Totem

Totem (popularly known as Movie Player and Videos) is an open source project that provides users with a GStreamer-based movie player application specifically designed for the GNOME desktop environment.

Features at a glance

The program is capable of playing almost any video file format that is supported by the GStreamer multimedia framework (codec pack). Key features include support for playlists, full-screen mode, volume and seek controls, as well as a powerful plugin architecture. Among other functions, we can mention a built-in video thumbnailer for Nautilus, the default file manager of the GNOME desktop environment, a plugin for the Mozilla Firefox web browser, which allows users to view online movies, as well as a command-line video properties helper (for indexers).

In addition, the application lets users to capture screenshots of video files, supports OGG and OGM subtitles, configuration of font style and size for subtitles. Furthermore, it automatically loads subtitles when a movie file is loaded, playbacks DVD-Video and VCD discs, and supports external chapters. The application's default functionality can be extended through a wide range of built-in plugins, including Always on Top, Gromit Annotations, Instant Messenger Status, MPRIS D-Bus Interface, Python Console, Rotation Plugin, Subtitle Downloader, Video Disc Recorder, and Zeitgeist Plugin.

It can deinterlace interlaced videos

Deinterlacing of interlaced videos is also possible, as well as display of visual effects when an audio file is played, such as GOOM, Stereo visualizer, Waveform oscilloscope, Synaescope, and Frequency spectrum scope. Another interesting feature is the built-in video equalizer, which will allow users to change the brightness, contrast, saturation and hue of any video file during playback. Supported audio output types include stereo, 4 channel, 4.1 channel, 5.0 channel, 5.1 channel, and AC3 Passthrough.

The GUI follows the GNOME HIG specifications

The graphical user interface is written in GTK+ and follows the GNOME HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) specifications, allowing users to load local or remote video files, search for multimedia streams locally, or online on YouTube, Vimeo, Rai.tv or Blip.tv, as well as to play online videos. During our tests, Totem proved to be a great video playback application, and not so great audio player. Considering the fact that it runs on any open source desktop environment, not only GNOME, and because it features a video equalizer, we strongly recommend it instead of VLC or GNOME MPlayer.

What is new in this release:

• Fix OpenSubtitles dialogue not opening
• Fix error early in build when vala is not available

What is new in version 3.26.1:

• Fix crash when properties tab is closed too fast
• Thumbnail OPUS and M4B audio files
• Fix thumbnailing on platforms with V4L M2M hardware decoders
• Fix playing back MJPEG files
• Fix Python Console menu not appearing
• Build fixes:
• Remove dependency on Debian-specific pycompile utility
• Fix build with gtk-doc 1.26

What is new in version :

• Fix a possible build race
• Fix lirc plugin compilation
• Python console bug fixes
• Install appdata in the new location
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.24.0:

• Translation updates
• Add Flatpak build definition

What is new in version 3.22.0 / 3.24.0 Beta:

• Add keyboard shortcut to de-select all items
• Fix possible crash on first run
• Set a minimum width for the "Go" menu
• Mark many audio and video mime-types as handled
• Add more shortcuts to the keyboard shortcuts dialogue
• Fix a small memory leak in thumbnailer
• Fix missing plugins' startup notification on Wayland
• Fix crash when network turns off
• Port to non-obsoleted widgets
• and build fixes

What is new in version 3.22.0:

• Fix symbolic icon not appearing in gnome-shell's top bar.

