Audio media - mp3, Real Audio, and Flash

What media do I generally find myself using? Well, mp3 files, Real Audio files, and whatever it is that BBC iPlayer uses. This computer's probably not up to playing video from iPlayer, but it ought to manage radio. I wonder how Xubuntu will fare with these?

To find out, I downloaded a podcast from the BBC, saved it to my desktop, and then double-clicked it. Xubuntu opened it in an application called Totem Media Player, but then found that it didn't have the right codecs. Totem asked me if I wanted to search for the necessary codecs, to which I affirmed. It came back with the following:


To be on the safe side, I opted to install both plug-ins, though I suppose just the former would have been sufficient. After confirming that I wasn't breaking the law with these plug-ins, they installed and my mp3 podcast began to play. In Totem I did have to go Edit >> Preferences >> Display and then untick Show visual effects when an audio file is played to do away with some garish visualisation that I can easily live with out, as can the processor on this computer!

So that's mp3 playback sorted. Let's try Real Audio, which I find I mostly use listening to internet radio, and see how much work I need to do to make that work.

Off I went to my favourite spoken-word radio station, BBC Radio 4, and clicked on the 'Listen Live' link, which is a streamed Real Audio feed. The usual pop-up window appeared with what I assume was Totem embedded at the bottom. As happened when I first tried to play an mp3 file, my computer lacked the required codec, but again automatically searched for something that should work. It came back with Gstreamer plugins for mms, wavpack, quicktime, musepack: I'm not sure what most of that means, but I installed it and a few minutes later, after the computer had finished downloading and installing the plugin, I was hearing The Archers. So I closed that Firefox window - nothing against the programme itself, I just don't like soaps! Anyway, a success.

So now to test iPlayer itself. While this machine is probably not up to streaming video, the BBC also uses iPlayer for a lot of its 'Listen Again' radio programmes. I clicked on one of the links provided on Radio 4's homepage. Another pop-up window, but this time it informed me that I needed to install Flash. I'll pass on that for now. It's probably best that I consult with the forums to get some advice, because if I am to have Flash on this computer then I want the lightest version I can get away with.