Disable "Recent Items" Menu in VLC uBuntu

You may not always want the "Recent Items" menu to display in VLC, luckily there is a fast, quick and easy way to turn it off.

Simply go to Tools then Preferences.

Click Interface and then uncheck Save Recently Played Items.

The 5 Essential Programs for uBuntu

1. VLC 

The Daddy of all media players. Plays almost every media type with a wide variety of options and a minimal UI.

2. GIMP 

A popular free alternative to Adobe's popular Photoshop image editing software. Not quite on par with Photoshop and the UI is a little difficult but still a brilliant alternative.

3. Banshee 
 
Personally I've found the range of audio players available on uBuntu to be disappointing with difficult, unfamiliar interfaces to someone so familiar with iTunes. There seems to be an obsession with stuffing as many different windows into one interface - coupled with the inability to remove them (I'm looking at you Rhythmbox)

The exception has been Banshee. Although it arrives with a multitude of different windows, these can be easily turned off (View > Show Browser) and the result is a wonderfully simple, sleek and dependable music player.

4. LibreOffice 

The popular free alternative to the Microsoft Office suite. Writer for Word, Calc for Excel, Impress for PowerPoint. I've found just about everything I can do in Microsoft Office I can do in Libre.

5. Truecrypt

Lock your important files, encrypt your drives (although this can take a while depending on size) or create hidden drives within drives for extra security.

Quickly Cut and Trim Any Video File

So you've got this video file that's taking up a lot of space. You've noticed it's 2-3 hours long but really you only need 20-30 minutes of it. This is going to show you how to chop it up.

Open the terminal and enter this command, changing (00:15:00 -t 00:45:23) to whatever length you're looking for and original.mp4 & output.mp4 as appropriate.

ffmpeg -acodec copy -vcodec copy -ss 00:15:00 -t 00:45:23 -i original.mp4 output.mp4

So that command above would take the original.mp4 file and create a smaller output.mp4 file consisting of original.mp4's 15 minute mark to 45 minute 23 mark.

If you prefer a GUI can also do this using AviDemux available from the software centre but from my experience this takes a longgg time (it needs to build the file - or something) whereas in the terminal it takes a matter of seconds.

How to play a Video with a Vorbis.acm (vo3+) Audio Codec - uBuntu 12.10

Lately I've been getting the following error when trying to play video files:

"No suitable decoder module: VLC does not support the audio or video format "vo3+". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."

We'll see about that.

It's an audio codec problem (duh) and the absent codec is vorbis.acm, which if my casual Google searches are correct is a Japanese codec.

My initial thought was simply install the codec but I found a faster method. However, it's available here, if you're willing to go that route.



But here's what I did (this should take about 20-25 minutes)

1. Install Avidemux from the software centre.

2. Open the file and rip the audio.

   Open -> File (Open the video file with the vo3+ audio)

   Audio -> Save (This'll rip the audio to a location of your choosing)

It's a good idea to save the audio in Home to make the next step easier.

3. Download ogmtools (available from software centre) and run ogmdemux.

   ogmdemux -nv -v /home/username/sample.ogg (or wherever your file is located)

(-nv because there's no video stream, -v to show the process in terminal)

The output file should be in your home folder, regardless of where the input file was.

4. Install Sound Converter from the Software centre.

So by now you should now have a working audio file still in .ogg format.
All that's left is to tack it back to the original video.

Open the audio file in Sound Converter then go

   Preferences -> Type of Result -> mp3

Then hit convert. This should take a few minutes depending on how big your file is and the quality you want it to be in. Afterwards you should have a working .mp3 audio file.

5. Last step - Open Avidemux again then open the video file.

   Audio -> MP3-Lame (Drop down menu - Change from Copy)

Now this time from the top menu:

   Audio -> Main Track -> External Mp3 -> (Select mp3 File)

Finally:

   File -> Save -> Save Video

And you should now have a video file with working audio.

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One Simple, Easy Fix for Smoother HD Videos in VLC

I'm been having problems playing HD videos in VLC player recently, the main ones being tearing lines and flickering.

But I've found a simple fix.

1. Go to Tools then Preferences

2. Change "Show Settings" in the bottom left corner from "Simple" to "All"

3. Open "Input/Codecs" and go to "Video codecs" then x264

4. Enable "Skip loop filter"

And hopefully your HD videos will start playing smoothly.