From 8e0b9bf8186078fa2704b0fa81958a91f709dec2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: gabucino Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 07:58:55 +0000 Subject: English HTML documentation retired (moved to Attic/) Published in 2001 October 8 (MPlayer 0.50), it has spent 2 years in this form, and has served its purpose very well. - Thanks to LGB for starting the conversion from text - Thanks to me for finishing it and doing further maintaining - Thanks to Diego Biurrun for stepping in and giving great help in enhancing and maintaining the documentation - Thanks to the countless other people for sending patches and suggestions Please drink 1 litre of cola in remembrance of the english HTML documentation. git-svn-id: svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk@11076 b3059339-0415-0410-9bf9-f77b7e298cf2 --- DOCS/en/bugreports.html | 291 ----- DOCS/en/cd-dvd.html | 256 ---- DOCS/en/codecs.html | 555 --------- DOCS/en/documentation.html | 2130 --------------------------------- DOCS/en/encoding.html | 374 ------ DOCS/en/faq.html | 802 ------------- DOCS/en/formats.html | 320 ----- DOCS/en/skin.html | 802 ------------- DOCS/en/sound.html | 854 ------------- DOCS/en/users_against_developers.html | 190 --- DOCS/en/video.html | 1595 ------------------------ 11 files changed, 8169 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/bugreports.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/cd-dvd.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/codecs.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/documentation.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/encoding.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/faq.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/formats.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/skin.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/sound.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/users_against_developers.html delete mode 100644 DOCS/en/video.html diff --git a/DOCS/en/bugreports.html b/DOCS/en/bugreports.html deleted file mode 100644 index 044e5f7789..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/bugreports.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,291 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Bug reporting - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

Appendix B - How to report bugs

- -

Good bug reports are a very valuable contribution to the development of any - software project. But just like writing good software, good problem reports - involve some work. Please realize that most developers are extremely busy and - receive obscene amounts of email. So while your feedback is crucial in - improving MPlayer and very much appreciated, please understand that you - have to provide all of the information we request and follow the - instructions in this document closely.

- - -

B.1 How to fix bugs

- -

If you feel have the necessary skills you are invited to have a go at fixing - the bug yourself. Or maybe you already did that? Please read - this short document to find out how to get - your code included in MPlayer. The people on the - mplayer-dev-eng - mailing list will assist you if you have questions.

- - -

B.2 How to report bugs

- -

First of all please try the latest CVS version of MPlayer as your bug - might already be fixed there. Development moves extremely fast, most problems - in official releases are reported within days or even hours, so please use - only CVS to report bugs. This includes binary packages of MPlayer. - Please do not report bugs in one of the various RPM or Debian packages of - MPlayer. CVS instructions can be found at the bottom of - this page or in the - README. If this did not help please refer to the - list of known bugs and the - rest of the documentation. If your problem is not known or not solvable by our - instructions, then please report the bug.

- -

Please do not send bug reports privately to individual developers. This is - community work and thus there might be several people interested in it. - Sometimes other users already experienced your troubles and know how to - circumvent a problem even if it is a bug in MPlayer code.

- -

Please describe your problem in as much detail as possible. Do a little - detective work to narrow down the circumstances under which the problem - occurs. Does the bug only show up in certain situations? Is it specific to - certain files or file types? Does it occur with only one codec or is it codec - independent? Can you reproduce it with all output drivers? The more - information you provide the better are our chances at fixing your problem. - Please do not forget to also include the valuable information requested below, - we will be unable to properly diagnose your problem otherwise.

- -

An excellent and well written guide to asking questions in public forums is - How To Ask Questions The Smart Way - by Eric S. Raymond. There is another - called - How to Report Bugs Effectively - by Simon Tatham. If - you follow these guidelines you should be able to get help. But please - understand that we all follow the mailing lists voluntarily in our free time. - We are very busy and cannot guarantee that you will get a solution for your - problem or even an answer.

