Linux Multimedia Hacks 99
MikeD writes "I just got my copy of the latest release in the O'Reilly's 'Hacks' series, "Linux Multimedia Hacks" by Kyle Rankin. If you are familiar with the other books in the 'Hack' series, this one will seem familiar." Read the rest of Mike's review.
Linux Multimedia Hacks | |
author | Kyle Rankin |
pages | 330 |
publisher | O'Reilly |
rating | 8 |
reviewer | MikeD |
ISBN | 0-596-10076-0 |
summary | Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video |
There are 5 'Chapters', each focusing on a specific multimedia topic starting from the most basic/common and moving up the multimedia food chain. The chapters cover (in order) Images, Audio, Video, Broadcast media, and the Web. The hacks in each section are similarly arranged, usually starting with the simplest and moving to more complex issues. They helpfully put a little rating symbol by each hack indicating if it is for beginners, intermediate or advanced users. While that is a little simplistic, it does give you some hint at the complexity of that particular 'hack'.
Because this is a 'hack' book, it is really designed so you can look up the topic you want. For example in Chapter 3: Video, there is a "hack" explaining how to convert from one video format to another. If that is what you need to do, turn to hack 63 and follow along and you are done.
But they put a little extra effort into the layout and topics covered here and you *could* use this as a great introduction to a particular multimedia area as well.
Lets look at Chapter2: Audio for example. The first 'hack', number 13, is titled "Mix Your Audio for Perfect Sound. This hack begins by exploring the audio systems in your system, the hardware, the sources and such then finishes by introducing a couple of common tools for controlling your audio, aumix and alsamixer. The next 'hack', "Surround Yourself with Sound" goes into details on how to get sound out of your system. It discusses speakers, 5.1 surround sound and how to use the tools alsmixer, aplay and others to set up, test and ultimately enjoy the cool audio available while watching movies.
Together those two 'hacks' make a pretty basic introduction to PC audio under Linux. From there the audio hacks include format changing, ripping, burning CDs music management and much more. You really could start at the 13 and work your way through to hack 46 and have a very good understanding of audio, PC audio and how to get the most out of it on your Linux PC.
So it really is more than just a collection of hacks. It can lead you from the basics of screen capture ('hack' number 1), to image manipulation, animation, then move on to audio and video. In Chapter 4 they get into TV tuner cards, Myth TV, streaming audio and video, ripping to broadcasting.
Chapter 5, Web hacks is sort of the odd man out in this book. In some ways it is separate from the other four in that it is directed more towards the web, which is something that would require several whole books in itself to cover well. But they included a few ideas, like "Star in Your Own Reality TV Show (hack #97), that do relate to some of the prior material.
Over all this will be a very useful book to anyone who is new to multimedia, but even some more advanced users will find some interesting and useful ideas, I think. Well worth checking out."
You can purchase Linux Multimedia Hacks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Familiarity with word usage... (Score:4, Funny)
Kind of self defining.
For sample hacks (Score:5, Informative)
Another great 'hacks' book (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and, book plug [pmdapplied.com]!
Re:Another great 'hacks' book (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Another great 'hacks' book (Score:2, Insightful)
It might be a good book but I was disappointed to learn that the hack you mentioned wasn't even SSH-specific, just involving creating shell scripts / aliases to avoid typing.
If you want to really "turbo-charge" your SSH logins you might want to look at one of the newer features of OpenSSH v4 reusing existing connections [debian-adm...ration.org].
All the hacks I need (Score:5, Funny)
'Nuff said.
Re:All the hacks I need (Score:2)
Great review (Score:3, Interesting)
The book sounds cool, I might go pick up a copy.
I am curious, as I rarely purchase linux related books, is there alot of distribution specific material? Or is it overly generic to avoid being tied to a certain setup?
For instance when dealing with the many tools i'm sure the book discusses, there could be KDE and GNOME specific implementations, as well as alot of differences on how you will find/install the tool depending on distribution. How is this sort of thing handled?
Re:Great review (Score:3, Informative)
Just a 'comment' (Score:5, Funny)
Because this is a 'hack' book,
here is a "hack"
I bet the author of the post does the little bendy bunny ears gesture with his hands when he speaks...
