IRIX and Software

Ok, I figure I can share a new tidbit I started to use while working with an SGI/IRIX as a daily system. I do everything on it, but some things I have to remote desktop into a windows system for (using seamlessrdp so it looks native to IRIX desktop) .. MS word for docx files, Powerpoint, and Skype.

However, Youtube is something that I may waste my life away on that is very poor for viewing over an RDP connection (especially with a 100 gigabit NIC on an Octane with 1920x1200 resolution so images are even smaller). A youtube video does go smoothly if it is reduced to a very small window on the windows desktop. But that becomes too small for me .. and hard to make details out.

Well, it may be a hacky way to do it, but I use the irix command "oglsnoop" to zoom in on the youtube window. I make oglsnoop's window as wide as possible and zoom out several times so the youtube window fits properly in the zoom window. If I had the youtube window in the remote desktop session enlarged to the same size, it would be like watching a slideshow. So at least now I can see a larger smoothly playing youtube video.

If anyone else knows of a better way, or even a better zoom ability in IRIX, i'm all ears.

Looks pretty cool. But if you want to watch youtube vids natively on IRIX, there is a way! Get neko_youtube_dl from beta (neko_python required) and run as root to update the script to the latest version. Then just download a video and play it with neko_mplayer.

With VPro graphics, run to download a 640x360 mp4 video. Make sure to use the vo=gl option in mplayer otherwise it will be scrambled.

On slower systems (even on an O2), use to download a 320x180 video.

You can also use the updated youtube-dl script to download music from soundcloud onto your SGI.

This might be common knowledge for some of you already but thought I'd share.