- - -

B.3 Where to report bugs

- -

Subscribe to the mplayer-users mailing list:
- http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users
- and send your bug report to:
- mplayer-users@mplayerhq.hu

- -

The language of this list is English. Please follow the standard - Netiquette Guidelines and - do not send HTML mail to any of our mailing lists. You will only get - ignored or banned. If you do not know what HTML mail is or why it is evil, - read this fine document. It - explains all the details and has instructions for turning HTML off. Also note - that we will not individually CC (carbon-copy) people so it is a good idea to - subscribe to actually receive your answer.

- - -

B.4 What to report

- -

You may need to include log, configuration or sample files in your bug - report. If some of them are quite big then it is better to upload them to our - FTP server in a compressed - format (gzip and bzip2 preferred) and include only the path and file name in - your bug report. Our mailing lists have a message size limit of 80k, if you - have something bigger you have to compress or upload it.

- - -

B.4.1 System Information

- -

Your Linux distribution or operating system and version e.g.: -
- Red Hat 7.1
- Slackware 7.0 + devel packs from 7.1 ...
-
kernel version:
- uname -a
libc version:
- ls -l /lib/libc[.-]*
X version:
- X -version
gcc and ld versions:
- gcc -v - ld -v
binutils version:
- as --version
If you have problems with fullscreen mode: -
- Window manager type and version
-
If you have problems with XVIDIX: -
- X colour depth:
  - xdpyinfo | grep "depth of root"
-
If only the GUI is buggy: -
- GTK version
- GLIB version
- libpng version
- GUI situation in which the bug occurs
-

- - -

B.4.2 Hardware and drivers

- -

CPU info (this works on Linux only):
- cat /proc/cpuinfo
Video card manufacturer and model, e.g.: -
- ASUS V3800U chip: nVidia TNT2 Ultra pro 32MB SDRAM
- Matrox G400 DH 32MB SGRAM
-
Video driver type & version, e.g.: -
- X built-in driver
- nVidia 0.9.623
- Utah-GLX CVS 2001-02-17
- DRI from X 4.0.3
-
Sound card type & driver, e.g.: -
- Creative SBLive! Gold with OSS driver from oss.creative.com
- Creative SB16 with kernel OSS drivers
- GUS PnP with ALSA OSS emulation
-
If in doubt include lspci -vv output on Linux systems.

- - -

B.4.3 Configure problems

- -

If you get errors while running ./configure, or autodetection - of something fails, read configure.log. You may find the answer - there, for example multiple versions of the same library mixed on your system, - or you forgot to install the development package (those with the -dev suffix). If you think there is a bug, include configure.log in your bug - report.

- - -

B.4.4 Compilation problems

- -Please include these files: - -

config.h
config.mak

- -Only if compilation fails below one of these directories, include these files: - -

Gui/config.mak
libvo/config.mak
libao2/config.mak

- - -

B.4.5 Playback problems

- -

Please include the output of MPlayer at verbosity level 1, but - remember to not truncate the output when you paste it into your mail. - The developers need all of the messages to properly diagnose a problem. You - can direct the output into a file like this:

- -

mplayer -v [options] [filename] > mplayer.log 2>&1

- -

If your problem is specific to one or more files, then please upload the - offender(s) to:

- -

ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/

- -

Also upload a small text file having the same base name as your file - with a .txt extension. Describe the problem you are having with the - particular file there and include your email address as well as the output - of MPlayer at verbosity level 1. Usually the first 1-5 MB of a file are - enough to reproduce the problem, but to be sure we ask you to:

- -

dd if=yourfile of=smallfile bs=1024k count=5

- -

It will take the first five megabytes of 'your-file' and - write it to 'small-file'. Then try again on this small file - and if the bug still shows up your sample is sufficient for us. Please - do not ever send such files via mail! Upload it, and send - only the path/filename of the file on the FTP-server. If the file is - accessible on the net, then sending the exact URL is - sufficient.

