It all started when I had my daughter sitting on my lap and I decided to play for her:
(Bummer. The original video had the sound removed. Substituting a similar one.)
Which she seems to enjoy. (Me too!) In the related clips, I saw one for The Muppets meet [Scrubs], and watched that one also. I love Scrubs. That further led to a click on a related video for Scrubs outtakes. Outtakes are usually fun to watch. For shows that I enjoy watching, I like seeing the actors enjoy themselves making them. At about 6:20 of the outtakes reel, there was this catchy song that I immediately liked. A quick search of some lyrics snippets turned up that it was “Diner,” by Martin Sexton.
It was also used in this collage from season 6 (I think) of Scrubs:
Maybe I’m biased in favor of it by the opening line: “You might have seen one out in Minnesota”.
So I went to Amazon and found it in MP3 Downloads for $0.89, and quickly downloaded it. And then I started sampling other songs from its album, Black Sheep. Sounds like great stuff. Wikipedia categorizes his genre as folk, which isn’t something I normally listen to a lot, but I really like the sound of this music. He has a great voice. You can download some complete songs from his website also: www.martinsexton.com.
And then I wanted to hear more. I ordered Black Sheep and Wonder Bar from Amazon. I wish the media companies would recognize that having this stuff available in a convenient and unrestricted format can actually make them money. And that having content float around on the Internet in small clips can help promote sales, but I think they’d rather die than change. All they can see is that they’re not capturing every ounce of consumer surplus, and it drives them crazy.
Apologies
Apologies for endorsing non-free Adobe Shockwave Flash by my use of it here. I enjoy watching stuff on YouTube and it’s cool that you can embed clips so easily in your own page. Looking forward to the day it is freed up or that Gnash can do the job.
And might as well apologize also for the day when these clips are taken down from YouTube for copyright-infringement and you get a “no longer available” message.
6 Comments
Gnash can view youtube videos, I’m using it right now.
27 October 2007 at 2:34 am
Excellent. Now that I think about it, last I heard it was getting closer.
I just tried installing in my new 7.10 Gutsy installation. Easy to install the Firefox plugin, but I couldn’t see the embedded videos on this web page.
Visited the YouTube page where it said it didn’t have a suitable codec and offered to search for one. Presented “GStreamer ffmpeg video plugin,” but said my list was out of date so I reloaded it. More spinning of wheels and still the same option. Selecting it warned about restrictions on the formats.
Ok, let’s try anyway (reminds me that I haven’t deselected the multiverse repository yet). After a while I got a message that it was successfully installed, but still no luck. Offered to search for suitable plugins again and this time presented “GStreamer extra plugins” as an option. Again with the confirmation that it was ok to install software to play restricted formats.
Finally! Now it works when on the YouTube page. Pause, play, and the slider bar work. Time, volume, and menu widgets are mangled. Video is kind of choppy, although that might be my laptop’s fault. Still doesn’t show up embedded on this page.
It’s unfortunate if you still have to install software for a bunch of restricted formats. I do that anyway as a compromise for using different kinds of media, but I was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary with Gnash. I don’t see as much benefit to a free Shockwave alternative if it is still forced to use non-free codecs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s better to have free software. I guess I may have to consider if I’m willing to forgo all non-free software and codecs, and the answer right now is “no.” In that case, it will at least be a move in the right direction to have a free player.
Anyway, thanks for your comment, Rhys. Looks like they’re working hard on this and I expect it will keep getting better.
27 October 2007 at 8:12 am
Hi,
I also have found that the videos will work on the actual YouTube page but not embedded ones.
As far as I can tell, Gnash doesn’t require non-free codecs, I compiled Gnash on Debian Etch containing software only in main.
I don’t get choppy playback, so it might be the laptop.
Generally though, I just use the handy script “youtube-dl” in order to view YouTube videos. The flv files that it downloads can be played with things such as mplayer. If desired, the flv format can be converted to a better format with ffmpeg.
27 October 2007 at 9:22 am
Nice piece, Scott. Here’s a manual ping for my article entitled Moving to Freedom: Mah Na Mah Na, Liberated Content and Long Tail Marketing.
Amy :)
7 November 2007 at 10:08 am
Super! I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
7 November 2007 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for your clip with martin sexton & diner, the first time i heard the song i felt happy and juggliy inside! never fails to please
22 November 2007 at 4:36 pm