Hello everyone!

I use ktorrent (KDE 4.13) on Arch. There is the embedded media preview. This to my understanding should work with dragonplayer but it uses an external VLC window to show videos. I really do not want that behaviour.

So I tried to set all media associations to dragon player for video files in the KDE system settings. But with no success so far (even logged out and relogged in)...

How can I make sure ktorrent uses the dragonplayer for media previes and stops using any VLC stuff... (though I still like to have vlc installed...)
I have not found any settings for ktorrent yet to do that.

Can anyone help?

thx for eeading,
piedro

Oh, I also have an addotional question:

How to set up the keyboard shortcuts for "pause media" "volume up" "mute volume" and so forth...
I would really like to have them the same as in dragonplayer but they aren't... so sad ...

p.

The integrated media player likely uses Phonon. Does the external window which appears have no controls in it by any chance?
Also, which Phonon backend are you using? One thing you could try doing is switching to GStreamer.

Hmmm!

First of all, sorry for my late answer but obviously I am not automatically subscribed to my own topics

I guess it is phonon used but where to configure phonon? There are no buttons on the external window as you suspected...

And yes I can switch to gstreamer backend (what do I have to install?) but every guide tells me to use vlc phonon backend for KDE because the gstreamer phonon backend isn't maintained any more, is it? Also the VLC backend obviously supports way more codecs and functions...

So: how can I tell phonon to use gstreamer only within ktorrent?

thx for your patience,
piedro

I'm afraid the Phonon backend setting is global across all KDE applications. The Phonon backend can be changed in System Settings > Multimedia > Phonon. If it is not already installed, you should be able to install it from your package manager.

As far as I know, while it is not as actively maintained as the VLC backend, it is still maintained - and in some cases performs better than the VLC backend depending on your system.

In regards to subscribing to topics automatically, you might want to check your options in the User Control Panel, which controls your defaults for this.

thx for your clarification.

The gstreamer backend works ... kind of ... but it's very buggy, producing some segfaults with dragonplayer for example ...

the mediaviewer in ktorrent now works but it is also very inconsistent, also no real way to adjust the keyboard shortcuts (there are only very limited options for that...)

I will yet have to find out how the gstreamer backend handles all other playback stuff - will see how that goes ...


thx for your help,
piedro

In regards to any shortcuts the media player in KTorrent will have, these should be configurable in Settings > Configure Shortcuts, if they are configurable.

As for playback handling, if you previously have not used GStreamer for playback of content, you may need to install codecs. Unfortunately this process is distribution specific - but it is usually available from their forums.

thx,

only very few shortcuts for ktorrent viewer are configurable and then they are inconsistent. For example "play/pause" is the same key in every player I know but not here as far as I can tell ... also the shortcuts from dragonplayer are not the same as for this phonon backend, F for fullscreen works but pressing F again does not bring you back - there is no key for leaving fullscreen again ... stuff like this makes it really not very useful but well, it's just a previewer...

Dragonplayer is just buggy, jumping within any video leads to freezes and crashes, I experience studdering and volume delays... I remember these problems have plagued video players 10 years ago... but I've never had problem like this in any modern viewer... so I guess dragonplayer is still not finished yet, looking at the bug tracker, gives me the same impression... though I like the idea of a minimal browser I wonder why the KDE team does integrate such unpolished software as default... just saying...

VLC seems to be without any real alternative so I guess I have to live with the fact that it doesn't integrate into KDE as well as dragonplayer
or kaffeine but at least it works...

I installed the gstreamer codecs according to the arch wiki - so that is not the problem...

thx anyway,
piedro

Phonon is a multimedia framework used by KDE applications (including both Dragon Player and KTorrent) to play content. It acts as a universal interface between the applications and various systems for playing content - including GStreamer and VLC. It has no control over the shortcuts used for playback - they are set by the applications (Dragon Player / KTorrent in this case).

Dragon Player itself is fine - it is dependent on the quality of the underlying stack. Your problems with content playback are likely caused by the system being used to do this - either GStreamer (if you are using the GStreamer backend) or VLC (if using the VLC backend).

In this case it appears your content is not handled well by GStreamer - so you need to use the VLC backend (which due to problems doesn't embed properly within KTorrent - I suggest you check with Dragon Player to see if it is affected also).