| A flash webplayer is now available for linux. I intend to discuss the ups and downs of this new player. Pick it up here http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi? P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash I run Gentoo linux, and while the gentoo "ebuild" package is not yet listed as stable, I went ahead and installed flash 7. I noticed that Macromedia was boasting improved performance of the new product, so I had great hopes that when flashplayer 7 came out it would solve the sound sync issues that so many linux users, all over the net, have mentioned. If you are not haveing issues I recomend that you not upgrade your flashplugin untill you start running into sites that will not work with out it. For example I used slackware for a while before switching to gentoo, and the flash plugin was able to play flash movies fine with out sound sync problems, but I upgraded it because it only had flash player 5 plugin, and though the picture looked better the sound was totally out of wack on flash movies such as ninjai (if you are not familiar and your flash works check it out at www.ninjai.com ). And when I switched to gentoo all I have ever experienced was the same sound sync problems. | The only people under linux who I have heard can reliably play flash movies without these problems, and have a solution that anyone could use are those who us the paid Crossover plugins by CodeWeavers http://www.codeweavers.com/ . So if you don't mind paying to get your flash movie reliably on check em out. For the rest of us, we are kinda at the mercy of Macromedia. One major difference I noticed that seemed very hopefull was the fact that unlike the flash 6 plugin for x86 linux, this new one is "officially" supported by Macromedia. Perhaps this official support will yet be of help. Since I use gentoo, I unmerged my old flash plugin, and emerged the not yet marked as "stable" netscape-flash plugin for mozilla. |
| This worked just fine, since primarily all that is happening is the binary plugin is being installed. As far as I know there is no way to get your hands on the source code and build it your self. If there were the sound problem I have had for a couple of years would likely already have been fixed! So once I got the flash 7 plugin installed, I fired up mozilla, and surfed on over to ninjai.com to attempt playing these relatively long flash movies. Loaded a particularly long one and was mildly releaved when I saw flash content working. However when I watched the movie it still suffered from the same problems, of the picture and sound not syncing correctly. As I watched I convinced myself that it was a little bit better though. It seemed as if while the sound was out of sync it would go back into sync and then back out again. If this was not my imagination, then this would actually be a mild improvement, since with flash player 6 the sound would get more and more out of sync as a movie played. Since then, I have attempted watching many other flash movies, and they all play fine but I am not convinced that there is any varifiable difference between the quality of flash movies played by the flash 6 plugin and the 7 plugin. I have talked with several other people who are using the flash 7 plugin and they are getting the same results I am. In my attempts to reconcile this problem using the flash 6 plugin, one solution I have come across, which some people claim worked for them is rebuilding mozilla with out GTK2 support and only GTK, this however made no difference for me. I also have tried using the flash plugins on the prebuilt binary versions of mozilla and firefox that you can download from their site, but I get the same choppy sound results. If you are getting better or different results, you should mention them here. |