What is new in version 3.20.1 / 3.22.0 Beta 2:

• Add variable rate playback menu
• Build fixes
• Fix thumbnailing of 4k videos

What is new in version 3.19.3:

• Port to grilo 0.3.0
• Add a shortcuts help window
• Use new grl-video-title-parsing plugin
• Move controls OSD to the bottom of the screen
• Fix fullscreen toolbar not appearing in Wayland
• Add Ctrl+W to quit
• Add man page for totem-audio-preview
• Fix GSettings changing on startup
• A number of deprecation warning fixes

What is new in version 3.16.2:

• Fix popup not showing up on touchscreens
• Fix potential crash on 32-bit systems

What is new in version 3.16.1:

• Loads of performance fixes, related to thumbnailing when a video is playing
• Fix (again) doubling files added on the command-line
• Don't monitor the tracker source, it adds incomplete items to the view
• Fix Videos icon not showing in volume control
• Provide a symbolic variant of the app icon
• Fix frames not getting applied for new thumbnails
• Don't warn when video rotation is unset

What is new in version 3.16.0:

• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.14.2:

• Stop thumbnailing when starting playback
• Keep the controls visible when seeking with the slider
• Show popup when seeking with the keyboard
• Only show videos longer than 5 seconds
• Hide source which provide torrent URLs
• Fix translation support in thumbnailer
• Fix Totem doubling files added on the cmd line
• Handle "Powerpoint" buttons on remotes
• Remove spacing around preferences tabs

What is new in version 3.15.4:

• Remove spacing around preferences tabs
• Stop thumbnailing when exiting, and when playback starts
• Handle "Powerpoint" buttons on remotes
• Keep the controls visible when seeking with the slider
• Show controls when seeking with the keyboard
• Use the theme's foreground color to render the symbolics
• Only show videos longer than 5 seconds in the overview
• Hide source which provide torrent URLs (for now)
• Remove use of a number of deprecated properties
• Require a newer cairo for hi-dpi support
• Fix Totem doubling files added on the cmd line
• Fix missing translation support in thumbnailer/gallery support

What is new in version 3.14.1:

• Fix lingering white line in fullscreen
• Fix bug in MPRIS support when used via Rygel
• Thumbnail bookmarked movies as well
• Fix starting Totem via D-Bus (gnome-open)
• Port from appdata-tools to appstream-glib
• Add a keyboard shortcut for starting subtitles download

What is new in version 3.14.0:

• save-file: Handle an unset Videos directory
• Fix popup disappearing when volume is being set
• Remove border from error dialogue
• Require newer versions of clutter-gtk and gst-plugins-base

What is new in version 3.14 RC:

• Fix opening files following the D-Bus-ification
• libgd updates to fix the appearance of check boxes and subtitle labels

What is new in version 3.14 Beta 2:

• Generate thumbnails for the videos in the main view when they're missing
• Rename totem.desktop to org.gnome.Totem.desktop
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.14 Beta 1:

• Rename "Recent" section to "Videos"
• Remove visualisation support
• Remove browser plugin
• Better error message for RTSP blocked by firewall
• Automatically rotate mobile phone videos
• Allow seeking past fill-level

What is new in version 3.12.1:

• Bump required versions of grilo and GStreamer
• Fix delete button's initial state
• Switch to the player view quicker
• Add support for starting a playlist paused
• Escape selection mode when pressing Esc
• Fix shuffled items starting to play in random order
• Hide popups when leaving the window, but not when a popover (volume, menus) is visible
• Don't toggle popups on touchpad clicks, just on touchscreens
• Fix scroll-wheel going forward 2 minutes instead of 1
• Save the downloaded subtitles in the video directory
• Re-add drag'n'drop support for the video widget

What is new in version 3.12.0:

• Fix artifacts caused by GtkPopovers
• Don't add containers in the Recent view
• Various opensubtitles plugin bug fixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.12 Beta 1:

• Add sideways swipe gestures to seek inside the window
• Move Open/Add menu items to the "Add" button
• Add drop support to the "Recent" section of the overview
• Implement "Make Available Offline"
• Maximise window by default
• Make F10 show the gear menu
• Make Ctrl+F toggle the search mode
• Handle the "Play DVD" remote control key
• Pause playback when the screensaver comes on
• Correct spacing and title of the preferences window
• Remove film strip by default from thumbnails, Nautilus will add them itself if necessary
• Fix monitoring of Grilo sources
• Show switcher buttons when turning on search
• Ensure the buffering spinner gets removed when closing a file

What is new in version 3.11.5:

• Complete redesign

What is new in version 3.10.1:

• Fix possible abort on startup
• Fix warning on startup

What is new in version 3.10.0:

• Updated translations.

