Noow is a pretty new competitor to the media playback game. Its claim is that it can play back HD video with amazing quality. Lets see how it stacks up against VLC.

The desktop applications

Both are applications you will need to download and install onto your machine. The look of Noow is clean and modern.

There are options in the left sidebar to video sources like Hulu and YouTube. Also near the bottom of that same sidebar, there are some links to podcasts.

VLC has a more plain interface. It is not as stylish as Noow’s player, but has everything you typically access right there in the open.

Noow media types played

Noow can play MPEG, AVI, DivX, H.264, Flash Video, QuickTime, Windows Media. There is not a full list of file types anywhere I could see.

While installing Noow, you may want choose custom install so you can turn on support for QuickTime, MP3, AVI, MPEG, Windows media files. These are not checked by default.

VLC media types played

VLC has a full list of media types it can play. If you take a look at the file types, I doubt there are many out there that VLC won’t play.

Having the ability to play a specific media type can take a lot of the guess work out of deciding on the player you want to use.

Noow special features

Playback location – If you need to stop a movie or video before you finish it, Noow will remember the location where you stopped and automatically start you there when you open the file again.

RSS feeds – Get the latest video from your favorite site using the RSS feed option.

Torrent files – You can use files from Bit Torrent

Space – You can set aside a certain space on your hard drive for your downloads and be notified when it is full.

VLC special features

Stream – You can stream your audio and video files to other devices. This can be super cool if you set up an old computer as a media server.

Remote – Your Android device can be used as a remote to control your media playback.

Appearance – You can download different skins to change the look of the player window.

Conclusion

I am still leaning toward VLC. My reasoning is, I am using Windows 8 for most things recently and Noow was a bit choppy playing video. I don’t expect all of the applications to work perfectly on a new OS. Noow worked great for me in XP. VLC has been a great all around media player for as long as it has been around. They usually adapt to new formats very quickly.

What kinds of features help you choose which media player to use?

And maybe you want to covert to those files to another format – say MP3 to Ogg. There’s no lack of audio converters for the Linux desktop, but if you’re looking for one that’s small, simple, and fast, then look no further than Gnac.

Let’s take a look at Gnac and how to use it.

Installing Gnac

You can download binaries for several Linux distributions from the Gnac website. For Ubuntu users, the easiest way to install Gnac is to open a terminal window and run the following commands:

add-apt-repository ppa:gnac-team/ppa
apt-get update
apt-get install gnac

You can also download and compile the source code or build the latest sources from a GIT repository.

Setting Up and Using Gnac

Before you convert your first audio file, you should set one or two of the program’s preferences. To do that, start Gnac and then choose “Edit > Preferences“.

The one setting that you’ll want to change is the folder in which Gnac saves the converted files. By default, it drops those files into the same directory as the source audio files. That can get messy, especially if the source directory contains a lot of your music. You can tell Gnac to save the converted files in a subfolder of the source directory by clicking the Subfolder option, and then typing a name for the subfolder. Or, click Custom folder and then choose a folder in your /home directory.

If you want to get rid of the source files and only keep the converted ones, click the Delete original files after conversion option.

Once that’s out of the way, it’s easy to use Gnac. How easy? You can either drag and drop files on to the Gnac window, or click the Add button on the toolbar button to add one or more files to convert. Then, choose the format to which you want to convert the audio. After that, click Convert.

The speed of the conversion depends on the size and number of audio files that you’re converting. On average, it takes about 20 seconds to convert a file. Not too shabby.

Turning the Knobs

Gnac can handle all of the audio formats that the GStreamer multimedia framework supports. Out of the box, you can convert between the following formats:

• Ogg
• FLAC
• AAC
• MP3
• WAV
• SPX

The factory settings for those formats are fine for most people. But you might want to fiddle with those settings to, for example, increase the quality of the audio or make the file a little smaller. To do that, click the button Edit beside list of formats in the Gnac window.

Click on one of the formats, and then click the Edit button.

Depending on the format, you can change the quality (worst to best; the default is usually in the middle), the bitrate, the number of channels, and the sample rate. To change any of those settings, either select an option from a dropdown list or click and drag a slider with your mouse.

