Hey Brian,

* Brian Cameron (Brian.Cameron at Sun.COM) wrote:
>
> Glenn:
>
>>>> Would it make sense for us to change the default settings for media?
>>>> Perhaps we should disable automatic launching of the media player by
>>>> default for media types that we don't support out-of-the-box, like
>>>> DVD?
>>
>> I'm not sure this is the best idea.  If we do this, instead of getting
>> complaints that Totem launches and won't play we'll instead get
>> complaints that nothing launches when users insert whatever media Totem
>> can't play (ie DVD's for instance).  And then we'll still look bad and
>> leave users thinking the cause is hopeless since we don't direct them on
>> how they might resolve this issue.
>
> I agree.  We are currently working on integrating codeina into Solaris,
> which could be a part of the solution to this problem.
>
>   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/Codeina

That'll be great.

> However, in regards to DVD playback, I am not sure there is a clear
> pointer to use.  There is no 3rd party offering a licensed player which
> can play encrypted DVD movies.  Fluendo plans to have one available for
> Solaris, hopefully, by the end of the year, so we might have a more
> clear pointer to provide in the near future.

Yeah, that's a problem I know.

> In situations where there is no clear pointer, such as DVD playback, it
> might be most reasonable to just do nothing for now.

Maybe.  I wonder though if we couldn't come up with 'something' to
explain the situation to the user why they can't play their media that
is both useful and doesn't generate a 'negative experience' (a tall
order I know).

>> Might I suggest an alternative to 'just do nothing when media is
>> inserted that media player can't play'?  Why not launch 'something' that
>> informs the user that the media type they are trying to launch isn't
>> supported and then offer suggestions on what they can do to add support
>> for that type (in the case of MP3 let's say, we could point them to the
>> fluendo plugin)?  'Something' could be a separate application that is
>> the default for all media types 'media player' doesn't support or it
>> could be 'media player' which would need to be enhanced to display the
>> above information.
>
> For media types where the user can purchase a plugin from Fluendo, the
> codeina application would provide the sort of pointer you suggest, and
> also step the user through purchasing and installing the plugin, which
> is pretty nice.

Yep, I've seen codeina on other platforms and I agree it would be a
great step in the right direction imho.

Cheers,

-- 
Glenn

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