Mplayer : Universal Media Player

Since mplayer is the only multimedia player on my PC other than Amarok, so I will obviously want it to work with each and every media file I have or may encounter and mplayer did all its work with 100% perfection till one day when I tried to play .rm/.rmvb files with it.. So what next, install a separate player for that? Never..the solution is more simple than anyone can expect :

1> If you have not installed the codecs for mplayer then download them from here or mirrors. Extract the contents and copy them to /usr/lib/codecs directory.

2> Now for enabling Real Player support, download this or mirror, extract the contents to the above mentioned folder.
Note: For copying files to /usr/lib/codecs u will need administrative rights (sudo)

TIP: For opening any file with mplayer (CLI), Right Click File > Properties > Open with > Add > xterm -e mplayer > Click on "Always open with same application". This is quite fast and handy.

Enabling/Disabling 'sudo' for Local User(s)

Fedora/RedHat based distros doesn't give sudo power to local users by default, So its the root who grants them the power. Here's a way:

1> Open Terminal / Konsole and then login as root :

$ su -

2> Change the permission of /etc/sudoers to read-write mode :

# chmod u=rw /etc/sudoers

3> Open the file using a texteditor (I am using vim) and search for :

# vim /etc/sudoers

## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Below that add (by i in vim) this:

username ALL=(ALL) ALL

Note: Here you can add or remove users and may have more than one user

4> Save and close the file ( Q then wq in vim) and change permission back to default :

# chmod u=r /etc/sudoers

Alternatively you can also go for :

$ su -c /usr/sbin/visudo

It will open sudoers file in rw mode in vim editor

Video Rotation

One line command for rotating a video by 90 degrees :

$ mplayer -vf rotate=<value> filename

Saving as a AVI file :

$ mencoder -vf rotate=<value> -ovc lavc -oac copy filename -o output.avi

Substitute <value> by a number 0-3 for preferred rotation:

* 0 -> 90 Degree Clockwise + Mirrored
* 1-> 90 Degree Clockwise
* 2-> 90 Degree Anticlockwise
* 3-> 90 Degree Anticlockwise + Mirrored

Gnash

Gnash is a GNU Flash movie player, after going through a article in Digit Magazine : From a Hacker's Diary I came across this piece of program and I was very impressed knowing that it is GNU/GPL licensed and is also a standalone program along with plugin features.

Procedure to install Gnash on Fedora/RedHat like systems:

1> Install package as root:

# yum install gnash gnash-plugin

2> Activate Plugin:

# /usr/bin/mozilla-plugin-config -i -f