(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi.

Some videos at Youtube are available exclusively as .webm files. I don't like watching movies online, so I download and prefer to watch offline after downloading the video.

Which media players are able to play .webm files offline?

How can I convert .webm files to e.g. .mp4?

Thanks in advance...

Hi ITSMERSH,

Windows Avidemux version 2.7 can convert webm files. IIRC I've used the conversion of MPEG4 ASP (xvid4) but the other two MPEG4 options may work as well. I think Avidemux version 2.6.8 will also work. I've used those windows version under Wine in 32-bit Puppies. The Avidemux.AppImage version 2.6.2 which runs OOTB under Xenialpup64 can as well. But, if you're not running Xenialpup64, it's probably worthwhile to look for a Linux version of Avidemux 2.7, or as close to it as you can find, that will run under your Puppy.

mikesLr

Afterthought (after dinner, that is) I wonder if webm files will play in a recent web-browser. Sorry, I can't test as the couple of webm files I downloaded have already been converted, and I'm not going to search for others.

I don't have any problem playing .webm videos in:-
MPlayer (and SMPlayer or Gnome MPlayer)
VLC
FFplay
xine
mpv

So I wouldn't bother converting them unless there was some specific reason to do so.

One thing you may find in some Puppies is that the mime type is not set up for .webm files so the correct icon may not display and clicking may not open the file immediately in your player. This can easily be resolved though.

Thanks for the replies.

I have tested a downloaded .webm video in vlc, gnome mplayer and smplayer. None of them could play the video. Currently there's no xine, ffplay and mpv installed.

Though, after downloading and installing libwayland-egl1-mesa_10.1.3-0ubuntu0.6_i386.deb I could convert the .webm video to .mp4 video via Video Download Helper (Companion App) in Firefox.

As long as this works, I'm happy with that, so far.

Webm plays for me in mplayer (gmplayer) and VLC. I use Racy and Tahr which have these players respectively. No problem.

Were you able to right-click the .webm file and "Open with" one of your media players?

Could possibly be you've hit the bug which OscarTalks describes above and which he helped me solve here.

You're not working in Tahr 6.02 or 6.03 by any chance?

Yep, my build is based on Tahr 6.0.2

Ah, then I'd say it's definitely worth giving his suggestion in this post a go.

Tahr 6.02 is the only Puppy in which I ever came across that problem, and only when trying to play .webm's

If it plays when you open up a blank VLC or Mplayer page and drag a .webm file's icon over on to it, you know they can play it!

VLC error messages (after done the steps from linked post)

No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "VP90". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.
No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "undf". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.

VLC is: 2.1.4 Rincewind

Edit:

All icons of .zip and .tar.gz files have changed to the "binary" icon.

Oops sorry, out of my depth there, worked instantly for me when I ran that command, in both VLC and Mplayer-dependent UMplayer

Maybe pm OscarTalks?

Btw just checked my 6.02 install and it's running vlc-2.1.6-wheezy.sfs, if that matters at all.

Hi Again,

After reading the above posts and those on the thread a_salty_dogg linked to, I decided to take the plunge, download a webm video and see what happens under Xenialpup64.

The first thing I discovered is that although webm videos on youtube are easy to find --just plug webm into the youtube's search box-- Google-Chrome won't let you download them. Firefox-quantum had no such compunction, but I hadn't installed a video downloader. So I installed an extension appropriately named VideoDownload Helper, which told me I'd also have to install net.downloadhelper.coapp-1.2.4-1_amd64.deb, and provided the link to it. So I downloaded, clicked and installed that deb. Not sure I had to restart-x. But I did. Then reopened firefox to a youtube webm video and, although downloadhelper offered several formats to download it as, I chose the webm format.

Next problem. I could not find it. It wasn't in the download folder I had selected for firefox. Then I remembered that videodownload helper creates its own download folder /root/dwhelper. [I've used the program before and know it does a good job. But it's been a while. I think there may be some way to select a different folder for downloads, or even a choice for each download. But that's a problem for a different day].

Now that I finally had a webm file (and knew that my instinct to not get involved had been correct ) I wondered if I'd run into the problem a_salty_dogg mentioned. I didn't. Left-clicking the vid opened it immediately in mpv, Xenialpup64's default video player. [I hadn't installed VLC which I'm more familiar with, but which recently has required that it be run as Spot].