Ob Grammar Nazi (Score:2, Funny)
(Nothing personal, it's just that if I'm going to play the part of a grammar nazi, I should be insulting.)
Re:Ob Grammar Nazi (Score:1, Offtopic)
What part of "play the part of..." don't you understand?
Jeebus Krist, man! You can't tell the difference between playing a part (perhaps badly, on purpose) and being a differnt kind of "something"? I sure hope they don't let you code.
For a brief moment (Score:5, Funny)
I thought you were writing a haiku.
Re: (Score:1)
Uh... hacks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh... hacks? (Score:1)
Yet we sit here and wonder why linux is not a mainstream desktop choice...
Re:Uh... hacks? (Score:2)
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Re:Uh... hacks? (Score:2)
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:1)
Linux on Desktop
Linux on the desktop and multimedia are evolving (Score:2)
Linux on Desktop
I'll feed your troll...
Thinking that Linux doesn't or can't make a viable desktop due to the sheer volume of opensource solutions to a variety of past problems is missing the point -- the problems have been solved in many ways and distributions have made choices, standardized and made things work so that users don't need to care or worry.
A non-Linux user who thinks Linux on the desktop isn't usable is about as misinformed as a Linux users who complains about the frequen
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:2)
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:1)
The printmanager dialog gives me a choice of print server;
cups
generic
LPD
LPR/LPRng
RLPR
I'm a big advocate of Linux on the desktop, but there are too many different ways of doing things and they do not all need to be included in every distribution by default. Ubuntu is a step in the right direction; they've mostly chosen one way of doing things and packaged all the
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:2)
But you do realize that those option actually do DIFFERENT things?
I think what you say used to be true in the SuSE 5 days when it came with 8 CDs. But today most DEs focus on clarity and one tool for the job. As in your examples, these tools happen to do different things well. So I think it's good we have the choice.
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:2)
The upcoming release might be the right time to give it a spin...
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:1)
Re:Uh, yeah... (Score:1)
The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:4, Interesting)
In some of the cases, a choice of different engines for use is provided. Sometimes, a change in an engine will crash the app! And there is no easy way to know this choice even exists.
I particularily appreciate the folks at http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ [mplayerhq.hu] for a job well done.
But again, I fine Linux feels heavy, even on an AMD 2800+ Sempron processor with 512MB of RAM. On the other OS, it's all a snap.
Can someone tell me why http://www.vorbis.com/ [vorbis.com] is still not that popular?
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with vorbis is that bad marketing meets to late to market.
EVERYBODY has mp3. My discman can read them on cd, my car stereo does, everything. The "free" aspect doesnt matter to the end user, and the bitrate benefits got totally drowned in the storage size inflation... 8 years ago, on a 32Mbyte Rio500, every kb/s counted. By today even flash players have GBs...
And the vidfeo container format suffered from horrible implementations, bugs, the inability to even remotely efficiently _seek_ inside the file and , of course, bad marketing.
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:2)
Ogg is a bitstream container for multimedia
Vorbis is an audio codec
Theora is a video codec
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:1)
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:2)
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:2)
Need I say more?
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:1)
After I dug up a package of dll's and codecs - I don't recall from where - I can watch a wider variety of feeds on my 700mhz PORS (Pile Of Recycled Scrap) linux box than I can on my W2K box with all the updates I can find.
I also like the playlist features and the control panel.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:2)
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:2)
One answer: SUSE Linux 10.0
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:1)
My guess is it's just the higher interactivity and better scheduler in Linux, and that the players tend to be more lightweight. There's been an improvement with 2.6 kernels.
I agree with you MPlayer is great. That the interface is light is a good thing. Most of the functionality is there (plus some) in the keybo
Re:The interfaces are [always] wanting (Score:1)
excellent! (Score:2)
Re:excellent! (Score:2)
Well, I'm looking forward to the day when you don't need a f*cking book to get audio and video support running on Linux. The Linux community has screwed the usability pooch again!
Re:excellent! (Score:1, Interesting)
I wouldn't hold my breath there buddy, cause a book aint gunna help the helpless.
