Ubuntu’s default movie player can do more than playback your local .avi files, it also allows you to browse and play YouTube videos from your desktop – much like UmPlayer.

How to watch YouTube videos in Totem Movie Player

• Open Totem
• Reveal the Sidebar by pressing the F9 key or using the ‘view > sidebar’ application menu entry
• Select ‘YouTube’ from the sources at the top of the sidebar
• Enter a search term
• Double click on a video to watch it

Quality

The playback quality of videos each of the times i tried it out was pretty poor. Where a general-sized video would play fine in the browser, Totem presented it as a pixelated, blurry and jerky slideshow.

Maybe it’s YouTube’s fault? I’d say not; MiniTube is capable of streaming 1080p Flash free on the Linux desktop. In light of these more capable applications offering the same features and more it seems needless to use Totem for watching YouTube videos on the desktop unless really, really needed.

UK viewers are also able to browse and watch iPlayer content via Totem, too. Sadly this is also delivered in varying degrees of quality.

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