser
is connecting, and replaces the Flash player with a direct link to the
.ogv Ogg Theora file.  This allows stock XO’s to play videos by
clicking on the big Click To Play image.  For example, try:

 http://www.archive.org/details/merry_melodies_falling_hare

For the kids, they’ve already converted all 84 cartoons in this collection:

 http://www.archive.org/details/classic_cartoons

You can also search their moving images collection for 
 format:”Ogg Video”
to restrict your search to movies that have a copy available in Ogg (Theora).

–tracey jaquith

Hace una año y medio aproximadamente Opera propuso la creación de un estándar de vídeo que “substituyese” al actual flash. La propuesta fue Ogg Theora un formato libre cuya implementación en la web haría un gran favor a los navegadores ya que estos podrían implementar vídeo de forma nativa y para cualquier plataforma (ahorrándose además problemas de patentes).

Ahora se ha lanzado la versión 1.0 de Theora se espera el avance más rápido de este formato, que ya esta soportado por Firefox y en algunas versiones de Opera. Theora ha sido desarrollado por los creadores de Ogg Vorbis, el formato de audio libre “equivalente” al famoso mp3. El siguiente paso será el desarrollo de un nuevo codificador, llamado Thusnelda, que ofrecerá una mejor calidad de imagen, el cual se lanzará con la versión 1.1 de Theora.

Esperemos que poco a poco los formatos libres dominen la Web, ya que esto facilitaría mucho los problemas de compatibilidad con los plugins en los diferentes navegadores y plataformas.

Michael will work on adding support for video editing operations and other video-related functionality to MediaWiki, with a rich user interface built entirely on open standards like Ogg Theora. Michael’s work priorities will be coordinated between Kaltura and WMF. I am hoping that we can make incremental improvements to Wikimedia’s video capabilities that will start to become visible to users soon.

So MediaWiki does not only try to enhance standard wiki functionality but explores the possibilites of online collaborative video editing. Nice.

Source: CreativeCommons.org

Istanbul è un “desktop session recorder” che permette di registrare in un video tutto quello che state facendo sul vostro desktop. Il programma produce un video in formato Ogg Theora.

Per maggiori informazioni, andate sul sito del progetto cliccando qui.

Da qui potete scaricare uno screencast che mostra le capacità di screencasting di Istanbul.

Buon screencasting a tutti!

Awhile back I wrote a little bit about a video game I made called Word War vi.

I made a few more videos about the development of this game so far, showing early versions of the game going all the way back to a “hello world” type gtk program.

Hmm, evidently embedding google videos doesn’t work? Ok. I guess I’ll just link to them:

Videos about the development of wordwarvi, a linux gtk video game. <– clicky.

(edit: I figured out how to embed google videos here.)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 2

Interestingly, youtube won’t take ogg theora video files, (it rejects them saying they’re “too long”, regardless of how long or short they really are), but google video will take them. That’s kind of weird, considering google video and youtube are sort of the same thing now. Whatever.

Yeah… you can download the shock doctrine film now in the ogg format. Hurray!

For more information, read my previous post.

If you don’t know what shock doctrine is all about, read my former blog post.
Some days ago I sent a mail to the web administrator of the shock doctrine homepage.

On their film section they allow the download of the short film in wmv and mov format. The problem with these two formats, are that they are proprietary ones and thus
causing problems for people using other operating systems that microsofts and apple ones.

Now I got the answer from Debry Levy (the site admin). She will send me the video files, I will convert the film into ogg theora and sent it back. And she will upload the new
ogg theora video.

If you want to read the mail exchange read along…

My mail:

Hi,

My name is Stefan E.
I visited the http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/ homepage and was
delighted to see that you allow people wo watch the shock doctrine short film
for free and without hurdles.
(http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film)

But there is one thing which confuses me. The book and the film is against the
power of companies about people, their rights and free choice.
On the other hand you provide the video in two file formats:
- wmv
- mov
Which are fileformats which are protected by patents by microsoft and apple.
This means that you are excluding users which use gnu/linux [1], bsd systems
[2], … and all other free operating systems.
This is the exact thing what the companies want.

So it would be great if you could provide a third variant of the video. My
sugestion is to provide a new file in the ogg theora file format[3]. This
would allow people which free systems to watch the film without the need to
install legally questionable software on their pc’s.

If you have any questions concerning this mail don’t hesitate to ask me.

Thx
Stefan E.

p.s. I will post this mail on my blog (stefon.wordpress.com) too to inform
people about the problems with proprietary software and codecs.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnu/linux
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bsd
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oggtheora

And the response

Dear Stefan,

I am Naomi Klein’s assistant. Thank you for your suggestion of offering the
film in a non-proprietary format. This is a great idea! Would you be willing
to convert the film into an ogg theora format and I’ll upload it to Naomi’s
website? I’ll send you the film via yousendit.com and you could send the
converted file back to me through yousendit. Thank you for your help!

Best wishes,
Debra Levy

Who doesn’t like the idea of open source, of sharing, and that every one who is able to can change software to his/her likings and share the changes with the rest of the free software world? Unfortunately, it takes a big deal of self-restraint to only use completely liberated software. Who can resist the attraction of shiny animations on websites (Flash), or those of playing music on your iPod (which does not support any of the free formats that are superior in so many ways)?