You’ll have to experiment a bit to find the settings that work best for you and your needs.

If you need to quickly convert audio files, then Gnac is a great choice. It’s simple and powerful, and gets the job done quite nicely.

AudioGalaxy is very easy to use. There is almost zero setup required.

Go to AudioGalaxy and sign up for an account.

Once you have completed the registration, download and install the AudioGalaxy helper (currently only available for Windows and Mac, though it is said that the Windows version works in Linux under WINE).

Once the AudioGalaxy helper is up and running, you should see your collection of music appears in the AudioGalaxy site. You can then create your playlist and play your music in the browser.

To get it working in your mobile device, download the app for Android or iOS.

Sign in to the app and you will see your music collection in the phone. Just like any music player, you can view by artists, albums, genre and add songs to playlist.

You can then play the songs you want and even set it in repeat or shuffle mode.

All in all, this has to be one of the easiest way to stream your music. Almost zero setup and it works out of the box. You don’t even need to install iTunes or any other media player to get it working. One thing though, to be able to stream your music, the host computer needs to be running and connected to the Web at all the time. You also need internet connection on your mobile device to access the music. Other than that, this is almost perfect. What do you think?

Usually for different types of media conversions, we have separate programs installed: one for video format conversions, one for audio format conversions, and one for image format conversions. With DVDVideoSoft’s Free Studio, you can get a single program for all your media type conversions.

Free Studio is a freeware for Windows that supports an impressive range of video formats as well as audio and image formats. Find our comprehensive coverage of this remarkable freeware below and see why you should be using it.

Download and Installation

Free Studio runs on Windows XP, Vista, and 7. In order to get the program, you will need to download its setup file which is in the EXE format and about 60MB large. That seemingly large setup size completely justifies itself once the program’s features are explored and understood. In addition to the features, which we highlight in the following paragraphs, the program supports multiple languages. A total of 12 languages are supported including Dutch, English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

The multi-language support certainly helps deliver features to a wider audience unlike most media conversion freeware that targets only English-speaking computer users.

User-Interface

When you run the program for the first time, this is the type of picture you will see:

The big bright buttons let you enter different categories of media tools. A clicking sound can be heard as you place the mouse pointer over these buttons. The sound nicely adds to the overall feel of the program.

In case you want to change the default language without reinstalling the program, you can do so from the top-right.

Overall, the interface maintains a fresh look without ever tiring its user. If we were to grade it, the interface would get an ‘A’.

Let us now move on to the type of media tools offered by Free Studio.

Image Tools

Using the “Photo & Images” button from the main window of the program, you can enter the images portal of Free Studio. Here you will see an impressive list of image tools you can use.

Starting from the top of the list, you can use these tools to:

• Convert the format of images and resize them
• Convert videos to individual JPG images
• Create 3D photographs
• Record a portion of your screen to create a screencast

Thus not only do you get handy image tools, but you can also record screencasts thereby eliminating the need of an extra application for the purpose.

Audio Tools

From the main window, the “MP3 & Audio” button lets you access the program’s audio tools.

The audio tools let you perform the following functions:

• Convert audio files between various formats
• Edit audio files
• Extract audio from videos
• Burn audio to an optical disc either as an audio CD or as an MP3 disc

Like the image tools, the audio tools save you the need to have a bunch of other programs installed. The audio tools section of Free Studio will replace your current software for audio format conversions, audio editing, and audio extraction from video.

Video Tools

Free Studio offers an impressive array of video tools. These tools are spread out into 5 categories that are visible in the program’s main window. The first category is “YouTube” and its tools can be seen in the following image:

The YouTube tools let you download videos from YouTube and directly convert their file format thereby effectively merging the download and conversion steps. The application even lets you upload videos to YouTube from its interface.

The second set of video tools is categorized as “CD, DVD, BD.” The tools included under this category can be seen in the following image:

These tools are basically disc-writing tools. In other words, these tools let you burn videos to a video CD, a DVD, or a BluRay disc after passing the video through the appropriate file conversions.

The third category of video tools is “DVD & Video.” See the following image for the list of tools it contains:

As you can see in the image, this category offers video tools that you will probably be using the most. From video editing to video format conversion, tools in this category perform all those functions.

