1. Transcoding
2. Recoding

Transcoding is  changing the codec realtime, during playback. It is a really cool option especially if you want to stream the video files. I have not gotten it to work though. I tried the following applications without success, but you may have the glory of getting it to work. It is defiantly worth considering. Anyway you should try the following aplications:

• TVersity
• PS3 Media Server
• TwonkyMedia Manager
• MediaTomb

Since none of the applications really worked out too well I decided it was just better to convert the videos with codecs which were supported by my devices (mainly my LG5000 which doesn’t support DTS). One pretty universal codec seemed to be AC3. In Ubuntu there seem to be various ways to transcode your videos, you can use scripts, terminal applications like ffmpeg, or applications. I tried the oh so glorious scripts, and ffmpeg. Every time something went wrong or something was missing. It nearly broke me down to tears. My last resort after trying streaming applications, scripts, and terminals was to use applications.

• mkvdts2ac3 script
• ffmpeg terminal

Then finally I was saved by a single user who made this epic post:

You need an application called Avidemux! Once installed all you need to do to convert a mkv HD movie, with a DTS audio track, to a HD movie with a AC3 track are the following steps:

1. [in a terminal] “sudo apt-get install Avidemux”
2. Menu > Video > Avidemux
3. File > Open > YourVideo.mkv
4. On the left side, VideoMode – Copy
5. On the left side, AudioMode – AC3
6. On the left side, Format – MKV
7. File > Save > Select your location where you want the new video to be saved.
8. Wait a fair bit
9. ????
10. Profit

The great thing is that this software works at about any OS! So you can now do a Lan game over the internet with ALL your friends.

• Windows Download: link
• Mac (OS X 10.4+) Download: link
• Linux Download: link

Download and install it. Create a new network and make your friends join the same network. Host a game and let your friends connect to your Hamachi IP adress. And its as simple as that. I have hamachi running on my home game server. My friends just join the same network and we can play. No screwing around with portforwarding or other shit.

To find hamachi servers hosten by others go here:
http://www.planethamachi.com

How it works
If you would like to know HOW this works, please visit the Hamachi wiki, which is located here (link)

Hamachi on Linux
Alright so the linux version might not work for you, which means you will have to use wine and the windows version of Hamachi. I will explain how to make it work.

Using Ubuntu Hamachi and Wine will create a nightmare. Wine only handles one network interface (as far as i figured out) meaning it will use the Eth0 connection instead of the Ham0 connection. It wont use hamachi.. or will it? it does sometimes…

Open console and do the following:

Before continueing download the latest version of hamachi from to your homefolder

(you dont have to type the echo lines, but that way you can just paste everything

echo Enable Tunneling support

sudo modprobe tun

echo Add tun to your modules list
sudo gedit /etc/modules

echo Unpack and Install hamachi
cd ~
tar -zxvf hamachi-*.tar.gz
cd hamachi-0.*

echo installing
sudo make install
sudo tuncfg

echo Creating Base config
hamachi-init

echo Get the GUI
sudo apt-get install hamachi-gui

echo Start Hamachi-gui
hamachi-gui

I hope that works for everyone, if not please post here and let us help you! Ok moving on we need to do a bunch of stuff so there is a higher chance you can play games using Wine and Hamachi on ubuntu.

Edit your /etc/hosts file and add your Hamachi-IP and your computer name

For example: 5.5.14.14 Laptop2

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

If you did the above the following command should display your hamachi IP:

hostname -i

If it does you should be set to play games! If that still does not work i suggest deleting your wine folder and re-configuring wine with the following command:

winecfg

If at any point you can see other people, but they can see you try the following command(s)

hamachi go-online
sudo hamachi go-online

And that should do the trick!

Due to the fact that I use Ubuntu linux i can not make use of Windows Media Player 11 acting as a UPNP server. There are various ways to setup this type of server but i found that nearly all of them sucked in some aspect, most often they were just to complex for what i was trying to do. I tried the following UPNP servers:

• Ushare
• TVersity
• MediaTomb
• X360MeditServe
• GMediaServer

TVersity provides the best all around solution, including transcoding. Transcoding is more or less the holy grail xbox wise. However i did not get it to work so i just plain abandoned trying it. MediaTomb looks like a real profesional method for sharing media using UPNP but it was just way to complex for my taste.

Finally i found ushare which is a small and simple upnp server which does what i want, when i want! In Ubuntu it is very simple to install all you need to do is entering the following command

sudo apt-get install ushare

After which you you need to edit the configuration file. The main thing you would want to chance is the server name and the media-location. I have specified more then one location but I don’t see those files. Anyway enter the following command to edit the configuration file in Ubuntu (Gnome, for Kubuntu enter kedit instead of gedit)

sudo gedit /etc/ushare.conf

When you are done editing the configuration file to your harts content save it and prepare for awesomeness! When you want to stream to your XBOX360 you need to add a little parameter (option) when starting ushare. Enter the following command:

ushare -x

That is all you need to do to get it to work. Might sound like it is complex in comparison to a windows installer, but it requires just a little bit more input and though from the users which in return yield a better working program. If you don’t get the installer to work feel free to post here. Here is the installer guide i used.

