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It's close to Christmas and I find myself often displaying a virtual fireplace on my TV used as screen for Ubuntu Gnome.

Is it possible to create a desktop link that will open a new window in, say, Firefox, and start playing the video?

Bonus question: Is it possible to 1) turn annotations off, 2) loop the video, and 3) go full screen?

Rasmus
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2 Answers2

3

Pre: Optional

Download your movie to have an offline solution. youtube-dl is one of several tools which allow downloading videos from Youtube.

Example:

youtube -t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCp1_XQbiwc

Package requirements:

youtube-dl

Main Task - Bash-Script

Create a new textfile fire.sh, make it executable via chmod +x fire.sh and insert the following

#!/bin/bash
#
# offline version:
MOVIE_PATH="${HOME}/path/to/local/youtube/movie.extension"
#
# online version:
#MOVIE_PATH="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCp1_XQbiwc"
#
# start video using vlc
/usr/bin/vlc --loop --fullscreen "$MOVIE_PATH"

Package requirements:

vlc

Keep in mind:

  • There is no real need in moving this commandline call to a script, while i stilll prefer it as you might want to pimp it overtime (.i.e. picking a random clip from a selection or whatever else).
  • vlc should be replaceable with mplayer for example, while you would need to check the needed parameters for loop and fullscreen.

Post: Optional

In case you really need or want a dash icon to start this script consider checking out the package alacarte - while double-clicking the fire.sh in your fileexplorer (assuming nautilus) should offer an execute dialog as well.

dufte
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2

The idea in the comment from @dufte is the best one for your purpose.

You can then create a desktop entry with the command : 

vlc --loop  --fullscreen /path/to/your/video.avi

You can also search for other options from on the VideoLAN forum to suit your needs

To create such a desktop entry you can go to that page to see how to make one.

I think the method described with alacarte will allow you to easily do that

Community
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Dark Sinus
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