The “Mobiles” category of video tools will let you convert videos for specific devices. These will come in handy when you do not know which video formats your devices can handle. The following image is what tools in this category look like:

The last category of video tools is “Apple Devices.” The function of this category is the same as “Mobile” with video tools for each Apple device labeled separately.

Usage

Method of usage of all tools offered by Free Studio is nearly the same. Once you click on a tool in one of the abovementioned categories, you will encounter a window similar to the image below:

The top section is where you specify the input file. You can specify multiple files in case of batch conversions. Underneath you specify the output folder path and details of the output format. When your preferences are set, you click on the “Convert” button to initiate the process.

Conclusion

Take a look at your installed programs. As we pointed out earlier, you will notice you have multiple applications installed for nearly all the functions that are being offered by Free Studio. Replacing all those applications by a single program will not only be convenient but also significantly free up your disk space. With the advantages it offers, Free Studio is a must-have application for all computer users.

DVDVideoSoft’s Free Studio.

Here we have gathered a list of media players that can play (almost) every other formats.

1. VLC Media Player

VLC is one player that need little or no introduction. If there is any media files that you can’t play, the first thing you must think of is VLC. From media formats like MP3, AC3, MPEG-3 to MPEG-4, H.264, DivX etc, VLC supports them all. It can also be used to convert media files from one format to another, and improve the compression ratio. It can act as a streaming server and you can see online videos using IPv4 (mostly used) or IPv6 protocol.

VLC is free to download/use and exists for almost every platforms, including the iPad and iPhone.

Supported OS: Almost all Operating Systems.

2. Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic is exclusively meant for Windows. Though it looks similar to Media Player v6.4, it has many additional features. It can even be used to implement a Home Theatre. Removal of tearing in video is another feature. It also supports EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer). Creation of minidump when MPC HC crashes, shuttle PN31 remote control support, multi-monitor configuration, pixel shader to convert BT601 – BT701, YV12 Chroma Up sampling pixel shader are some other features. Some of the supported audio and video formats are WAV, WMA, OGG, AU, AIF, AIFC, MOV, SND, AIFF, MIDI, MPEG, MPG, MP2, AC3, DTS, ASX, MP3, M3U, PLS, ASF, WM, WMA, WMV, AVI, CDA, JPEG, JPG, GIF, WAX, PNG, BMP, D2V, VOB, MP4, SWF, QT, FLV.

Supported OS: Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7

3. Moovida

Moovida is more than just a simple media player. It is a feature rich software that allows you to organize your digital media in a slick way. It offers enriched media library with which you can import media from local folders, network devices or even from the internet. The Videos Galore feature supports a wide variety of formats including DivX, avi, wmv, mkv, asf, flv, mov, h264 and ogg, Moovida is available in over 20 languages. Moovida Immersed is a new feature which will support remote control navigation on your HDTV. 

Supported OS: Windows and Linux

4. GOM Player

This player supports almost all CODECs and hence offers support for varied formats. In case you require an extra CODEC, GOM player will automatically direct you to the place where you can get one. It can play AVI files with broken index. It has a strong sub-title support with the major formats being SMI, SRT, RT, SUB (with IDX). You can create and work with your own playlists. It supports playlists similar to M3U, PLS and ASX. Screen Capture feature is also allowed and supports advanced features like customizing color, contrast and brightness. Some of the supported formats are gom, dat, avi, divx, k3g, asf, wm, wmx, wmp, wmv, wvx, ogm, mpeg, mpg, mpe, m1v, m2v, vob, mp4, 3gp, lmp4, skm, dmskm, mkv and ifo.

Supported OS : Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/NT

5. SMplayer

MPlayer is best known in Linux world, used as the backend for various media player. SMPlayer is the implementation of Mplayer in Windows. It comes with a simple GUI that allows you to control the functionality of MPlayer. One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer – it remembers the settings of all files you play. If you leave your movie half way, the next time you resume, it will restore to the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume…

Supported OS: Windows

6. KM Player

It lets you play almost everything easily. It can easily be customized. You can adjust the visualizations, add plug-ins and change its playback options. It supports a wide range of audio/video formats so that once installed, you won’t have to go for another player. KMPlayer has a small desktop footprint. It also sports a minimalist interface that makes video playback quick and hassle-free. Some of the supported formats are VCD, DVD, Ogg, MPEG-1/2/4,  AVI, MKV,  3GP, OGM, WMV, Real Media and QuickTime .

