1^st step: Copy the flash video files (capture the FLV-files)

Ubuntu (and I guess nearly every Linux distribution) makes it really easy to download the flash videos which can be streamed on platforms like Youtube and all the others. Bad luck for Windows users.

• Just open your browser (Opera in my case, Firefox does it too)
• Go to the website with the video you want to stream
• Hit “Play”, wait a few seconds and push “Pause” so that the video starts to buffer
• Now open the /tmp-folder in a file manager like Nautilus or Konquerer
• You will find a file with a name like “Flashzad23″, in any case something starting with “Flash”
• Rename this file to “my-youtube-video.flv”. This also works when the buffering process has not been finished yet

That’s it.

If you just want to watch the video, it’s possible to just open it with your favourite player such as VLC, Totem, MPlayer, etc. This also works while it is still buffering! But since you want to copy it to the iPod Video, you need to resize/re-encode it to a m4v- or mov-file.

2^nd step: Resize/Re-encode the flv-file for the iPod Video

Unfortunately, I didn’t find a perfect and fast solution to re-encode flv-videos for the iPod. I will demonstrate two ways, the fast one for movies and series you only want to watch once. And the perfect one for videos you want to keep on the iPod for a longer time.

Install “ffmpeg” from the Medibuntu repository

For both ways it is at least necessary to install the packages ffmpeg and libavcodec0 from the Medibuntu Repository instead of the regular Ubuntu reps.

You can find out how to do this on the Ubuntu help pages.

The fast way

The fast way a one big disadvantage: The iPod isn’t able to estimate the length of the video. That means it’s not possible to use the nice diamond control to jump within the video. Regular rewind and fast-forward is still possible anyway.

Luckily, you only need one tool: ffmpeg. Just install it via apt-get:

$ apt-get install ffmpeg

Basically, just use this command to convert a flv-file to a mov-file (readable/playable by the iPod Video):

$ ffmpeg -i "my-youtube-video.flv" -f mp4 -vcodec mpeg4 -maxrate 1000k \
   -b 700k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 192k \
   -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 "my-youtube-video.mov"

To simplify the mass-conversion, I wrote a tiny script which can be copied to your own “.bin”-directory (cp. this article):

#!/bin/bash
 
for file in $@; do
        ffmpeg -i $file -f mp4 -vcodec mpeg4 -maxrate 1000k -b 700k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 \
           -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 192k -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 $file.mov
done

The perfect (and slow) way

Well, this way might be the better one since the disadvantage from above doesn’t occur. Unfortunately, it does take a lot longer. A LOT! But just try it out by yourself.

I found an flv-to-iPod (m4v) encoding script on ubuntu.com written by John Dong. Find instructions and installation hints to the script on the Ubuntu Wiki

3^rd and last step: Transfer the video to the iPod

Use gtkpod or your favorite iPod managing software to transfer the video to your iPod.
I hope this helped a little. Please let me know if you have difficulties or found a better (easier) way to do the conversion!

Update Feb/09

Apparently, this can be solved in a really easy way as Mads Buus suggested in the comments-section. The GNOME desktop environment ships with a tool called gnome-open, which can be used for this:

$ gnome-open .

This opens Nautilus in the current working directory. Note: Don’t forget the dot after the command!

You might also want to look how to make a shortcut for this command, cmp. Mads Buus’ comment below. Thanks again for this much easier solution!

The solution

The solution is basically just a one-line command:

$ echo "'`pwd`'" | xargs nautilus --browser

To make it shorter, we can just put these lines in a script called naut. You can either save the script where you like to or put it in your very own .bin-directory (which I will do here).

