Guess what happens if very basic video controls are introduced: People will complain that amarok cannot play this and that. They will ask why you cannot use amarok to play DVDs and so on.

Furthermore, by concentrating on music, the gui of amarok is designed to give you everything you need with music. But this is different from the information and controls you probably want with videos and would end up having a somewhat splitted gui, for video and audio (and the 3d shooter, hey I love this idea ), making things complicated and not focused on just audio usability as now.

In fact, I would prefer to see e.g. kaffeine to add a video library feature similiar to amaroks audio library...
Is there a Linux app that already does this?

There obviously isn't much difference between audio controls and video controls.
This would lead to the question: Where would you display video output?
Amarok already has simple video output for visualizations. In fact, I full screen my visualizations and put it on top of my desktop because it's just too fun to do that.

Kretschmann has already suggested basic video output for music videos and such, that sounds good, although my number one desire would be the ability to play video podcasts in Amarok. I honestly could care less about music videos or DVDs. It's confusing as a user that Amarok will play a video podcast but give you no access to the actual video portion.

It's probably more likely for such video support to water down the GUI than a DVD would, as a DVD is generally played without regards to a user interface.

However, video podcasts would likely bring desire for a user interface changes. With this, the question would be, how would you actually modify the user interface to incorporate a feeling of integration.

Wait, why don't we just make a toggle view of playlist and video output? Oh my, and that video output view could support visualizations. However, once you integrate it, you might want to have open in separate window button and a full screen button. That's what you're wondering.

The implication here is that integrating video output into the GUI would water it down. I don't agree with this so much because for one, it's not exactly necessary to do integrate to the GUI to make users who use Amarok primarily for music happy with getting their video podcast fix, and if it were done well, it wouldn't water down the GUI at all. It's not exactly on the same level as if you were going to try to integrate OOo Writer into an IRC app.

Question for everyone: If you were to integrate video output into the Amarok GUI, how would you do it? Note that this would be good in tune with video podcasts and existing visualization output.

I just quickly perused this discussion, so someone might have already responded like this.  But if I were to integrate some sort of video playback, I'd do nothing more than have a configuration that in the settings to open video files with (name your video player, I like VLC and Kaffeine).  In fact, you could do this with a number of file types.  For instance: I set my dad, who's not tech savvy, up with the Harvard Extension course podcast introducing computers.  There are audio, video, and pdf files for each lesson, and they're all fed through the RSS.  In iTunes, if you click on the pdf files that were downloaded, they automatically open with Acrobat.  It's dead-easy for him to deal with the various files for each lesson.  With Amarok, I think the quick/simple way to manage alternate file formats would be to have an easy configuration that sets certain filetypes to be opened with other programs, but from within Amarok.  I don't really need Amarok to play my Ze Frank videos, but it'd be nice if I could add the feed to my podcasts feed in Amarok, and when I clicked on it, it would automatically open in Kaffeine.  right now, you either have to do an "open with" or go to the file you're keeping the downloads in and open it from there. 

wyth wrote:I just quickly perused this discussion, so someone might have already responded like this.  But if I were to integrate some sort of video playback, I'd do nothing more than have a configuration that in the settings to open video files with (name your video player, I like VLC and Kaffeine).  In fact, you could do this with a number of file types.  For instance: I set my dad, who's not tech savvy, up with the Harvard Extension course podcast introducing computers.  There are audio, video, and pdf files for each lesson, and they're all fed through the RSS.  In iTunes, if you click on the pdf files that were downloaded, they automatically open with Acrobat.  It's dead-easy for him to deal with the various files for each lesson.  With Amarok, I think the quick/simple way to manage alternate file formats would be to have an easy configuration that sets certain filetypes to be opened with other programs, but from within Amarok.  I don't really need Amarok to play my Ze Frank videos, but it'd be nice if I could add the feed to my podcasts feed in Amarok, and when I clicked on it, it would automatically open in Kaffeine.  right now, you either have to do an "open with" or go to the file you're keeping the downloads in and open it from there. 

MPEG 4 can work both as audio and video. This causes me a lot of problems with Amarok. I believe Amarok should have elementary support for videos in this sense.

they could always impliment a gui setup similar to jajuk [ http://www.jajuk.info/screenshots.html ] and they can set it up to change the "perspective" to video or audio...

in all honesty, I can say that amarok is a great audio player... and I am sure with the people behind it, it can become a great multimedia player.  Few, if any, programs can compare to amarok IMHO.  There is no need to fear growth (as there is only so much functionality you can have with audio before it just becomes pointless)... but accept growth at its natural pace and things will all work out for the best.  I am sure that amarok would end up being the first true multimedia player for linux (noatun is ok, but lacks a lot... and IMO is not a true multimedia player).  I say, just accept what is coming and help to make any transitions as smooth as possible for the development team.  That is how a great thing can grow to phenominal proportions and still be a great thing!

also, for those who REALLY don't want amarok to include video... a good idea would be to find a good/great second best to amarok, join their forum and post that THEY should have video support.  Then you can keep amarok a music player and help some other group make a great multimedia player.... Your call. 

Side note:  If we are already using the xine engine in amarok, why not redesign how it's used so you can either integrate or plugin xine video support...  (in all honesty, the main reason I think people really want video support is for video podcasts and transfering video to the omnipotent proprietary ipod... as though there are not better portable media players around... of course, this is my personal opinion.  Feel free to include yours..  )



As long as growth is allowed, greatness will continue.

I really don't see this as a problem of perspective.

I think what is most difficult with the prospect of adding video is the inflexibility of the GUI.

Right now the GUI is restricted to a split view.

Left side has the different browsers
Right side has the playlist

Problem 1: You can't switch left and right, nor can you hide left or right.
Problem 2: The toolbar is tied into the playlist (or right frame).

In order to integrate video and visualizations without eventually watering down the GUI, these two issues would need to be addressed.

It will be great if there is video support. The collection watcher don't detect video files in my music folder. It would be great if amarok can do this. I'm using ver 1.4.4 in ubuntu and indeed amarok can play the audio track in my video clip but it can't automatically add this to my collection.

I love mp3 but it's just audio, sometimes a video clip can change your perspective about a song. I hope amarok can play video files, JUST video files (no need for DVD playback or whatever). Or amarok can have a plugin to mplayer or gstreamer or whatever to integrate video capabilities of that video player with collection/library/folder watcher of amarok, making amarok the center of all things.