1. Chapter 6 Multimedia Applications
Ubuntu Unleashed
Chapter 6
Multimedia Applications

2. Sound and Music Sound card drivers for Linux
ALSA – Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
OSS – Open Sound System
Ubuntu uses ALSA as it's more current and has more support
PulseAudio – a sound server used by Ubuntu
A go between that allows various sound outputs to use ALSA

3. Adjusting Volume Simple Click speaker icon in top right corner
Move slider left or right
Custom
Click speaker icon
Select Sound Preferences
Adjust balance, fade, subwoofer and volume

4. Sound Formats RAW Header less format MP3
Not supported by default, but installs a codec when you first try to play an MP3
WAV
Uncompressed Windows format
Ogg-Vorbis
Ubuntu preferred – open source
FLAC
Lossless – huge file sizes but amazing audio quality
Free Lossless Audio Codec

5. Listening to Music Rhythmbox Former default Ubuntu music application
Listen to audio CDs
Rip CDs to your music directory
Appearance is similar to iTunes
Banshee
New default music application
Also plays video
Sound Juicer
Retrieves track details
Saves tracks in Ogg format

6. Graphics Shotwell Photo Manager Default Ubuntu photo manager
Red eye reduction, cropping and color adjustment
Will interface with Facebook, Flickr and Picasa
GIMP
Photoshop clone
Great for video display, not so much for printing
RGB vs CMYK

7. Scanners and Screen Capture
Simple Scan
Built in scanner software
Screen Capture
Press Prt Scr to capture entire desktop
Alt+Prt Scr captures the active window

8. Graphic Formats BMP – Bitmaps – commonly used in MS Windows
GIF – Graphics Interchange Format
JPG – Joint Photographic Experts Group
PCX – IBM Paintbrush
PNG – Portable Network Graphics
SVG – Scalable Vector Graphics
TIF – Tagged Image File Format
ImageMagick can convert between formats

9. Other Graphics Options
Blender – 3D image and animation editor
CinePaint – used by Hollywood studios
darktable – RAW editor
digiKam – photo management software
Hugin – panoramic photo stitcher
Inkscape – vector graphics creation & editing tool
POV-Ray – 3D graphics program – uses ray tracing
Radiance – lighting analysis and visualization
Xara Xtreme – general purpose graphics editor

10. Digital Cameras 2 kinds – webcams & handheld cameras
Webcams integrated (built in or plug in)
Handheld digital cameras include most phones, tablets, etc.
Just plug in via USB and Ubuntu mounts it
Can be set to automatically import photos from your device
Shotwell Photo Manger
Default photo manager for Ubuntu

11. Burning Optical Discs
This is a necessary skill for turning ISOs into install discs
If you don't have a disc burning program go to Ninite and download/install CDBurnerXP (this is an application for windows, no Linux version yet)
Ubuntu uses Brasero
Use the “Burn Image” option to burn an ISO to disc
You can also burn discs from command line
If you have a blank CD or DVD you can experiment with the command line burning programs. Follow the guidelines in the chapter

12. Burning Optical Discs cont.

13. Video Formats AVI – MS Windows video format FLV – Used in Adobe Flash
MPEG – video format
MOV – QuickTime video format
QT – another QuickTime format
OGV/OGG – freely licensed format
WEBM – royalty free audio/video container from Google

14. Watching Video Install “Ubuntu-restricted-extras” from repositories
Will allow you to watch proprietary formats
Totem Movie Player – default
Flash – web content
VLC – Plays almost everything
Mythbuntu – turns your computer into a PVR (personal video recorder)

15. DOL and CCBY