- - -

B.4.6 Crashes

- -

You have to run MPlayer inside gdb and send us the complete - output or if you have a core dump of the crash you can extract useful - information from the Core file. Here's how:

- - -

B.4.6.1 How to conserve information about a reproducible crash

- -Recompile MPlayer with debugging code enabled: - -

./configure --enable-debug=3 - make

- -and then run MPlayer within gdb using: - -

gdb ./mplayer

- -You are now within gdb. Type: - -

run -v [options-to-mplayer] filename

- -and reproduce your crash. As soon as you did it, gdb will -return you to the command line prompt where you have to enter - -

bt - disass $pc-32 $pc+32 - info all-registers

- - -

B.4.6.2 How to extract meaningful information from a core dump

- -

Create the following command file:

- -

bt - disass $pc-32 $pc+32 - info all-registers

- -

Then simply execute this command:

- -

gdb mplayer --core=core -batch --command=command_file > mplayer.bug

- - -

B.5 I know what I am doing...

- -

If you created a proper bug report following the steps above and you are - confident it is a bug in MPlayer, not a compiler problem or broken - file, you have already read the documentation and you could not find a - solution, your sound drivers are OK, then you might want to subscribe to the - mplayer-advusers list and send your bug report there to get a better and - faster answer.

- Please be advised that if you post newbie questions or questions answered - in the manual there, you will be ignored or flamed instead of getting an - appropriate answer.
- So do not flame us and subscribe to -advusers only if you really know - what you are doing and feel like being an advanced MPlayer user or - developer. If you meet these criteria it should not be difficult to find - out how to subscribe...

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/cd-dvd.html b/DOCS/en/cd-dvd.html deleted file mode 100644 index b5c50241f6..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/cd-dvd.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,256 +0,0 @@ - - - - - CD, DVD, VCD - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

4.1 CD/DVD drives

- -

Linux documentation excerpt:

- -

Modern CD-ROM drives can attain very high head speeds, yet some CD-ROM drives - are capable of running at reduced speeds. There are several reasons that might - make you consider changing the speed of a CD-ROM drive:

- -

There have been reports of read errors at high speeds, especially - with badly pressed CD-ROMs. Reducing the speed can prevent data loss under - these circumstances.
Many CD-ROM drives are annoyingly loud, a lower speed may reduce the - noise.

- -

You can reduce the speed of IDE CD-ROM drives with hdparm or a - program called setcd. It works like this:

- -

hdparm -E [speed] [cdrom device]

- -

setcd -x [speed] [cdrom device]

- -

If you have root privileges the following command may also help:

- -

echo file_readahead:2000000 > /proc/ide/[cdrom device]/settings

- -

This sets prefetched file reading to 2MB, which helps with scratched CD-ROMs. - If you set it to too high, the drive will continuously spin up and down, and - will dramatically decrease the performance. - It is recommended that you also tune your CD-ROM drive with - hdparm:

- -

hdparm -d1 -a8 -u1 (cdrom device)

- -

This enables DMA access, read-ahead, and IRQ unmasking (read the - hdparm man page for a detailed explanation).

- -

Please refer to "/proc/ide/[cdrom device]/settings" for - fine-tuning your CD-ROM.

- -

SCSI drives do not have a uniform way of setting these parameters (Do you - know one? Tell us!) There is a tool that works for - Plextor SCSI drives.

- -

FreeBSD:

- -

Speed: cdcontrol [-f device] speed [speed]

DMA: sysctl hw.ata.atapi_dma=1

- - -

4.2 DVD playback

- -

For the complete list of available options, please read the man page. - The Syntax for a standard Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) is as follows:

- -

mplayer dvd://<track> [-dvd-device <device>]

- -

Example: mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /dev/hdc

- -

The default DVD device is /dev/dvd. If your setup differs, - make a symlink or specify the correct device on the command line with the - -dvd-device option.

- -

New-style DVD support (mpdvdkit2)

- -

MPlayer uses libdvdread and libdvdcss for - DVD decryption and playback. These two libraries are contained in the - libmpdvdkit2/ subdirectory of the MPlayer source tree, you - do not have to install them separately. We opted for this solution because - we had to fix a libdvdread bug and apply a patch which adds - cracked CSS keys caching support to libdvdcss. This results - in a large speed increase because the keys do not have to be cracked every time - before playing.

- -

MPlayer can also use system-wide libdvdread and - libdvdcss libraries, but this solution is not recommended, - as it can result in bugs, library incompatibilities and slower speed.

