Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

Gullible Jones · 2010-07-19 23:08:20

Okay... I'm looking for a generic option for playing Flash videos that doesn't involve Adobe's plugin. Interactive Flash content doesn't matter; only videos.

- Gnash and swfdec are right out, they're even worse with the CPU use than the Adobe plugin.
- Greasemonkey and a media player are also out, I think. I tried several Greasemonkey extensions for this sort of thing; a) none of them worked on Youtube any more, and b) most of them weren't supposed to work for anything BUT Youtube, and ideally one should be able to view flash videos on other sites.

It seems to me that what's needed is a plugin that parses just enough of the SWF file to find where the FLV is, then routes the FLV to a media player. Is there anything like that, or should I abandon all hope?

Gullible Jones · 2010-07-19 23:21:40

Update: I seem to have found it - cclive + a streaming media player. That's good enough for me, at least.

Unfortunately it would not be good enough for the people who'd benefit most from an old computer - people who can't afford a new one and know zilch about software. Abby, the only graphical frontend I've found for cclive, is QT4 bloatware that probably won't run on anything more than a few years old... So I'm still open to alternatives.

Gullible Jones · 2010-07-19 23:29:10

Update again: looks like DownThemAll works, with Firefox anyway. Not so much with Chrome. Still open to other suggestions.

Edit: Bah that would be Flashgot not DownThemAll.

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2010-07-20 00:15:08)

karol · 2010-07-20 06:41:48

I've been using Flashgot for ages - it just works.
I've been using cclive for about a year - just works (just be sure to pick the right resolution / quality)

With cclive you need to pass the urls which may be ... 'tricky' w/ people that know nothing about the internet.

Last edited by karol (2010-07-20 06:42:28)

hokasch · 2010-07-20 07:55:04

Not tested myself, but mediaplayerconnectivity is rumoured to work with flash content. Just in case it has not been on your list already.

dmz · 2010-07-20 08:05:53

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37779 is what I use.

fiinix · 2010-07-21 22:32:48

Gullible Jones wrote:

Update: I seem to have found it - cclive + a streaming media player. That's good enough for me, at least.

How exactly does that work? I have (s)mplayer and totem installed. Any further instructions on how to combine cclive with a media player?

Gullible Jones wrote:

Abby, the only graphical frontend I've found for cclive, ...

I tried that (although I have a netbook, qt is quite fast here) but I can't download youtube clips. If I try to add it by address, I'm told "www.youtube.com: unsupported website". If I directly paste an address and then hit "download videos" the log says

2010-07-22T00:12:06: % /usr/bin/cclive --print-fname --continue --no-proxy --format=flv http://www.youtube.com: unsupported website
2010-07-22T00:12:06: error: invalid option argument: --format=flv
2010-07-22T00:12:06: c/clive exited with code 2, see log.

cclive directly from console works fine. How come it works for you?

fredszaq · 2010-07-21 23:43:22

here is how I play flash videos :

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 62#p789862

(you need flash to download the video...)

bananaoomarang · 2010-07-22 04:21:36

If you just want youtube with no flash, you could try minitube... But that isn't even part of a browser so is probably useless to you.

karol · 2010-07-22 08:53:40

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 67#p794867

Gullible Jones wrote:

Unfortunately it would not be good enough for the people who'd benefit most from an old computer - people who can't afford a new one and know zilch about software. Abby, the only graphical frontend I've found for cclive, is QT4 bloatware that probably won't run on anything more than a few years old... So I'm still open to alternatives.

fiinix · 2010-07-26 00:28:56

karol wrote:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 67#p794867
Gullible Jones wrote:
Unfortunately it would not be good enough for the people who'd benefit most from an old computer - people who can't afford a new one and know zilch about software. Abby, the only graphical frontend I've found for cclive, is QT4 bloatware that probably won't run on anything more than a few years old... So I'm still open to alternatives.

I don't think so. My netbook handles Qt very well and Intel Atom N270 CPUs are about as performant as a computer from maybe 6 years ago.

I like minitube, but I have a problem: after it worked a few times, for about a week now it doesn't anymore. Didn't remember to change anything. Terminal gives me