As I'm uncertain that Openshot Video Editor 1.4.3 can handle webm files, I then ran ffmpeg to see if it could convert webms to an "older format". [Untested but I would guess that the the newer version (2.4.1) of Openshot available as an AppImage should be able to handle webm files]. At any rate, I dropped the webm file into ffmpeg and set preset to be AVI MSMPEG4 MP3 and ffmpeg rendered a playable video with sound having a mpg ending.

If memory serves, the conversion was quick compared to conversions using Avidemux.

mikesLr

p.s. If you're running something other than a Ubuntu/debian Puppy, the helper program net.downloadhelper.coapp-1.2.4-1_amd64 comes in different formats. It wasn't required when running 32-bit firefox.

As I mentioned, I've used videodownload helper before. It's conversion options do work. videodownload helper has long been an available firefox addon. So, if nothing else works, run firefox under Tahrpup, install videodownload helper and use it to avoid having to deal with videos in webm format.

Mike,

The only problem I ever had in playing saved .webm's was in Tahr 6.02, never in any Puppy earlier or later. OscarTalks was of the opinion that it's maybe a bug in that specific version, probably fixed in 6.05.

In older versions of VDH (which are the only ones I've ever been able to install in the browsers I use) there's a setting under the "behavior" tab named "Use default browser storage directory" which needs to be unticked. You should then be presented with the usual "Save" menu window to navigate to the folder you want every time you click on a video format from the list of available downloads which appears in the dropdown menu on any page after you've clicked the icon.
Hopefully it's still the same in the up-to-date versions of VDH.

Or alternatively you can change the default download location from "dwhelper" to any other default location on the settings homepage tab at "Change storage directory", though note if you aim it at an external drive which is later unmounted and/or allocated a different partition name/number , the default will revert to root/dwhelper.
Again, hope that still applies on new versions.

Just checked with Tahr605. VLC does not associate with my webm files by default. I've linked to the desktop entry in "open with" to access from right-click menu. However, drag and drop into the player window AND opening from player menu also works. Also - All my webm videos are VP80 versions. Perhaps VP90 is not supported by this version of VLC.

Converting videos will always reduce the quality so I would only ever do this if absolutely necessary.

Tahr does not have native MPlayer but I have some compiled versions of MPlayer with GUI for Tahr-i686 and Tahr64. These are svn checkouts which are newer than the latest release and they should play most formats including .webm
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks

My VLC versions for Wheezy and Stretch are compiled from source by me.
Other builds may have missing codecs.

It has been a while since I looked at the mime-types issue and my memory of it has faded a bit, but I believe the associations are already set up and you just need to run the update-mime-database /usr/share/mime command as mentioned in the other thread that salty linked to. This makes the .webm videos be recognised as media files rather than executables in ROX.

for i in *.webm; do ffmpeg -i "$i" -strict -2 "$i.mp4"; done

Converts all webm in the current directory to mp4

for i in *.webm; do ffmpeg -i "$i" -strict -2 "$i.mp4"; done

@ITSMERSH
You will need a ffmpeg version of this century
ffmpeg 2.8.11 contains the needed codecs e.g. Also a recent browser has no problems to play these videos.

norgo wrote:@ITSMERSH
You will need a ffmpeg version of this century
ffmpeg 2.8.11 contains the needed codecs e.g.

Code: Select all

 DEV.L. vp8                   (decoders: vp8 libvpx ) (encoders: libvpx )
 DEV.L. vp9                   (decoders: vp9 libvpx-vp9 ) (encoders: libvpx-vp9 )

Also a recent browser has no problems to play these videos.

Is the browser independent of relying on ffmpeg for playing VP9 (in other words, if your browser is new enough will it play vp9 and you do not need ffmpeg installed)? Seems to be the case. BTW - how do you get Youtube to playback at that high quality?

@nic007

I compiled seamonkey with option "--with-system-libvpx", so installation of libvpx is required.
Compilation of seamonkey to use internal libvpx would be possible too.
Use "about:buildconfig" to see build configuration of browser.

norgo wrote:@nic007

I compiled seamonkey with option "--with-system-libvpx", so installation of libvpx is required.
Compilation of seamonkey to use internal libvpx would be possible too.
Use "about:buildconfig" to see build configuration of browser.

Okay, thanks.