- -

Old-style DVD support - OPTIONAL

- -

Useful if you want to play encoded VOBs from hard disk. Compile and - install libcss 0.0.1 (not newer) for this (If MPlayer fails to - detect it, use the -csslib /path/to/libcss.so option). To use it, - you need to be root, use a suid root MPlayer binary or let MPlayer call the - suid-root fibmap_mplayer wrapper program.

- -

DVD structure

- -

DVD disks have 2048 bytes per sector with ECC/CRC. They usually have an UDF - filesystem on a single track, containing various files (small .IFO and .BUK - files and big (1GB) .VOB files). They are real files and can be copied/played - from the mounted filesystem of an unencrypted DVD.

- -

The .IFO files contain the movie navigation information (chapter/title/angle - map, language table, etc) and are needed to read and interpret the .VOB - content (movie). The .BUK files are backups of them. They use sectors - everywhere, so you need to use raw addressing of sectors of the disc to - implement DVD navigation or decrypt the content.

- -

The whole old-style DVD support with libcss therefore needs a mounted DVD - filesystem and raw sector-based access to the device. Unfortunately you must - (under Linux) be root to get the sector address of a file. You have the - following choices:

- -

Be root or use a suid-root mplayer binary.
Let MPlayer call the suid-root fibmap_mplayer wrapper program to access - the DVD (used in the old-style DVD playback over libcss).
Don't use the kernel's filesystem driver at all and reimplement it in - userspace. libdvdread 0.9.x and libmpdvdkit do this (new-style DVD - support). The kernel UDF filesystem driver is not needed as they already - have their own builtin UDF filesystem driver. Also the DVD does not have to - be mounted as only the raw sector-based access is used.

- -

Sometimes /dev/dvd cannot be read by users, so the libdvdread - authors implemented an emulation layer which transfers sector addresses to - filenames+offsets, to emulate raw access on top of a mounted filesystem - or even on a hard disk.

- -

libdvdread even accepts the mountpoint instead of the device name for raw - access and checks /proc/mounts to get the device name. It was - developed for Solaris, where device names are dynamically allocated.

- -

The default DVD device is /dev/dvd. If your setup differs, - make a symlink, or specify the correct device on the command line with the - -dvd-device option.

- -

DVD authentication

- -

The authentication and decryption method of the new-style DVD support is done - using a patched libdvdcss (see above). The method can be specified through the - environment variable DVDCSS_METHOD, which can be set to - key, disk or title.

- -

If nothing is specified it tries the following methods - (default: key, title request):

- -

bus key: This key is negotiated during authentication (a long mix - of ioctls and various key exchanges, crypto stuff) and is used to encrypt - the title and disk keys before sending them over the unprotected bus - (to prevent eavesdropping). The bus key is needed to get and predecrypt the - crypted disk key.
cached key: MPlayer looks for already cracked - title keys which are stored in the ~/.mplayer/DVDKeys directory - (fast ;).
key: If no cached key is available, MPlayer tries to - decrypt the disk key with a set of included player keys.
disk: If the key method fails (e.g. no included player keys), - MPlayer will crack the disk key using a brute force algorithm. - This process is CPU intensive and requires 64 MB of memory (16M 32Bit - entries hash table) to store temporary data. This method should always - work (slow).
title request: With the disk key MPlayer requests the crypted title - keys, which are inside hidden sectors using ioctl(). - The region protection of RPC-2 drives is performed in this step and may - fail on such drives. If it succeeds, the title keys will be decrypted with - the bus and disk key.
title: This method is used if the title request failed and does - not rely on any key exchange with the DVD drive. It uses a crypto attack to - guess the title key directly (by finding a repeating pattern in the - decrypted VOB content and guessing that the plain text corresponding to the - first encrypted bytes is a continuation of that pattern). - The method is also known as "known plaintext attack" or "DeCSSPlus". - In rare cases this may fail because there is not enough encrypted data on - the disk to perform a statistical attack or because the key changes in the - middle of a title. This method is the only way to decrypt a DVD stored on a - hard disk or a DVD with the wrong region on an RPC2 drive (slow).