You keep waiting for Gates & Co. to deliver your stock programs.
And several million other folks and myself will continue to improve an OS that has its roots in the worlds phone network and the InterNet.
What's funny is people 'like you' are sort of 'locked' out of the real benefits of Linux by 'default', because of your IQ and propensity to learn. :)
-- My favorite thing about OSS *IS* its Militancy!!
attention marketing department..... (Score:4, Funny)
Hopefully, no one else had the same initial reaction that I had, namely:
"Man, I hope the title doesn't perform double-duty as a description of the authors..."
Re:attention marketing department..... (Score:2)
( no, don't actually answer any of that here... )
All Hacks Start With... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Multimedia Hack #1 (Score:1)
Re:Multimedia Hack #1 (Score:3, Interesting)
"My name is Linux Torvalds and I pronounce Linux Lee-nooks"
And I'm like WTF? I thought Lin-ukks was a friggin atrocity to call my new Lie-nux installation. Now it's got nooks? This is just lue-duk-cruss.
Re:Multimedia Hack #1 (Score:1)
Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as lnks
(if you can't read the strange symbols, either i've fucked up, or your default font doesn't support them)
Re:Multimedia Hack #1 (Score:2)
what about recording audio/video? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a podcaster trying to figure out the best way to input mike/mixer into my linux laptop, and had the damnest time figuring out.
Mastering the software stuff is easy (relatively speaking). Much harder is figuring out how to get your hardware to work. About the best resource I've found for that is this usb device database [qbik.ch]. Under each multimedia device are user comments about how they made it work.
Also, a few months ago I reviewed a book, Digital Video Hacks [dvinfo.net]. More about video production than linux, the book nonetheless a few things from a linux perspective. Highly recommended!
On another note, why hasn't anyone published a decent GIMP manual yet? The last book is a good three years old, and a lot has happened to gimp since then. I would love to see a Gimp Hacks book sometime. I could really use that!
re: gimp book= soon! (Score:2)
GIMP books. . . (Score:1)
I would have written at-least an online minibook for The GIMP
( How To, for photographers who care just to get good-enough-for-results results... ), except that:
a) The GIMP ( or its development ) won't ever be end-user or end-power-user responsive, and
b) The GIMP won't ever support efficient workflow, and
c) The GIMP won't ever support efficient & effective colour-calibration
( at-least not until EVERYone else has done it for sooo long that it finally becomes acceptable for it to do so )
d) The GIM
Amazon has it cheaper than B & N (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Amazon has it cheaper than B & N (Score:2)
Re:Amazon has it cheaper than B & N (Score:1)
Personally, I stopped buying from Amazon.com when they stopped giving away gift certificates, raised prices, and realized that "making it up in volume" doesn't help when they lose money one every order.
Why does O'Reilly continues "Hacks" (Score:3, Insightful)
When Wireless Hacks came out, it was great, real hacks. When the next Hacks book came out, I rushed to the bookstore to take a look and find it was a lame and inaccurate title. When the third Hacks book came out, I didn't and still don't pay any attention.
The "Hacks" branding is effectively worthless, O'Reilly.
Does the book include... (Score:1)
Those would be helpful.
Wot no TV Time? (Score:1)
http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Why, why, why (Score:1)
Re: Here's why, here's why, here's why (Score:2)
Yep, it's a gimmick that sells books. O'Reilly is good at that. Hack has a sufficiently generic meaning that it will mean basically whatever they want it to mean. I'm sure once the open source community has figure out that "hack" is O'Reilly code for "book that you'll soon be buying" they'll have moved on to other words like "Make". Oh wait...
CNN (Score:2)
If enjoying CNN in Linux is no longer an exercise in futility, then I'll personally buy a copy.
Re:CNN (Score:1)
1. install mplayer [mplayerhq.hu]
2. install mplayer plugin [sourceforge.net]
3. enjoy cnn videos.
this is the simple version....you might need to compile mplayer with different codecs for it to work....i use gentoo so its as easy as emerging mplayerplug-in for me
Re:CNN (Score:2)