Installing

First open the terminal and type the following:

cd ~

wget -t5 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/qucs/qucs/0.0.15/qucs-0.0.15.tar.gz?use_mirror=kent

This will download the latest version of Qucs, once that is done you will need to extract it:

tar -xvzf qucs-0.0.15.tar.gz

If you want to delete the Qucs source archive you can do so by using this, if not skip this next command.

rm qucs-0.0.15.tar.gz

Now you need to move the folder to where you want to compile it, if you don’t mind it being in your home folder skip this:

sudo mv qucs-0.0.15 /usr/src

cd /usr/src/qucs-0.0.15

Next move into the folder and download the dependencies required to compile Qucs:

cd qucs-0.0.15

sudo apt-get install libqt3-headers

Finally you can compile Qucs:

./configure

make

sudo make install

Once this is done (hopefully without any errors) you can run Qucs simply by typing:

qucs

That’s all, although I’d suggest adding a shortcut to your menu.

The following documents the relatively short process needed to get Internet Explorer 7 running on a Linux system. So far, I have found one (two) problems with this method: it seems transparent GIFs appear as filled-black boxes in IE7, and secondly (this is actually a good thing for me), this won’t give you the IE7 interface running in Linux, but rather the IE7 rendering engine inside the IE6 interface. What this means is that you won’t be seeing IE7 tabs or the RSS reader, but you will be able to debug webpages and fix layout problems.

Microsoft conditional comments do work, unlike the standalone version of IE on Windows, so you will be able to develop and test webpages across almost all major browsers (IE 5-7, Firefox, Opera) on one Linux box! Also note that we will avoid Microsoft’s Genuine Advantage download validation checks, so pure-Linux users will be able to finish the process without having to find a genuine Windows machine to download the IE7 setup file (the check is avoided legitimately, by the way).

First, install IE 6 (and optionally 5.5 + 5.0) using the excellent IEs 4 Linux installer. Consider donating to this project to say thanks!

Follow the instructions appropriate for your Linux distribution at http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Installation. You must at least install IE6; 5.0 and 5.5 are optional and up to you. I assume that you used the default installation path of ~/.ies4linux – if you didn’t, ensure that you use the correct directory in the upcoming steps.

Once you have finished following the instructions, you can test your IE6 installation by running the ie6 command.

ie6

I used a browser version check website (use Google, I don’t want to hotlink them) to test the currently installed browsers:

• firefox reports ‘Firefox 2.0′
• ie6 reports ‘MSIE 6.0′

Now for Internet Explorer 7:

To skip having to authenticate your copy of Windows at the Microsoft.com download site (since we’re on Linux and don’t have Windows…), make use of Google’s nicely customised IE7 installer; found at http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie7/. Download the file (IE7Setup_G.exe) and save it to a temporary folder.

Now, make a complete copy of your currently installed IE6 installation:

cd ~/.ies4linux
cp -r ie6/ ie7
sed ~/.ies4linux/bin/ie6 -e ‘s/ie6/ie7/g’ > ~/.ies4linux/bin/ie7
chmod +x ~/.ies4linux/bin/ie7

Go to your IE7Setup_G.exe download and use cabextract which should be installed from earlier (IEs 4 Linux instructions).

cd ~/yourtempfolder
cabextract IE7Setup_G.exe

ls -la shows:
15505200 Dec 7 21:21 IE7-Setup.exe

Extract necessary files:

cabextract IE7-Setup.exe
for i in wininet iertutil shlwapi urlmon jscript vbscript \
ieframe mshtml mshtmled mshtmler advpack
do
chmod +x $i.dll
cp $i.dll ~/.ies4linux/ie7/drive_c/windows/system/$i.dll
done

chmod +x inetcpl.cpl
cp inetcpl.cpl ~/.ies4linux/ie7/drive_c/windows/system/

Now normaliz.dll and inetcplc.dll are needed, you can Google them, or use these links:

• http://www.down-dll.com/dll/normaliz.zip
• http://www.down-dll.com/dll/inetcplc.zip

Unzip both files and copy them to ~/.ies4linux/ie7/drive_c/windows/system/

unzip normaliz.zip
unzip inetcplc.zip
cp normaliz.dll ~/.ies4linux/ie7/drive_c/windows/system
cp inetcplc.dll ~/.ies4linux/ie7/drive_c/windows/system

IE 7 is now installed but will have view pane corruption unless you switch the Wine container to use Windows XP as the operating system:

WINEPREFIX=~/.ies4linux/ie7 winecfg

At the bottom of the initial page, change ‘Windows’ option to ‘Windows XP’ and press OK.

