vb.net barcode component The first time you visit a web site that uses Java, a yellow bar will appear at the top in Java

Generating Code 3 of 9 in Java The first time you visit a web site that uses Java, a yellow bar will appear at the top

of the browser window, informing you that you need to install a missing plug-in. Click the Install Missing Plugins button to do so.

2. Select your preferred Java plug-in when prompted and click the Next button. 3. A dialog box prompts you to confirm installing the plug-in. Click Yes.

5. A handful of packages are downloaded. If you opted for the Sun Java Runtime plug-

ins, once download has finished, you re prompted to read and accept the license. Do so, and then click the Forward button.

The Totem Movie Player application (Applications Sound and Video Movie Player) is used to play back video under Ubuntu, as shown in Figure 19-3.

To play a movie file on your hard disk, simply double-click its icon. This will automatically start Totem and play the video, if Totem has the appropriate codecs, as shown in

Figure 19-4. If not, Totem will suggest which codecs to download and install, as explained earlier in the chapter.

Tip By default, all video files will play in Totem, including RealMedia. To change this so that RealPlayer

handles its own file types, right-click any RealPlayer movie file, select Properties, click the Open With tab, and click Add. Locate RealPlayer in the list, click the Add button, and then make sure the radio button alongside RealPlayer is selected.

Using Totem is easy, and the interface has only a handful of options. At the bottom-left of the screen are the transport controls that allow you to pause, play, and move forward and backward in the video file. Alternatively, you can right-click the video window and select the controls from there. Above the controls is the Time bar. You can drag the slider to move through the video, but not all files support this function. You might find that some dragging is allowed, but you re not able to click a new place in the Time bar and have the counter jump to that position.

At the right of the program window is a playlist. You can queue several video files to be played in sequence by simply dragging and dropping movies from a Nautilus file browser window. You can hide the playlist by clicking the Sidebar button. This gives nearly all of Totem s program window to the playback window. To play the video full screen, thereby hiding the desktop and Totem controls, press the F key. To return to the program window, press Esc (or press F again). In full-screen mode, you can start and stop the video by pressing the spacebar. To adjust the image quality, click Edit Preferences, and then click the Display tab in the Preferences dialog box. You can make adjustments by clicking and dragging the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Hue sliders. If a video is playing in the background, the changes will be shown as you make them.

Tip If you find you have problems with video playback, such as Totem showing an error message about

another application using the video output, try the following: click System Preferences Terminal, and at the prompt, type gstreamer-properties. Click the Video tab, and in the Plugin drop-down list under Default Output, select Xwindows (No XV).

A number of promising open-source movie file formats are in development. Some are more mature than others, but few see widespread use at the moment. All promise much for the future. Many consider the following three formats the chief contenders: Xvid (www.xvid.org) is a reworking of the popular DivX MPEG-4-based file format. Unfortunately, Xvid uses technology covered by patents in some parts of the world, so the project exists in a legally gray area. Xvid is able to encode movies to relatively small files sizes (a 90-minute movie can fit on a CD). Despite small file sizes, it can maintain good image and sound quality. In theory, it should also be possible to play Xvid movies using any MPEG-4 codec, such as DivX or QuickTime. Ogg Theora (www.theora.org) is being developed by the Xiph.org Foundation, the people behind the Ogg Vorbis audio codec project that s a favorite among Linux users. As such, it promises to be a completely open-source project. Although the technology is covered by patents, Xiph.org has promised never to enforce them, meaning that anyone in the world can use Theora without charge. At the time of this writing, Theora has been released as a beta, but it will almost certainly become the open-source video codec of choice in the future.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (www.bbc.co.uk), the UK s largest public service broadcaster, is sponsoring development of the Dirac codec (see http://schrodinger.sourceforge.net). Dirac is less developed than both Theora and Xvid at present, and it is aimed more at the broadcast/enthusiast market. For example, it is designed to support high-definition TV. However, it s certainly one to watch.