Moblin Media Player

Summary

The media player allows you to view pictures, watch video, and listen to music. In the beta, we support most image files, Ogg Vorbis audio and Ogg Theora video. However, if you install the correct GStreamer packages (not available from Intel), you can play other types of content. The media player will automatically detect media files on your netbook and those that are shared on the network.

How to play

When hovering over an item, you should see a play button in the bottom right hand corner. Move the cursor so it’s over the top of the play button and it will turn green. When you click the button, it will quick play and replace whatever is currently in your playqueue. If you quick play a video or picture, we will also zoom you into theatre mode, so you can watch it.

Playqueues

To cue up what you want to play next, just drag and drop an item or cluster onto the playqueue in the bottom right hand corner. These queues are visible at every zoom level, so you can quickly control what you want to hear, and collapsible, so they don’t get in your way. Soon you’ll be able to control your playqueues from the Media panel.

Bonus tip: You can shuffle or clear a playqueue by right clicking on it.

Sample media

The computer comes with some sample media, so you can get started straight away and see how everything works. This sample media lives in your home directory and it’s OK to remove it, although the media player isn’t much fun without any media.

Zoom and clustering

To display as much content as possible the media player is designed around a zoom. You start out looking at your library with content divided into Music, Pictures, and Video. As you zoom in closer, it separates into clusters (think Albums or Series) and then individual files. When you get all the way in, you get to theatre mode, where you focus on a single item. Play around with the zoom slider and see how your content reflows. It’s a really quick way of finding what you want.

Search bar

You can search the descriptions, types, or file names of all of your media. It’s a really good way of finding just what you want as quickly as possible. If it’s a search you do a lot, then click the pin button. This will save it to the sidebar, where you can repeat the search every time you select it, even if the contents of your library have changed. All of the conditions of your search, from zoom level to content types shown, will be saved.

Show only

If you’re only interested in one type of content, then check out the ‘show only’ button in the toolbar and the media types in the sidebar. Selecting either of them will show only the type of content you’re after. Simple really. Choose ‘show everything’ or ‘Your local media’ to see everything again.