The default installation of Fedora includes Rhythmbox and Totem for media playback. Many other programs are available in the Fedora repositories, including the popular XMMS player and KDE's Amarok. Both GNOME and KDE have a selection of players that can be used with a variety of formats. Additional programs are available from third parties to handle other formats.

Totem, the default movie player for GNOME, now has the ability to switch playback back-ends without recompilation or switching packages. To install the Xine back-end, use Add/Remove Software to install totem-xine or run the following command:

      su -c 'yum install totem-xine'
    

To run Totem with the Xine back-end once:

      su -c 'totem-backend -b xine totem'
    

To change the default back-end to xine for the entire system:

      su -c 'totem-backend -b xine'
    

While using the Xine back-end, it is possible to temporarily use the GStreamer back-end. To use the GStreamer back-end, run the following command:

      su -c 'totem-backend -b gstreamer'
    

Fedora includes complete support for the Ogg media container format and the Vorbis audio, Theora video, Speex audio, and FLAC lossless audio formats. These freely-distributable formats are not encumbered by patent or license restrictions. They provide powerful and flexible alternatives to more popular, restricted formats. The Fedora Project encourages the use of open source formats in place of restricted ones. For more information on these formats and how to use them, refer to:

Fedora cannot include support for MP3 or DVD video playback or recording. The MP3 formats are patented, and the patent holders have not provided the necessary licenses. DVD video formats are patented and equipped with an encryption scheme. The patent holders have not provided the necessary licenses, and the code needed to decrypt CSS-encrypted discs may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law of the United States. Fedora also excludes other multimedia software due to patent, copyright, or license restrictions, including Adobe's Flash Player and Real Media's Real Player. For more on this subject, please refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems.

While other MP3 options may be available for Fedora, Fluendo now offers an MP3 plugin for GStreamer that has the related patents licensed for end users. This plugin enables MP3 support in applications that use the GStreamer framework as a backend. We cannot distribute this plugin in Fedora for licensing reasons, but it offers a new solution for an old problem. For more information refer to these pages:

Default installations of Fedora and the Desktop Live spin include a built-in feature for CD and DVD burning. Fedora includes a variety of other tools for easily creating and burning CDs and DVDs. Fedora includes graphical programs such as Brasero, GnomeBaker, and K3b. Console programs including wodim, readom, and genisoimage. Graphical programs are found under Applications → Sound & Video.

You can use Fedora to create and play back screencasts, which are recorded desktop sessions, using open technologies. Fedora includes istanbul, which creates screencasts using the Theora video format, and byzanz, which creates screencasts as animated GIF files. You can play back these videos using one of several players included in Fedora. This is the preferred way to submit screencasts to the Fedora Project for either contributors or end-users. For more comprehensive instructions, refer to the screencasting page:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ScreenCasting

Most of the media players in Fedora support the use of plugins to add support for additional media formats and sound output systems. Some use powerful backends such as the gstreamer package to handle media format support and sound output. Fedora offers plugin packages for these backends and for individual applications, and third parties may offer additional plugins to add even greater capabilities.

A new graphical frontend to LIRC is provided by gnome-lirc-properties, making it easy to connect and configure infrared remote controls. LIRC is routinely used in multimedia applications to implement support for infrared remote controls, and using it in Rhythmbox and Totem should be as easy as plugging the remote receiver into your computer, then selecting Auto-detect in the Infrared Remote Control preferences.

If you had a previous setup with LIRC, it is recommended you regenerate the configuration files with gnome-lirc-properties. This is required so that a majority of applications work with your new setup.

Refer to the feature page for more information:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/BetterLIRCSupport

The PulseAudio sound server has been rewritten to use timer-based audio scheduling instead of the traditional interrupt-driven approach. This is the approach that is taken by other systems such as Apple's CoreAudio and the Windows Vista audio subsystem. The timer-based audio scheduling has a number of advantages, including reduced power consumption, minimization of drop-outs, and flexible adjustment of the latency for the needs of the application.

Users may experience SELinux denials while using Totem or other GStreamer applications to play multimedia content. The SELinux Troubleshooting tool may produce output similar to the following message:

SELinux is preventing gst-install-plu from making the program stack executable.

This situation may occur when older versions of the Fluendo MP3 codecs are installed. To solve the issue, install the latest version of the Fluendo MP3 decoder plugin, which does not require an executable stack.