Ubuntu – How to get Picasa 3.9 to play .MOV files

google-picasavideo

I have been using Picasa for years, first in XP then in Ubuntu from 8.04 onwards & now in Lubuntu 11.10.

For 11.10, I downloaded Picasa3.9.0 from FileHippo & installed it in Wine.

Everything works well, except it doesn't play videos from my camera – it just shows a thumbnail – whereas earlier versions played videos OK.

The videos appear as **.MOV (QuickTime video) in file manager, & can be played by, for instance, GNOME MPlayer or Movie Player (but not properly by Banshee…).

Is there some simple way of getting Picasa 3.9 to play them?

Best Answer

Recent Picasa version (maybe also thew older ones, not 100% sure) are using the Quicktime codecs to handle .mov files. That means that if you do not have the plugin installed in your system Picasa wont be able to do anything to those.

Because Ubuntu comes with support for .mov files via GStreamer but that does not mean Wine will take advantage of what Ubuntu can do. They are separate systems.

That means you need to install some sort of codec support to be able to play .mov files inside your Wine system that includes Picasa. For that I recommend to try either any Windows plugin pack that has .mov files or a lite Quicktime alternative (the standard player wont install).

For a plugin pack with .mov support I can recommend the K-Lite Codec Pack since it is know to install and work under Wine and for a Quicktime alternative I recommend QT Lite which is a lite QuickTime implementation.

After you installed any of these 2 inside the same bottle that contains your Picasa install the .mov files will then be supported by Picasa.