- -

RPC-1 DVD drives only protect region settings through software. - RPC-2 drives have a hardware protection that allows 5 changes only. It might - be needed/recommended to upgrade the firmware to RPC-1 if you have a RPC-2 DVD - drive. Firmware upgrades can be found on this - firmware page. If there is - no firmware upgrade available for your device, use the - regionset - tool to set the region code of your DVD drive (under Linux). - Warning: You can only set the region 5 times.

- - -

4.3 VCD playback

- -

For the complete list of available options, please read the man page. - The Syntax for a standard Video CD (VCD) is as follows:

- -

mplayer vcd://<track> [-cdrom-device <device>]

- -

Example: mplayer vcd://2 -cdrom-device /dev/hdc

- -

The default VCD device is /dev/cdrom. If your setup differs, - make a symlink or specify the correct device on the command line with the - -cdrom-device option.

- -

Note: At least Plextor and some Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM drives have - horrible performance reading VCDs. This is because the the CDROMREADRAW ioctl - is not fully implemented for these drives. If you have some knowledge of SCSI - programming, please help us implement generic - SCSI support for VCDs.

- -

In the meantime you can extract data from VCDs with - readvcd - and play the resulting file with MPlayer.

- -

VCD structure

- -

VCD disks consist of one or more tracks:

- -

The first track is a small 2048 bytes/sector data track with an iso9660 - filesystem, usually containing Windows VCD player programs and maybe other - information (images, text, etc).
The second and other tracks are raw 2324 bytes/sector MPEG (movie) tracks, - containing one MPEG PS data packet per sector instead of a filesystem. - Similar to audio CD tracks, these tracks cannot be mounted (Did you - ever mount an audio CD to play it?). As most movies are inside this track, - you should try vcd://2 first.
There exist VCD disks without the first track (single track and no - filesystem at all). They are still playable, but cannot be mounted.

- -

About .DAT files:

- -

The ~600 MB file visible on the first track of the mounted VCD is not a real - file! It is a so called ISO gateway, created to allow Windows to handle such - tracks (Windows does not allow raw device access to applications at all). - Under Linux you cannot copy or play such files (they contain garbage). Under - Windows it is possible as its iso9660 driver emulates the raw reading of - tracks in this file. To play a .DAT file you need the kernel driver which can - be found in the Linux version of PowerDVD. It has a modified iso9660 - filesystem (vcdfs/isofs-2.4.X.o) driver, which is able to emulate - the raw tracks through this shadow .DAT file. If you mount the disc using - their driver, you can copy and even play .DAT files with mplayer. But it - will not work with the standard iso9660 driver of the Linux kernel! - Use vcd:// instead. Alternatives for VCD copying are - the new cdfs kernel - driver (not part of the official kernel) that shows CD sessions - as image files and cdrdao, a - bit-by-bit CD grabbing/copying application.

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/codecs.html b/DOCS/en/codecs.html deleted file mode 100644 index 5c1bf5983b..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/codecs.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,555 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Codecs - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

2.2 Supported codecs

- - -

2.2.1 Video codecs

- -

See the - codec status table - for the complete, daily generated list. Quite a few codecs are available for - download from our homepage. Grab them from our - codecs page.

- -

The most important ones above all:

MPEG1 (VCD) and MPEG2 (DVD) video
native decoders for DivX ;-), OpenDivX, DivX4, - DivX5, M$ MPEG4 v1, v2 and other MPEG4 variants
native decoder for Windows Media Video 7/8 (WMV1/WMV2), and - Win32 DLL decoder for Windows Media Video 9 (WMV3), both - used in .wmv files
native Sorenson 1 (SVQ1) decoder
native Sorenson 3 (SVQ3) decoder
3ivx v1, v2 decoder
Cinepak and Intel Indeo codecs (3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 5.0)
MJPEG, AVID, VCR2, ASV2 and other hardware formats
VIVO 1.0, 2.0, I263 and other h263(+) variants
FLI/FLC
RealVideo 1.0 codec from libavcodec, and RealVideo 2.0, - 3.0 and 4.0 codecs using RealPlayer libraries
native decoder for HuffYUV
various old simple RLE-like formats

- -

If you have a Win32 codec not listed here which is not supported yet, please - read the codec importing HOWTO and help us add support - for it.