Supported OS : Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

8. K-Lite Codec Pack

If all you want is the ability to play various media formats and not to install a new media player, then K-Lite Codec Pack is the one software that you are looking for.

The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs files required to play all the popular audio and video formats, and even several less common formats. It integrates itself to the Windows Media Player so you can play (almost) any files with WMP.

It is always a good thing to be pampered with choices. Even when the Windows Media Player doesn’t recognize the file format, it doesn’t have to be the end of World for you. The above list of media player + codecs should get you on with your life. What other method do you use to play that file that is not recognized by your media player?

I shall cut the crap and go into the main points. Video Converter Factory Pro supports a great wide of video/audio format and range. Originally priced at $29.95, it is already considered a good deal. But now it is provided for free (limited time only), you will definitely not want to miss it.

Input File format supported

Video: AVI, MP4, DAT, MPG, MPEG, H.264, NSV, VOB, MOV, FLV, MKV, TS/TP/TRP(AVHD H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2 HD), DV, WMV, ASF,3GP, 3G2

Audio: WAV, APE, FLAC, M4A, WMA, AAC, AC3, MKA, OGG, AIFF, RA, RAM, MP3, MP2, MPA

Output File Format Supported

Video: WMV, VOB ,MPG, MOV, MP4, AVI, ASF, DV, 3GPP, 3GP, 3G2, FLV, MKV, M4V, SWF

Audio: FLAC, AIFF, AU, MKA, OGG, WAV, WMA, AAC, AC3, M4A, MP3

Output Device Supported

• iPod, iPod nano, iPod Nano 5G, iPod classic, iPod shuffle, iPod touch, iPod touch 3G, iPhone, iPhone 3G, Apple TV
• Zune, Zune HD
• Window Mobile device: Pocket PC, Dell Axim X51, HP iPaq hw6500 series, etc.
• PSP, PS3.
• Xbox, Xbox 360.
• BlackBerry, Common Mobile Phone.
• General MP4 players: Archos, Creative Zen, iRiver, Walkman etc.

Free Giveaway

To enjoy the free giveaway, here is what you need to do:

1. Go to Video Converter Factory Pro Giveaway – Free Licensed

2. Download and install the software.

3. Enter the registration key (as shown in the download page).

That’s it.

This free giveaway will end on 27th Oct 2010. Get it while it lasts.

1. Minitube

A pure Qt application, Minitube is cross-platform and integrates well with KDE. Plainly put, it is a desktop YouTube client. Rather than opening a web browser and watching YouTube videos from the website, this little app allows you to watch up to 1080p streaming YouTube videos, just by entering a search term. The app is great for lower-powered devices, such as netbooks and tablets, that may lag when viewing Flash-based videos. Minitube is available for Linux and Mac OS X.

2. Skrooge

Pinching pinnies tends to be associated with negative, stingy people, but with today’s economy, most people are struggling financially. Skrooge is a KDE Extragear app that helps you manage your personal finances. It allows you to add multiple bank accounts, balance your checkbook, schedule bill payments, import bank statements, and run reports, complete with helpful graphs and charts.

3. Konvertible

With the multitude of devices many people have these days, you may need to convert audio files on a regular basis. Aside from dropping to the command line, there are not a lot of options for converting media files in Linux. Konvertible makes it easy to convert a wide variety of audio codecs: Mp3, Ogg Vorbis, and anything else supported by your version of ffmpeg.

4. PlaybaK

Former known as KDE Media Player, PlaybaK is a full-featured media player that aims to provide comprehensive media management and playback support, including music, videos, and more. It is still in early development but already supports many formats and has received very positive ratings and reviews on KDE-Apps.org. Both source code and some Linux distribution binaries are currently available for download.