$ mkdir ~/.bin
$ echo -e '#!/bin/bash\necho "'\''`pwd`'\''" | xargs nautilus --browser' > ~/.bin/naut
$ chmod +x ~/.bin/naut

Make sure to add the .bin-directory to your PATH variable:

$ echo -e '\n# Private binaries\nexport PATH=$PATH:~/.bin' >> ~/.bashrc

Usage of the naut-command

You can now use the naut-command in your console window (make sure to restart the console window before). Here is a small example:

$ cd "/very/long and complicated/path/to/a/very/important/directory"
$ naut

Et voilà , the Nautilus window will pop up.

Well, the bad thing about Unison on the other hand is, that its backwards compatibility is anything but great, so that you have to make sure that everybody in the team uses the same version. And this can be tricky depending on what system you are using.

My home system is Ubuntu Hardy, the remote server system is Debian Etch. Both come with Unison 2.16.13 which would be great if not Apple’s new Leopard brings the newest version 2.27.57. Long story short, I needed the newest version on Hardy and Etch.

Unison on Hardy

To install the newest version of Unison on Hardy, it’s the best to just use the existing Backport package.

First, add the backports to the apt-sources, using your favorite editor, e.g. vi or nano:

$ sudo editor /etc/apt/sources.list

Look for backports and uncomment/add the following lines:

deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse

Then just install the backport using apt-get:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get -t hardy-backports install unison

After installing you probably should remove the added lines from the sources.list-file. Otherwise the update-manager wants to install all available backports which is probably not what you want.

Debian Etch

Update 30/07/08: Before reading my post, please have a look at the much easier method described by Andrew in the user comments. Only if this doesn’t work, you might want to have a look at my post.

Unison 2.27.57 binary for Debian Etch:
If you don’t want to compile the binary on your own (as described in the following paragraphs), you can download the Unison 2.27.57 binary for Debian Etch here.

Update 30/11/08:
~ 300 downloads so far, no known problems/malfunctions!

It’s much more difficult on an Etch system because no Backport package is available. Therefore you either have to create such a package, which can be annoying and frustrating, or you just compile it on your own and overwrite the binary.

Add the unstable sources and the etch backports to your apt-get sources by editing the file /etc/apt/sources.list (as root!):

# Unstable source packages
deb-src ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
 
# Backports for Etch
deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main contrib non-free

Now update apt and install the backport package of ocaml compiler. You also might want to install the debian backports keyring to avoid warning and error messages:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install debian-backports-keyring
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get -t etch-backports install ocaml

Then get the source package of unison 2.27.57 and make the binary:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get source unison
$ dpkg-source -x unison_2.27.57-1.dsc
$ cd unison-2.27.57/
$ make

Note: For my Etch installation, the make progress failed with some error, but the binary was created successfully anyway. Just have a look whether the unison-binary exists and test if it is working.

$ ./unison -version
unison version 2.27.57

Now install the old version of Unison and replace the binary with the new one. Also you might want to remove the lines from /etc/apt/sources.list and uninstall the ocaml compiler.

$ apt-get install unison
$ cp unison /usr/bin/
$ unison -version
unison version 2.27.57

That’s it! I know that this is not the best solution and that it might be better to create the backports package. But as there are many dependencies to other packages it’s maybe one of the fastest solutions.

I decided to publish the binary here (for the lazy ones): Unison 2.27.57 binary for Debian Etch.

Preparation: Create a short mute-script

Create your custom .bin-directory, add it to your .bashrc, create a mute-script and make it executable.

 $ mkdir ~/.bin
 $ echo -e '\n# Private binaries\nexport PATH=$PATH:~/.bin' >> ~/.bashrc
 $ echo -e '#!/bin/bash\namixer set Master mute' > ~/.bin/mute
 $ chmod +x ~/.bin/mute

Avoid the embarrassment: Use the script

You can now use the script by simply typing mute in your console window. To use it before logging into GNOME/KDE, follow these steps.

• Switch to a different tty by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1
• Log in with your username and password
• Run the script by typing mute
• And finally switch back to the graphical login window: CTRL+ALT+F7

Well, I hope this helps a little. Of course you don’t have to use the script but can just type:

$ amixer set Master mute

.