Make a shortcut:

cd ~/bin
ln -s ~/.ies4linux/bin/ie7 ie7

Running ie7 and using the previous browser test site results in:

* ie7 reports ‘MSIE 7.0′

The article which I used for most of the options out there is from  techcitynic.com. However that douche could have been more accurate. Let me work down the list for you, so you don’t have to waste your precious time. I am sure you find more video editing applications using various search engines. If you know anything note worthy comment below!

• KDEnlive – Thank god, an application that is awesome! You can install this application with the following command: sudo apt-get install kdenlive
• Ffmpeg – I don’t know, i though ffmpeg was a bunch of small tools. I have a feeling you need this in all cases: sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
• AvideMUX – I used this, and it sucked, it has about as many features as my dick. You can install this application with the following command: sudo apt-get install avidemux
• CinePaint – Used for retouching vidoes so i didnt use it
• Cinelerra – If it is not in the repositories it sucks
• Jahshaka – Looked cool, not in repositories
• Slideshow Creator – Thats not even a video editing program and not in repos
• LiVES – Not in the repos but looked decent
• Vivia – Looks like Windows Media Player, not in repos
• Kino – Not even going there.. worst application i used in 2009. Purge it with the following command: sydo apt-get purge kino

In the end i used KDEnlive, by the look and feel, and the name its obviously from the KDE software suite. But man this application packs a punch. It is a little but tricky to start so take a moment to see where the buttons are. Basically you start by importanting the stuff you want. For me that was video clip in mp4 format, a mp3 file, and a still image. The still image is a little bit tricky because i only wanted one single image. I ended up creating a slideshow with just one image and that worked fine. Make sure to select the FILE types you want when messing around with the import-image-slide thing.

The imported items are in the upper left corner in one the tabs (project tree). Then you can just drag stuff in the various video/audio bars and viola thats sorted. The stuff on the top has priority over stuff below it. This is important when mixing various video streams. I also ended up muting the video-clip audio and later on splitting and deleting the audiostream completly.

There are a few effects and transitions but i only used the fade to black, and fade from black effects. I am quite sure you can do a lot more with it but this was my first time so i was satisfied with how far i had gotten anyway. The export module was more then excellent aswell, a bit overwhelming with all the options but just pick the videocodec you want (divx) and tick the export audio and then you are done!

To sum all this up, kino sucks and kdenlive rocks hard. Make sure to grab it in case you ever want to edit a video!

Final result of my video:

Install Requirements

sudo apt-get install firestarter dhcp3-server

Configuring NICs
Make sure that your internal network card is assigned a static IP address in a range that you will use for you internal network.
To do this, go to System -> Administration -> Networking. Once there, go into the properties for the network card you will use for your internal/routed network (it will quite likely be disabled) and set it up as you deem necessary.
As a basic example, set the IP address to 192.168.0.1, and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. Leave the gateway empty.

Small Fix
To fix the problem where Firestarter cannot locate the DHCP daemon init script: From within a terminal type and run the following command (creating a symbolic link to fix the mis-reference; this is a simple alternative to editing Firestarter’s init script).

sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server /etc/init.d/dhcpd

This fixes the problem where Firestarter will sometimes say something along the lines of “An unknown error occured” when DHCP is enabled within its configuration. Sometimes the firewall will start anyway, but DHCP will remain off.

Configuring DHCP
Configure the interfaces on which DHCP will be listening Edit your /etc/default/dhcp3-server file (using a text editor running as root, or by logging in and running “sudo vi /etc/default/dhcp3-server”). The only variable in there by default is “INTERFACES”, which will have a null value. Set it to your internal network interface. For example:

# Defaults for dhcp initscript
# sourced by /etc/init.d/dhcp
# installed at /etc/default/dhcp3-server by the maintainer scripts
#
# This is a POSIX shell fragment
#
# On what interfaces should the DHCP server (dhcpd) serve DHCP requests?
# Separate multiple interfaces with spaces, e.g. "eth0 eth1".
INTERFACES="eth0"

Write the file and exit.

Run Firestarter
If this is your first time running Firestarter, the wizard should appear. If not, simply click Firewall -> Wizard from within Firestarter.
Select your external (Internet-connected) device when it asks, and make sure to specify whether or not the address is obtained via DHCP. Click the “Forward” button, check the “Enable Internet connection sharing” box, select your internal network card, and check the box for “Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign.
Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card, also, for the DNS server field, you MUST supply an address – “” will *NOT* work. Simply look at your /etc/resolv.conf file if you need inspiration.
Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

Conclusion
It took me a while to pinpoint the causes of various small problems I was having getting it to play nicely with DHCP, but I finally got it down and figured I’d share my experiences. Please let me know if you have any suggestions (I know I clumped everything together for that last step, but c’mon, it’s a wizard… It’s pretty freaking simple).