5. Silence

I am not even sure if I fully get Silence, but the features and possibilities make it an app to watch. The developer describes it as an “information management tool” that allows you to store your data, search through it, and view it in an hierarchical way. It supports plain text, rich text, images, and programming code (with syntax highlighting), making it ideal for note-taking, coding, and just about anything else you can think up that requires organized information. It is light, fast, and free.

Finding KDE Apps

The best way to find these apps and others like them is to search KDE-Apps.org. The ones I have mentioned are those that I find useful, but you may find many others that better suit your needs. KDE-Apps.org includes ratings and comments from users, a helpful search tool, screenshots, and provides the ability to contact the developers directly. As developers update their apps, they usually post their updates to KDE-Apps.org, making it ideal for tracking apps in early development. Like all KDE applications, these work in other desktop environments, such as Gnome and LXDE, and most are available for multiple operating systems.

Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox is the default player in Ubuntu. Like many other media player, it comes with the capability to import audio CD into your library.

Open your Rhythmbox. Before you start to import your audio CD, it is best to configure the location of the imported files and the song format.

Go to Edit -> Preferences. Click on the Music tab.

In the “Music Files are placed in” field, select the location of the folder where the imported music will be stored.

Next, you may want to configure how the folder hierarchy of the album.

Lastly, select the preferred format that you want the imported music to be. The best choice would be FLAC format, but the file size will also be the biggest. MP3 is the most popular choice.

Once you are done with the configuration, go back to the Rhythmbox player and insert in your audio CD. You should see the CD entry on the left pane and all the songs in the right pane. To import all the songs, simply right click on the left pane CD entry and select “Extract to Library”.

To import only selected songs, first uncheck the songs that you don’t want to import. Next, right click on the left pane CD entry and select “Extract to Library”.

Personally, I found that audio extracting in Rhythmbox is extremely slow. It could take up to 20 minutes to extract 10 songs from a CD. If you are looking for a faster alternative, Sound Juicer is a better choice.

Sound Juicer

Sound Juicer is not a music player, even though it allows you to playback songs. In fact, it exists only for one purpose – to rip audio CD into music files. The good thing is, it did its job well and fast.

Debian/Ubuntu users can install Sound Juicer with the command:

sudo apt-get install sound-juicer

or simply click here to install.

Once installed, open the Sound Juicer application via Applications -> Sound & Video -> Audio CD Extractor.

As usual, it is best to configure the settings before we start the ripping. Go to “Edit -> Preferences”. Similarly, you can set the location to store your music, the folder hierarchy and the music format.

Note: The default Ubuntu does not come with MP3 support. Unless you install the “ubuntu-restricted-extra” package, you won’t be able to choose MP3 as the output format.

When you are done with the configuration, simply pop in your audio CD. Sound Juicer will automatically detect the CD and fetch the album info from the Web. You just have to click the “Extract” button to start the ripping.

The whole ripping process is much faster than Rhythmbox. Typically, a CD of 10 songs (about 50mins of playback time) takes about 5 minutes to finish ripping.

That’s it. Don’t forget to check out the ultimate guide to manage your audio/video files to handle all sort of media files in Linux.

Image credit: LaserGuided

Getting Hydrogen

Most modern distributions have Hydrogen available in their standard repositories. Ubuntu users, for example, can install it from the Ubuntu Software Center or from the command line with

sudo apt-get install hydrogen

If you find yourself with poor audio playback when you run Hydrogen, try installing Jack, an audio connection app that can improve the playback capabilities of software like Hydrogen. If you do install Jack, make sure to reboot before launching Hydrogen.

Pattern-Based Drums

Hydrogen works by letting you create individual drum patterns, then arranging those patterns into a song.

Once you’ve placed the drums in whatever pattern you like, you then lay those patterns out into a song.

Adding New Drum Kits

The base drum kit provided with Hydrogen is pretty bland. Not to worry, the developers have made it extremely easy to install additional drum kits that have a little more style. While this can be done manually, the simplest way is to open Instruments > Import Library.

From now on, the custom kits can be found in the lower right corner of the main window, under the Sound Library tab.

To use an instrument from that kit, drag it from the Sound Library into the pattern editor.