QGtkStyle was unable to detect the current GTK+ theme.
GET "http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?ds=yt&output=toolbar&hl=en-US&q=college" 
GET "http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?ds=yt&output=toolbar&hl=en-US&q=collegehu" 
GET "http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?ds=yt&output=toolbar&hl=en-US&q=collegehumor " 
GET "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=collegehumor tetris&max-results=10&start-index=1" 
GET "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=collegehumor tetris&max-results=10&start-index=1" 
GET "http://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=Alw5hs0chj0&el=embedded&ps=default&eurl=" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Alw5hs0chj0/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3kqu7Zifxto/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3hCzjku-Wfs/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LHY8NKj3RKs/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1yfBv_7Y75c/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hyeJ3IN8eFc/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cFWJ3RsoGaM/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/l24k_KQg84k/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6nUk3UzVRPs/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9A0ZUkeZ9i4/2.jpg" 
GET "http://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=Alw5hs0chj0&el=vevo&ps=default&eurl=" 
Playing "http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=Alw5hs0chj0&t=vjVQa1PpcFP50gRURDpqGTY4i3l9JWQ3X5obJco9tP8=&eurl=&el=embedded&ps=default&fmt=18" 
Phonon error: "Could not open media source." 2 
GET "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=collegehumor tetris&max-results=10&start-index=1" 
QAbstractItemModel::endInsertRows:  Invalid index ( 1 , 0 ) in model ListModel(0x9ae2250) 
GET "http://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=Alw5hs0chj0&el=embedded&ps=default&eurl=" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Alw5hs0chj0/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3kqu7Zifxto/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3hCzjku-Wfs/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LHY8NKj3RKs/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1yfBv_7Y75c/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hyeJ3IN8eFc/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cFWJ3RsoGaM/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/l24k_KQg84k/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6nUk3UzVRPs/2.jpg" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9A0ZUkeZ9i4/2.jpg" 
GET "http://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=Alw5hs0chj0&el=vevo&ps=default&eurl=" 
Playing "http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=Alw5hs0chj0&t=vjVQa1PpcFNQhL_56UaxhicAfsu08opVNEvvZsmLBmc=&eurl=&el=embedded&ps=default&fmt=18" 
Phonon error: "Could not open media source." 2 
GET "http://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=3kqu7Zifxto&el=embedded&ps=default&eurl=" 
Playing "http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=3kqu7Zifxto&t=vjVQa1PpcFNWco3zUG69jMg_unpnzEgztOdZzMReZ-Q=&eurl=&el=embedded&ps=default&fmt=18" 
GET "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=collegehumor tetris&max-results=1&start-index=11" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vzgEi_u9-88/2.jpg" 
Phonon error: "Could not open media source." 2 
GET "http://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=3hCzjku-Wfs&el=embedded&ps=default&eurl=" 
Playing "http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=3hCzjku-Wfs&t=vjVQa1PpcFPJqM1mcxwJtqMgPZWcbMCh6fwXLToAf88=&eurl=&el=embedded&ps=default&fmt=18" 
GET "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=collegehumor tetris&max-results=1&start-index=12" 
GET "http://i.ytimg.com/vi/R5x8MvD422w/2.jpg" 
Phonon error: "Could not open media source." 2
...

I also installed all packages from gstreamer and phonon that I could find. Didn't help (why should it anyway? ). Nor did removing the settings folder and reinstalling it.

For now I use your solution fredszaq - thank you very much for that. But it's not as comfy as just double clicking the next video or even let one clip after another play by itself. Abby doesn't work here either, while cclive does. But since I don't want to download the clips anyway, I don't care.

I use chromium for performance reasons, so flashgot wouldn't help either. Any ideas on how to get minitube to work (again)?

fiinix · 2010-07-27 02:03:59

The latest version (1.1) solved the problem. minitube rocks

Nvveen · 2010-07-28 13:44:01

Honestly, I'm just waiting for HTML5, enduring Flash until then. Sucks to have Arch64 but must move heaven and earth to view films on Youp...uhm, Youtube.

karol · 2010-07-28 13:46:37

Nvveen wrote:

Honestly, I'm just waiting for HTML5, enduring Flash until then. Sucks to have Arch64 but must move heaven and earth to view films on Youp...uhm, Youtube.

I don't knwo hao about you, but I prefer to download movies so that I can watch them a couple times. Mplayer plays .flv or .mp4 w/o a problem.

ChoK · 2010-07-30 14:34:29

I didn't try the Lightspark flash player but it looks promising.

features :
- FLOSS
- Opengl rendering
- Action script 3
- mozilla plugin (for chromium, firefox and opera i suppose)
- profiling and debuging
- gnash fallback (can't remember where I read it, phoronix forums maybe)

archman-cro · 2010-10-07 21:16:47

Anyone using this Lightspark flash player? Seems promising...

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-19 23:08:20

Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#2 2010-07-19 23:21:40

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#3 2010-07-19 23:29:10

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#4 2010-07-20 06:41:48

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#5 2010-07-20 07:55:04

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#6 2010-07-20 08:05:53

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#7 2010-07-21 22:32:48

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#8 2010-07-21 23:43:22

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#9 2010-07-22 04:21:36

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#10 2010-07-22 08:53:40

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#11 2010-07-26 00:28:56

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#12 2010-07-27 02:03:59

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#13 2010-07-28 13:44:01

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#14 2010-07-28 13:46:37

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#15 2010-07-30 14:34:29

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

#16 2010-10-07 21:16:47

Re: Alternatives to flashplugin for video viewing

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