The experience of watching videos on Ubuntu is simplified with a selection of excellent Linux video players, including VLC, MPlayer, among others. Now, a fresh contender is emerging, aiming to become a prominent fixture on the desktop.
Today, streaming has become the prevalent method of watching video content, yet there remains a niche for robust, intuitive, offline-first media players, even if their usage is sporadic (such as for checking a video before it’s shared online for streaming).</{
As the default video player in Ubuntu, Totem (also known as Videos) serves users by being the GNOME default video player app as well.
However, changes are taking place upstream.
Showtime – A Sequel to Totem?
GNOME developers are actively creating a new successor for Totem, which had its latest update in 2022 and continues to incorporate GTK3 prominently.
This new project, aptly named Showtime, is built on the GStreamer framework for managing video and audio playback, and it leverages GTK4/libadwaita to foster a contemporary, engaging user interface that smoothly adjusts to different device types.
The motto for Showtime is ‘watch without distraction’. When you start a video in Showtime, it really lives up to this promise: the interface offers a borderless window while player and window controls briefly appear over the video and then disappear quickly, centering all attention on the playing content.
If you’ve given Snapshot, GNOME’s new camera app which has taken the place of Cheese in the latest Ubuntu 24.04 LTS installations, a whirl, then you’re already acquainted with its interface. If you commonly use the GTK4 video player Clapper, then this style will also be familiar to you.
Notably, Showtime utilizes the same libraries that were introduced in the Clapper 0.6 release earlier in the year.
The Showtime app has a memory feature that retains your last watched position, allowing you to close the player and resume playback from the exact same spot when reopened. It offers additional functionality such as fast-forwarding or rewinding videos by 10-second increments, capturing screenshots, opening the current video in the file manager, and adding subtitles.
How to Test Showtime Video Player
Showtime is currently part of the GNOME Incubator programme.
This initiative refines projects through collaboration with GNOME contributors, designers, and project leads, ensuring they meet rigorous criteria such as adherence to GNOME design guidelines, seamless integration, and delivering a superior user experience.
Successful projects from the Incubator graduate to become integral parts of the GNOME Core software collection. If Showtime succeeds, it will join predecessors like Loupe (an image viewer) and Snapshot (a camera app).
If you are interested in previewing Showmenu before its official release, you can access a development version. Please note, this version is in development, unfinished, and may have bugs or other issues affecting its functionality.
You can download the source code for Showtime from Gitlab and manually compile the application. However, it is easier to install GNOME nightly builds on Ubuntu via Flatpak.
First, you need to install Flatpak on Ubuntu. The installation is straightforward; simply execute apt install flatpak.
After installing Flatpak, use the following command to add the GNOME Nightly Flatpak repository to your system:
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists gnome-nightly https://nightly.gnome.org/gnome-nightly.flatpakrepo
Then, run this command to install the Showtime nightly build:
flatpak install gnome-nightly org.gnome.Showtime.Devel
Since GNOME Nightly apps use the GNOME Nightly runtime, the first app you install from this repo will need to pull that in. The Flatpak CLI is upfront about what additional packages are required, their download size, and so on.
After that, you’re set; launch Showipo from the app launcher, open a video file, and see if you like it.
You’ll observe that both the application’s icon and the title bar within the application (when visible) feature ‘caution tape’ style stripes. This serves as a reminder that you’re operating a development build, and not a stable version.
Let me know how it goes!