Pattern Editing

The basic process couldn’t be simpler – just click in the grid wherever you’d like to instrument to play. It won’t, however, be long before you find the need to place a drum hit somewhere between the grid lines for a faster beat. To set a larger or smaller grid, you simply use the Res dropdown box to decide how fine a grid to work with.

Similarly, you may not necessarily want the 4/4 time signature on your pattern, or an 8-beat measure might not be enough. For that you use the Size dropdown. This will allow you to set the number of beats or measures in your pattern. Most drum rhythms will loop cleanly with a size set to 8 or 16. The pattern in the example screenshot is written as a 3/4 waltz-style beat, so it was set to size 12 to provide the appropriate number of beats for the pattern to loop properly.

Mixing

Hydrogen wouldn’t be very useful if it didn’t provide a quality mixer, so it’s no surprise that the one included does just about everything you’re likely to need in a drum machine. If the mixer window did not open alongside Hydrogen, it can be opened manually with Tools > Mixer.

Conclusion

Hydrogen is capable of far more than could be included in a brief guide, so if you want to get in to some of the more advanced features, it’s recommended that you read the full Hydrogen Manual available on their website.

If you’ve got stories about Hydrogen or other Linux audio software, let us know in the comments!

How I wish that there is only one unified video format in the whole world and all the media players support that particular format. In reality, this is not the case. With so many mobile devices out there each supporting different audio/video format, it can be a great hassle finding out which format is suitable for which device. Just imagine the time saved from converting your .avi movie to iPhone compatible .mp4 format.

This is where Danuisoft Video Converter Ultimate (DVCU) comes in. DVCU does not unifies the video format, but it makes your video conversion a much simpler task, and I really mean it when I say “a much simpler task”. The software is not called “Video Converter Ultimate” for nothing. In fact, this feature-packed software is really the only video converter you need.

Before you are too hype up and preparing to take out your credit card to purchase the software, I’ve got good news for you. We are giving away 5 full licenses (worth $59.95 each) to Make Tech Easier readers this week!

Read on for the full review.

Multiple formats

There are many features that make Daniusoft Video Converter Ultimate stands out from the rest and one of them is the huge list of video/audio formats that it supports. Ranging from avi, mp4, wmv, rmvb, mkv, h264 to mp3, ogg, wav, 3gp, flac and many more.

On the main screen, you just have to drag and drop the videos to the main pane, then click the Start button (on the bottom right) to start the conversion. DVCU will then take care of the rest.

Alternatively, you can manually add the video/audio files  or get it to read DVD from your DVD drive and rip it to your desired video/audio format.

Last but not least, you can also add the URL of a video file, get it to download the videos (from Youtube or any other video sites) and add them to the main pane.

Output Settings

In the Output settings, you can specify the file format to convert your video to, or simply pick the model of the handset/mobile device that you are using and DVCU will automatically convert the video to the desired formats.

The list of mobile devices supported by DVCU is pretty comprehensive, ranging from most of the Android models to iPhone, iPod Touch (and all other iDevices) and some of the lesser known mp3/video players. There are also choices to convert to HD movies or videos meant to be uploaded to YouTube/Facebook. If none of the options suit you, you can even specify your own output setting, including the frame rate, bit rate and encoder.

Removal of DRM content

One solution that a lot of people are always searching for is “how to remove DRM from your video/audio”. A good thing is, DVCU comes with a DRM removal feature that can remove the DRM license from the files, regardless it is iTunes’ .m4p music .m4v video .m4b audiobook, or the “Play for Sure” of Windows Media protected .wma .wmv files, or even BBC iPlayer WMV, Audible Audiobook AA.

Editing of video/audio

A video converter software won’t be complete if it doesn’t come with any video editing feature. In DVCU, you get video editing features like trimming, cropping or even add video effects.

Other Features

Some other features found in DVCU include:

• Copy to devices: Once you have downloaded a video, or finished converting a file, you can get it to copy to an attached mobile device.
• Performance throttle: You can specify to use 1/2 CPU core to process the conversion. It can also make use of multi-thread technology to improve the conversion time.
• Merge multiple files: Able to merge multiple files into one.