Unfortunately, due to a lot of legal restrictions, Xubuntu is unable to add support for these restricted formats to a default installation. Luckily, since Xubuntu Feisty (7.04) it is easier than ever to enable, using Applications->System->Add/Remove.... With just a few clicks, you can install the package “Ubuntu Restricted Extras”. So, I open up Add/Remove… and search for “Restricted Extras”…

Not found?! Oh, wait…

To broaden your search, choose ‘Show all Open Source applications’ or ‘Show all available’ applications.

So, in the top right-hand corner, I select “All available applications” and, what a surprise, there it is!

Cliking the checkbox in front of “Ubuntu restricted extras” I get the following pop-up:

Hmm… If you are a person (as in: not a company) then it should be legal for you to install these packages. I am a person, so I click “Install”.
However, the purpose of this window isn’t entirely clear. Indeed, the button said “Install”, but it actually meant “Enable”, as in “enable extra repositories” (i.e. locations to download software from). So, if you were thinking the package would now be installed: you’re wrong. In fact, the checkbox in front of “Ubuntu restricted extras” is still unchecked. Check it now, then click OK. You will be asked if you are sure, click “Apply”. The packages will then finally be installed.

There you have it! You can now play your music and watch YouTube (and yes, you can use Gnash for that, but more likely than not situations will occur where you need a version of Flash later than seven). You can use Java (which will be open sourced and thus can be included in future releases of Xubuntu) and websites will now be displayed in the fonts their authors wanted them to be displayed in! Enjoy!

Note: the next version of Xubuntu, Gutsy Gibbon, will introduce Xubuntu Restricted Extras, which will install packages more appropriate for Xubuntu.

The newest version of Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn, prompts you to install proprietary codecs when trying to play e.g. an MP3 file. It displays the following message:

The use of some of this software may be restricted in some countries. You must verify that one of the following is true:

1. These restrictions do not apply in your country of legal residence
2. You have permission to use this software (for example, a patent license)
3. You are using this software for research purposes only

The reason Ubuntu, and Xubuntu, cannot ship these “codecs” (software that allows you to play media in a certain format) is that several companies claim to own patents over these codecs and have been enforcing these patents. You can read more about these issues concerning MP3 at the Wikipedia page on MP3.

Of course there are alternatives to these formats which, if your preferred media player supports it, I highly recommend you to use. However, to be able to use them, you need to know how to, so in this post, I’ll try to highlight the popular alternatives. Note that I am far from an expert in this area, I’ve just done a little research.

There are two ways to save an audio file: lossy and lossless. Lossy means that, when saving an audio file, everything that the human ear cannot hear will not be saved, resulting in a considerably lower file size. Of course, the quality is reduced a little, and the removed sounds cannot be restored unless you have a backup, but the loss is not noticeable unless you are trying very hard. This is also the reason that it is unwise to convert your files from one lossy format to another, as the quality will be greatly reduced. As you might have guessed, lossless audio formats save the file without any loss. As a result, the file size is much larger than for lossy audio formats, though it can be reduced a little by some lossless formats.
WAV is, as yungchin tells us, a container format that most often stores pulse-code modulation, a way of digitally storing a close representation of an analog signal such as sound, together forming the most common lossless audio format. As far as I know WAV is not restricted by licensing issues in that it can come default on Xubuntu, but it is not open, as in free to edit. The most popular open alternative is Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). Another advantage of FLAC over WAV is that FLAC, even though it loses no data, still manages to compress the audio file resulting in a little smaller file sizes.

The most common lossy audio format, which I’m sure you’ve heard of, and which I mentioned earlier, is MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. If you haven’t heard of it, then you probably know it by the name MP3. This one not only isn’t open, but also cannot be supported by default in Xubuntu. The most popular alternative is Vorbis, which is half the size but of better quality, like Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio (WMA). Vorbis is mostly used in combination with another format, within a container format called (thanks Bas) Ogg, and then referred to as Ogg Vorbis. To add to the confusion, it sometimes (mostly) is also referred to as simply Ogg. And it gets worse: Theora, an open video format alternative to MPEG-4 Part 14 (or MP4) which is also used in conjunction with Ogg, is also sometimes referred to as simply Ogg, and both use the .ogg extension!
So, when someone mentions Ogg, it is likely to be Ogg Vorbis when he refers to an audio file, and Ogg Theora when it’s a video file.

The Free Software Foundation recently started the Play Ogg campaign, which promotes the use of Ogg instead of MP3. As you can see on their, they mention “Ogg” all the time whereas they mean “Ogg Vorbis”.

If you want to dig yet a little deeper, you might also want to check out Wikipedia’s article on Speex, another format used with often contained in Ogg… In fact, even FLAC can be contained in Ogg, but this is not that common.

Now, on to converting your audio files to these open formats. The software you can use for this is SoundConverter, which you can install by opening Add/Remove… in the Applications menu under System. Make sure you have selected to Show: either “All Open Source applications” or “All available applications”.

When you start SoundConverter from “Multimedia” under the “Applications” menu, you will be greeted with the following screen:

Before converting, you should check the Preferences under the Edit menu, where you can set the format to convert to, the quality of the newly produced file, and where to save it:

After you have set your preferences, you can start adding files that you want to convert to the format you just selected. You can add whole folders at once, or add files one by one:

When you are done adding files, click “Convert” to start the conversion process:

That’s it, you now have your sound files in a shiny other format!

PS. As I said, I’m not an expert, so if anyone has anything to add (preferably backed by sources) please do so in the comments on this post.