GNOME Application - Video Players

Ubuntu Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟GNOME - Desktop Interface and Environment

∟GNOME Application - Video Players

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use the GNOME application 'Terminal' to run commands interactively.

When you double-click on a video file, it will be open by a default GNOME application called "Videos (Totem Movie Player)".

But if the video is stored in the MP4 format, "Totem Movie Player" may give you the following error:

MPEG-4 AAC decoder, H.264 (High Profile) decoder are required...

You can fix the error, you need to install the required decoder included in the ubuntu-restricted-extras package. Run the following installation command in a Terminal window:

herong$ sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Open the MP4 video file again, "Videos" will open it and play the video correctly.

"Totem Movie Player" support some interesting keyboard shortcuts:

P - Play/Pause the player.
B, N - Previous or next video/chapter.
R, T - Room in or out.
Ctrl-Alt-S - Take screenshot.

"Totem Movie Player" also supports plugins to provide additional functionalities like play YouTube videos. Go to "Videos > Preferences > Plugins" to install them.

If you want to edit videos, you can try the "ffmpeg" package, which offers a comprehensive collection of audio and video editing capabilities. Here is what I did on my Ubuntu computer:

# install ffmpeg package
herong$ sudo apt install ffmpeg

herong$ ffmpeg -version
  ffmpeg version 3.4.11-0ubuntu0.1 
  Copyright (c) 2000-2022 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 7 (Ubuntu 7.5.0-3ubuntu1~18.04)

# probe video file
herong$ ffprobe VID_20251017_153356870.mp4
...
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'VID_20251017_153356870.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: isommp42
    creation_time   : 2025-10-17T07:36:36.000000Z
    com.android.version: 12
  Duration: 00:02:38.23, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 13069 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), ...
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2025-10-17T07:36:36.000000Z
      handler_name    : VideoHandle
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, ...
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2025-10-17T07:36:36.000000Z
      handler_name    : SoundHandle

# play the video starting from 53.0-second position for 5.0 seconds 
ffplay -ss 53.0 -t 5.0 VID_20251017_153356870.mp4

# extract the first 55.0 seconds from a video file
ffmpeg -ss 0.0 -t 55.0 -i VID_20251017_153356870.mp4 -c copy test.mp4