Free Giveaway

Here’s what you need to do to win the full license:

Update: This contest has ended. The winners will be announced shortly.

This giveaway begins now and ends Thursday, 15th July at 2359hrs Eastern Time. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

Thanks to Daniusoft for sponsoring this giveaway event.

1. Tabulature and Notation – TuxGuitar

For many, the first thing you’ll want is a place to write, store, and play tabs or notation. Many Windows users enjoy PowerTab and Guitar Pro, each with their own collection of downloadable tabs. For Linux, we’ve got TuxGuitar. It’s a very similar program, gives almost all of the same features, and best of all it’s compatible with Guitar Pro tabs.

If you don’t like TuxGuitar, try out KGuitar, KTabEdit, and Gnometab.

2. Effects Processing – FreqTweak

There are multiple programs for Linux aimed at real-time effects processing, and some might work for you better than others. I chose FreqTweak for this example because it’s fairly simple to set up and is available in the standard Ubuntu repositories.

Additionally, a nice feature of FreqTweak is that you can “draw” some of your effects in. In the above example, I drew curves representing the delay I wanted on my incoming sound and FreqTweak will apply it.

If FreqTweak doesn’t cut it for you, check out Creox, GNUitar, and GTKgep.

3. Audio Editing – Audacity

For years Audacity has been the leading audio editor or Linux. It has a wide range of tools and effects, and is used by people of all skill levels. Record, play, import and export several types of audio formats and do all your tweaking in one place. Acoustic guitarists will likely find Audacity’s noise cancellation plugin to be especially useful.

If, for whatever reason, Audacity isn’t what you’re looking for, check out ReZound, Sweep, or GNUSound.

4. Drum Machine – Hydrogen

There’s a limit to what you can do with guitar alone, and one of the simplest ways to add some spice to your recording is with some drums. There are a number of Linux friendly drum programs out there, but Hydrogen is probably the most popular. You can lay out individual drum patterns, then sequence those patterns into a longer song. Hydrogen, along with some extra drum kit samples, is available in the standard Ubuntu repositories.

Other drum machine options include orDrumbox, BeatFish, or pyTrommler.

5. Sequencing – Ardour

When it comes to multitrack recording and sequencing in Linux, one name immediately comes to mind, and that’s Ardour. It may not be able to fully stack up to the likes of Pro Tools, but when combined with some of the apps above, it should more than satisfy a home recording hobbyist.

Some other notable apps for mulitrack sequencing include Jokosher, PROTUX and Frinika.

Bonus – Tuning

Like Guitar Pro, TuxGuitar also comes with a built-in tuner.

If that doesn’t meet your tuning needs, try out GuiTuner, JTuner, or GString.

Below, I have come up with a great list of software that you can use to handle your video/audio files in Linux. All the software listed are compatible with any of the Linux distros out there. The installation instructions and screenshots are based on Ubuntu, so if you are on a different distro, you will have to change the command accordingly.

Handling VideoCD

Play VCD in Linux

Basically, most, if not all, multimedia players out there are able to play VideoCD. Personally, I would recommend using VLC since that is the only multimedia player you ever need to play all kind of audio/video files.

In Debian-based Linux distro,

sudo apt-get install vlc

Create VCD

CD burner software such as Brasero and K3b are capable of creating VCD or SVCD on the fly.

For K3b, you have to make sure that the source file is in mpeg format. There is no restriction in Brasero.

Ripping video from VCD

The easiest way to rip a VCD movie to mpeg format is via K3b.

Install K3b

sudo apt-get install k3b

Open up the K3b and go to Tools -> Rip Video CD

Alternatively, VLC also allows you to transcode the VCD movie into another format.

Open the VLC. Click on Media->Convert/Save.

For more detailed instruction, check out how to easily transcode media files with VLC

The command line way

If you prefer the command line way of doing thing, here is the instruction.

sudo apt-get install vcdimager

Insert the VCD to the CD-ROM

In the terminal, type

vcdxrip -C

Note that the C in the above command is a Capital C.

This will instruct vcdxrip to rip the movie from the VCD in the CD-ROM.

Extracting audio from VCD

Using the VLC method, you can easily rip the audio file from the VCD.