What is new in version 3.10 RC:

• RTL bug fixes for playback icons
• Fix year tag not showing in some cases
• Remove obsolete totem-disc usage
• Port zeitgeist plugin to zeitgeist-2.0

What is new in version 3.9.5:

• Add work-around to allow streaming of Vimeo videos
• Don't hide the titlebar on fullscreen (as we still have a menu bar)
• Make thumbnailer work even when VA-API support is enabled
• Avoid warnings from the rotation plugin for unsupported locations
• Fix aspect ratio in dual-head setups
• Fix playback when video location is not mounted
• Access streams directly rather than through FUSE, making buffering and playback smoother
• Fix excessive redraws when using rotation, and make rotation and crop work together

What is new in version 3.8.2:

• Work-around problem with initial window size
• Fix errors in gallery name print when filename contains "&"
• Fix translations not being applied in nautilus' properties
• Fix Python Console not working
• Fix screenshot keyboard shortcut

What is new in version 3.8.0:

• Updated translations.

What is new in version 3.7.92:

• Use yelp-tools instead of gnome-doc-utils
• Add YouTube format configuration for grilo
• Fix possible Unicode errors with MPRIS plugin
• Use libgd's icon view for search results
• Fix warnings for some files in the browse sidebar
• Fix possible crashes in the chapters plugin
• Fix playing audio CD tracks launched from Nautilus
• Fix running when clutter-gst is in a different prefix
• Plugins:
• Remove use of deprecated widgets in subtitles downloader

What is new in version 3.6.3:

• Really stop using the soundpitch plugin
• Fix playback of some audio types failing

What is new in version 3.6.2:

• Make Ogg video streaming work again (the soundpitch plugin in gst-plugins-bad is broken)
• Fix memory leaks when using download buffering

What is new in version 3.3.4:

• Re-enable and fix compilation of zeitgeist-dp plugin
• Use new GLib threading API if compiling with GLib ≥ 2.31.0
• Fix some problems with `make check` on the Python plugins

What is new in version 3.2.1:

• Fix crash when framerate isn't available
• Quieten the thumbnailer when thumbnailing non-videos
• Loads of translations

What is new in version 3.2.0:

• Fix Python console settings conversion bug
• Loads of updated translations

What is new in version 3.1.0:

• Use clutter-gst to draw the video, the only major related change is simpler zoom modes
• Use GStreamer API directly for audio preview utility (used in nautilus), thumbnailer and nautilus properties window
• Show container format in the properties
• Add ability to switch video tracks
• Add ability to "thumbnail" DVD ISOs
• Advertise support for audio/x-stm and audio/x-s3m
• Fix possible dropped chapters in chapter plugin
• Code:
• Port media-player-keys plugin to GDBus
• Add pylint support for all Python plugins, and fix errors from it, and port all of the plugins to GObject Introspection
• Simplify screenshot code
• Removed:
• Remove XVidMode support in backend
• Remove video indexer, it wasn't used
• Remove thumbnail plugin which doesn't serve a purpose under GNOME 3

What is new in version 3.0.1:

• Fixes to chapters plugin which resulted in missing chapters
• Fix translations in filter drop-down for save dialogue
• Fix gallery mode's last picture never appearing
• Fix possible crasher in save-file plugin
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.0.0:

• Fix packing and spacing in the properties
• Fix subtitle downloader and jamendo plugins
• Loads more translations

What is new in version 2.91.92:

• Plenty of screensaver related bug fixes
• Make "Open Location" dialogue modal
• Never use an empty User-Agent in the backend
• Don't poke at web server when we already have information to set up "recent files"

What is new in version 2.91.91:

