Bug#762561: Usability problem: gtk-recordmydesktop create Ogg Theora video file the KDE file manager fail to play
Package: file
Version: 1:5.19-2
Severity: important
User: debian-edu@lists.debian.org
Usertags: debian-edu
Not quite sure which package to report this against, as the problem is
in the interplay between several packages. Starting with file, as I
suspect that is where the key to fix it is placed. Please reassign if
you believe tihs is the wrong package to change.
This is the use case: I record a screen session using
gtk-recordmydesktop, and when I stop the recording it store the video
as Ogg Theora and I end up with a file out.ogv in my home directory.
I next visit the KDE file manuager, and click on the video to play the
recording. The audacity program is started, and it fail to display
anything and just hang. I believe the same problem happen with other
file managers too, but have not checked them all. The audacity hang
of course is an error in itself, but the real error here is that the
wrong program is started. For Ogg Theora files, it would be better if
vlc or another installed video player is started. The audio tools are
not fit for the task!
If I understand how the file manager work, it uses the equivalent of
'file --mime-type out.ogv' to figure out which menu entry listed in
/usr/share/applications/ to use to open the file. The output from the
file command is "application/ogg", a MIME type supported by programs
handling either video or audio Ogg files. There are also two mime
types audio/ogg and video/ogg to indicate if the file is audio only or
audio/video.
Could the file magic database be changed to return "video/ogg" for Ogg
Theora files? Then programs supporting Ogg Video files can add that
MIME type to their list of supported mime types, and the user
experience will be that a video player start when selecting a Ogg
Theora video file. At the moment there is no desktop file claiming to
support video/ogg, so that will have to be added too, to get this
issue properly fixed.
See also <URL: https://bugs.debian.org/479565 > about a related Ogg
problem.
--
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen
Reply to: