Does anyone have a recommendation for a player that can play H.264 files?

i just run vlc, but when i was on kde i enjoyed mplayer with kmplayer as the frontend

What OS?

In Ubuntu based OS's you just need to install the restricted codec pack and your good

i can also recommend VLC works very good for me om Fedora.

I find VLC in Ubuntu to be quite jerky every 10 seconds thats why i go for the codecs for the movie player

Well i was running Archlinux with fluxbox. i upgraded my laptop's hard drive and upon reinstalling Arch, the X server never wanted to configure an X11 file. So in the meantime I'm stuck with Ubuntu 9.04

I'd add the mediubuntu repo and install the codecs from there. Otherwise VLC is prob worth a go. I think its 0.9.9 in 9.04, I think 1.0.1 is the latest and fixed a few bugs. You'll either need to get the tar.gz or install from source though. I'm not sure about 9.04, but on mine, there was dependency issues if you have Firefox 3.5 and VLC 1+ installed on the same machine (there are ways around that but its all a bit painful). There's other media players available in Ubuntu, do a search of the available packages.

i actualy use real alternative (windows media player classic) with a codec pack in windows from Free-Codecs

for linux... mplayer =) and install a codec pack like Sp4 said

well for the time being this project has been put on hold. My lappy has ubuntu 9.04 installed and for some reason my pentium m 1.7 ghz is stuck at it's lower multiplier of 600 mhz. I believe this is because of the integration of the speedstep module into the kernel, but I'm not certain.

yep , vlc, not to mention it plays almost any media type know to man. music or video, light weight too

VLC or MPlayer are the best, I think you have to install gstreamer codecs for MPlayer.

I hope no one minds me reviving an old post.

I felt it better than to start a new one.

I have returned back to Linux after a long period without using it. Last time I used it was KDE and the days of voodoo graphics cards.

Anyway, Reason for posting.

I have been trying to stream H.264 movies across my network to my newly installed Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 laptop using wireless networking.

I keep having streaming issues, I have tried used the standard movieplayer and installed the Gstreamer packages, I have installed VLC and also added the restricted packages. Is there anyway to buff the stream some more?

I think also that my wireless connection isnt up to full spec its only at 54mbps yet my router is capable of 108mbps?

What can I do to resolve these issues?

What's the speed of your connection? Go to speedtest, and post what it says. Also is anyone else in your home using the wireless? Anyone else using the wireless will cause a lag in the video stream if I'm correct.

Ok, firstly. Thanks for the response Loki.

Linux is not that widely used and its a shame. I forgot how much I loved it till I installed Ubuntu.

Anyway to business.

Right I ran the speedtest on my wireless laptop running Linux and my hard wired windows server

I got 3.6Mbps D/L , 0.65Mbps U/L on laptop.

I got 5.3Mbps D/L , and I forget upload on the server.

Which to be fair isnt bad considering I pay for 16Mbps from my ISP ( )

So I wouldnt have thought that it was this that was the problem?

I have also tried it sat on seat next to router and it isn't much better, I have decided to copy a Mp4 file from my films directory on server to my linux machine. I havent tried that but it is only 24 hours fresh install , Of course being over a GB in size its taking a while. It is averaging at 450Kbps across wirless network as I type. I am sat in kitchen probably 30ft away behind one brick wall from the router. This to be honest seems acceptable speeds? Surely it would stream along that speed?

450 Kbps seems a little low for streaming. What codec and bitrate are you using? I've never done this but I think your bitrate could be too high and might make the stream choppy.

Because remember that both the video and audio have to be streamed across the connection. As 192 kbps is a decent audio quality bit rate, the video would have to be substantially lower to not stutter.

This may help.