Under the Convert/Save option, click on the Audio Codec tab and check the Audio box. If you are converting to mp3, select MP3 from the dropdown box, else select the format that you want to convert to. Input the file name (with the extension) and click Save.

Handling DVD

Watching DVD in Linux (particularly Ubuntu)

Ubuntu does not allow you to play DVD movie due to legal and technical restrictions. You have to install the ubuntu-restricted-extra package and run the libdvdread3 installer script. Check the tutorial for detailed instruction.

Rip DVD

For ripping DVD, I personally use Handbrake. It comes with several preset profiles, including iPhone and PS3, that you can use to quickly rip the DVD into your desired format.

To install handbrake, download the deb file here.

Another software that you can use is AcidRip. It is packed with useful features, but arranged in a messy way. I have quite a hard way navigating through the options. One good thing about this software is that it is included in the repo, so you can easily install it clicking here or by using the command:

sudo apt-get install acidrip

(Note: To rip DVD, your computer must first be able to support DVD playback. Refer to the above instruction to enable DVD playback in your Linux machine.)

Create DVD (DVD authoring)

If you are looking to create your own DVD with menu, chapters, subtitles etc, two of the best software that I have tried are DeVeDe and Mandvd. Personally I prefer ManDVD as it gives you more customization options and a detail walkthrough of the whole DVD creation process. However, if you are looking for a software that you can use quickly without much configuration, then DeVeDe is the one to go for.

To install ManDVD, download and install the deb file from GetDeb.

To install DeVeDe, click here, or in the terminal

sudo apt-get install devede

One good thing about DeVeDe is that you can also use it to create VCD as well.

Handling Video Files

Converting from one format to another

Both Handbrake and VLC are able to convert your video files from one format to another, but if you are looking for a small application just for converting videos, you might want to try out Winff. This is a small frontend GUI for the FFMPEG library and will work with most file formats.

Installation instructions for the various distro can be found here.

Editing video files

Avidemux, Kino and KDEnlive are three great video editing software that are both powerful and easy to use. Avidemux is Gnome-based while Kino and KDEnlive are KDE-based.

Subtitle editor

For those who wanted to create your own subtitles for your video files, Gnome-subtitles and Aegisub are two simple software you can use to edit your own subtitles. Gnome-Subtitles is a simple and lightweight application for simple subtitles creation and editing. Aegisub provides more functionality such as  subtitles dragging, scaling and rotating. There is even a karaoke template that you can apply to your music video.

Inserting subtitles to your video files

There are two ways that you can use to insert subtitles into video files: Softsub and Hardsub.

Softsub are separate instructions, usually a specially marked up text with time stamps to be displayed during playback and it is usually controlled on the player side. Hardsub is when the subtitle text is irreversibly merged in original video frames, and so no special equipment or software is required for playback.

Quoted from Wikipedia

For Softsub, VLC has a feature that allows you to load a separate subtitles files while watching the video. In VLC, go to Tools-> Preferences. At the left bottom under the Show Settings, click All. At the left pane, go to Video->Subtitles/OSD. On the right pane, input the location of the subtitles file into the field Use Subtitles File.

For Hardsub, you can use Avidemux to embed the subtitles file into the video.

In Avidemux, first load the video file. Next, go to Video->FIlters. On the left pane, select Subtitles. Choose the appropriate subtitle option and add it to the Active Filter pane.

Update: On the main screen, you have to select a video encoder before the subtitle filter can take effect. Thanks to J.M for reminding.

Handling Audio files

Extracting Audio CD

In Gnome, the SoundJuicer does a good job in converting your audio CD to the format you want. In Ubuntu, if you want to extract your CD to MP3 or Flac format, you will have to first install the required codecs.

Alternatively, you can also use K3b to rip audio CD.

Creating audio CD

Brasero and K3b can achieve this task easily. Select the Create audio CD option and drag and drop your music files into the container. It will automatically convert them to audio CD format.

Converting audio files from one format to another

I have previously covered Sound-converter which is a great software that supports conversion to most audio formats.

Editing audio files

Needless to say, Audacity is the best candidate for this. You can also use it to convert audio files from one format to another.

What else have I left out?