• New icon!
• Fix screensaver for latest gnome-screensaver
• Fix possible assertion in save-file plugin
• Use gnome-session instead of Galago for status notifications
• Fix thumbnailer with both --size and --raw options
• Require GTK+ 3.x in pkg-config file, and fix compilation for out-of-tree plugins
• Make sure all the builtin plugins get activated on startup
• Fix screenshot for interlaced videos

What is new in version 2.91.6:

• YouTube plugin:
• Show actual stream title instead of "videoplayback" in the recent items menu
• Fix build with latest GTK+ version
• Various build fixes

What is new in version 2.91.5:

• Build:
• Fix build with newer versions of GTK+ 3.x
• Thumbnailer:
• Register thumbnailer with new scheme
• Always use the better looking resize method, even for large thumbnails
• Movie Player:
• Use new-style toolbar for playlist
• Fix look of plugins preferences
• Notice panels when automatically resizing the window
• Plugins:
• Fix subtitles plugin not closing after download
• Downgrade YouTube plugin's abilities, see:
• http://www.hadess.net/2011/01/youtube-playback-will-suck-again.html
• Offer to launch YouTube in browser if video is not available in the requested format.
• Re-add support for Vala plugins and sample vala plugin
• Add support for additional multimedia keys
• Port tracker plugin to newest API
• Browser plugin:
• Fix possible crasher in the glow button

What is new in version 2.91.4:

• Build:
• Port to GtkStyleContext
• Other GTK+ 3.x fixes
• Movie Player:
• Remove the MythTV plugin (upstream is dead and UPnP works just as well)
• Change the data paths in GSettings schemas
• Lots of Python plugin fixes
• Add a save file plugin
• Fix a race condition when parsing multiple playlist entries
• More GSettings fixes and cleanup
• Use symbolic icons for the volume level
• Fix plugin shutdown
• GStreamer backend:
• Various drawing fixes
• Updated translations

What is new in version 2.31.92:

• Stop using deprecated GDK API
• Some minor plugin documentation fixes
• Updated translations

What is new in version 2.90.5:

• Movie Player:
• Port from libunique to GApplication
• Rework cancellation in the YouTube plugin to remove races
• Reorganise the core code into an installed library, libtotem.so
• Add gobject-introspection support to this library
• Make it possible to build plugins out of tree by installing a few header files
• Remove the old Python and Vala bindings in favour of introspection
• Port the Python plugins to libpeas and the new bindings (note that they aren't re-enabled yet due to being too unstable)
• Tidy up the "Open Location" dialogue
• Port to the updated PeasUIConfigurable interface in libpeas 0.5.2
• Browser plugin:
• Add support for the VLC input.length property

What is new in version 2.30.2:

• Movie Player:
• Fix huge window height when hiding then showing controls again
• Fix slight resize when showing the sidebar for the first time
• Fix possible crash when loading PytGTK
• Fix loading OSD icons when there's no SVG versions
• Browser Plugin:
• Fix volume being at zero when starting playback
• Fix use of URL parameter for the Window Media Player
• compatibility plugin
• Fix position on End-Of-Stream when using the QuickTime
• compatibility plugin
• GStreamer backend:
• Try not to block the UI when seeking
• Fix constant buffering when playing live streams

What is new in version 2.30.1:

• Movie Player:
• Fix artifacts and flashing or black screen when paused
• Better download buffering handling
• Fix crasher when PyGTK is badly installed
• Avoid problems with seeking when pausing the video too early
• Fix link to Totem website in error messages
• Disable seeking in DVD menus
• Make Eject menu item work for DVDs
• Fix playback from FTP sites
• Plugins:
• Port Tracker plugin to Tracker 0.8
• Make YouTube plugin work again for latest site changes
• Browser Plugin:
• Add download buffering support even when streaming from the browser itself
• Fix playback on the Apple trailers site, and add seeking support

Requirements:

• GStreamer
• libdvdcss
• GNOME
• Gromit