Create and Play 3gp files in Ubuntu

Posted on by

OK, so I have a nice new Video phone. I want to be able to play, edit and create the videos. The format that the Sony Ericsson phone uses is 3gp. It turns out that ffmpeg can handle these, but no sound with the version that comes with ubuntu. Here is how I went about fixing this. Please remember that a lot of of this was discovered by Google, and not really my own work.

The first thing to do is make sure that universe and multiverse are available. I used these ones.

Now we need to get the software that we want. The following commands should do that for us.

sudo apt-get build-dep ffmpeg
sudo apt-get install liblame-dev libfaad2-dev \
libfaac-dev libxvidcore4-dev checkinstall fakeroot
apt-get source ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg-0.cvs20050918
less libavcodec/amr.c

You now need to read the instructions in that source file. I decided to use the floating point versions of both, so I executed the following commands.

mkdir libavcodec/amr_float
cd libavcodec/amr_float
wget http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/26_series/26.104/26104-510.zip
unzip 26104-510.zip
unzip 26104-510_ANSI_C_source_code.zip
mkdir ../amrwb_float
cd ../amrwb_float
wget http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/26_series/26.204/26204-510.zip
unzip 26204-510.zip
unzip 26204-510_ANSI-C_source_code.zip
cd ../../

Now we need to make sure that all the correct bits get built. This is done by editing the rules file as follows.
Add the following lines to debian/rules, under the other confflags lines:

confflags += --enable-mp3lame --enable-faad
confflags += --enable-faac --enable-xvid
confflags += --enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb

We only really need the last line, but while we are at it, we may as well add the other ones as well. Continuing in the terminal:

fakeroot debian/rules binary
sudo checkinstall

When running the final command, most of the default options can be accepted. However, it may be worth changing the name to ffmpeg and setting the version to something that will keep it from getting overwritten on an update. Alternatively just set the package on hold once it is installed.

That will do for now. Later I will have a play, and come up with some recipes. The main thing that I would like to be able to do is convert from the phone to a format that plays on the computer. Then I would like to come up with some good settings for converting a saved DVBT stream for viewing on the phone.

I thought that I should admit I got most of my help from here.

Sony Ericsson K800i

Posted on by

Just got myself a new phone. This is the first phone that I have bought myself, and not a scrounged second hand unit. Best bit about it so far is that I can access the files on it from withing Linux. I just plugged it in and I could see a new PHONE icon on the Ubuntu desktop. Now all I need is to work out if it is possible to convert to and from the 3gp video format.

WordPress Revolution

Posted on by

My first blog was built using some php code that I had developed myself. It worked, but only just. Once I looked at wordpress, that seemed to be popular with others, I decided that there was not a lot of point re-inventing the wheel. I have now decided to use wordpress for myself

I will hopefully get round to integrating the style with my main site, but in the meantime, I will make do with the default

Now that it will easier for me to look after, I will try to blog more.

Novatech uses Ubuntu!

Posted on by

While flicking through the July copy of the Novatech catalogue, something about the screen image of one of their machines caught my eye. As I looked, I thought it was strange to have a terminal window with a transparent background on a Windows machine. Then I realised it was strange to see any sort of terminal window on a Windows machine. Finally I noticed that it was in fact an Ubuntu desktop that I was looking at.

Just thought that I would share that with you all!

Fancy finger work

Posted on by

I can’t play the guitar, but I am impressed by people who can. Recently I was made aware of some videos on Google that I thought were quite cool. The first one is not technically a guitar, but the idea is the same.

The second video is a classical piece played very well by some kid in his bedroom. This has lead me to wonder how many people may find their fame by appearing in a home movie on the Internet.

sudo vs su

Posted on by

Some time ago, there was a discussion on the Hantslug mailing list about the relative merits of Sudo verses su. At the time I was using Debian, and had not configured Sudo, so was therefore a su user.

Since then, I have installed Ubuntu 6.06. Ubuntu, for those that don’t know, does not setup a root password by default, and Sudo is the recommended method of gaining root privileges.

Having played with it for a little while, I an now converted. I like the idea of using Sudo to allow the execution of one off commands as root. I will still use su if I am going to do lots of work as root, but as Ubuntu is pretty well sorted out of the box, I don’t need to do that much.

Ubuntu, take two.

Posted on by

Having installed Ubuntu on my desktop machine, I decided that it should go on my Laptop as well. The installation of Debian unstable was still working fine, but a change can be good for even it it is only for changes sake. The main reason for trying this is to enjoy the slightly higher polished finish that Ubuntu seems to have. Also, my wife uses Linux on the laptop, and she does get annoyed when things brake.

I am hoping that with Ubuntu, I can resist changing things too much, and then just suffer a bump with each new Ubuntu release.

Having now done a second Ubuntu install with this latest release, I have to say that it really is slick. Having the live install makes it simple to check partitions etc before starting. The end result is a very usable system.

Ive been sold!

Posted on by

Well not me, but the section of the company that I work for has. Or should I say Disposed

I can’t say I am overjoyed by the prospect. For the last few years McMurdo has provided a decent working environment mainly due to the people that are there. Once this sale goes through, I will be the only person from the engineering department transferring with the business and will therefore be the sole engineer.

If anybody wants a mechanical engineer to be part of their team, I may very well be interested 🙂

Ubuntu

Posted on by

With the recent release of what has been touted as the best Ubuntu yet, I decided to give it a go. I will give it a fair go. It will require I learn to use tools I don’t normally use, but I do like to try the defaults before I start tacking it apart. I will have to learn to use gnome, evolution, rhythmbox etc.

I have already made it over the first hurdle and got my usb dvb adaptor working. As for the rest, only time will tell….