- - -

2.2.1.1 DivX4/DivX5

- -

This section contains information about the DivX4 and DivX5 codecs of - Project Mayo. Their first available - alpha version was OpenDivX 4.0 alpha 47 and 48. Support for this was included - in MPlayer in the past, and built by default. We also used its - postprocessing code to optionally enhance visual quality of MPEG1/2 movies. - Now we use our own, for all file types.

- -

The new generation of this codec is called DivX4 and can even decode - movies made with the infamous DivX codec! In addition it is much faster than - the native Win32 DivX DLLs but slower than libavcodec. Hence its usage - as a decoder is DISCOURAGED. However, it is useful for encoding. One - disadvantage of this codec is that it is not available under an Open Source - license.

- -

DivX4Linux works in two modes:

- -

-vc odivx: Uses the codec in OpenDivX fashion. In this case it - produces YV12 images in its own buffer, and MPlayer does colorspace - conversion via libvo. (Fast, recommended!)
-vc divx4: Uses the colorspace conversion of the codec. - In this mode you can use YUY2/UYVY, too. (SLOW)

- -

The -vc odivx method is usually faster, due to the fact that it - transfers image data in YV12 (planar YUV 4:2:0) format, thus requiring much - less bandwidth on the bus. For packed YUV modes (YUY2, UYVY) use the - -vc divx4 method. For RGB modes the speed is the same, differing - at best according to your current color depth.

- -

Note: If your -vo driver supports direct rendering, then - -vc divx4 may be faster or even the fastest solution.

- -

The Divx4/5 binary codec library can be downloaded from - avifile or - divx.com. - Unpack it, run ./install.sh as root and do not forget adding - /usr/local/lib to your /etc/ld.so.conf and running - ldconfig.

- -

Get the CVS version of the OLD OpenDivx core library like this:

- -

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot login
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot co divxcore

This core library is split into a decore and encore library that have to - be compiled separately. For the decore Library, simply type -

-    cd divxcore/decore/build/linux
-    make
-    cp libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib 
-    ln -s libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0 
-    cp ../../src/decore.h /usr/local/include
-

Alas, for the encore library there is no Linux Makefile available, and the - MMX optimized code only works on Windows. You can still compile it, though, - by using this - Makefile. -

-    cd ../../../encore/build
-    mkdir linux
-    cd linux
-    cp path/Makefile .
-    make
-    cp libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib
-    ln -s libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxencore.so.0
-    cp ../../src/encore.h /usr/local/include
-

- -

MPlayer autodetects DivX4/DivX5 if it is properly installed, just - compile as usual. If it does not detect it, you did not install or configure - it correctly.

- - -

2.2.1.2 FFmpeg/libavcodec

- -

FFmpeg contains an - open source codec package, which is capable of decoding streams - encoded with - H263/MJPEG/LJPEG/RV10/DivX3/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42/WMV1/WMV2/HuffYUV/SVQ1/SVQ3/ - MPEG1/MPEG2/VCR1/VCR2/ASV1/ASV2/CLJR - video, or WMA (Windows Media Audio) audio codecs. Not only some of - them can be encoded with, but it also offers higher speed than the Win32 - codecs or the DivX.com DivX4/5 library!

- -

It contains a lot of nice codecs, especially important are the MPEG4 - variants: - DivX3, DivX4, DivX5, Windows Media Video 7/8 (WMV1/WMV2). Also a very - interesting one is the WMA decoder.

- -

The most recent codec deserving credit is the Sorenson 3 (SVQ3) - codec. This is the first, completely opensource implementation of this - codec. It's even faster than the original. Be sure to prefer this instead - of the binary codec!

- -

If you use an MPlayer release you have libavcodec right in the - package, just build as usual. If you use MPlayer from CVS you have to - extract libavcodec from the FFmpeg CVS tree as FFmpeg releases don't - work with MPlayer. In order to achieve this do:

- -

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ffmpeg.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg login
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ffmpeg.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co ffmpeg
Move the libavcodec directory from the FFmpeg sources to the - root of the MPlayer CVS tree. It should look like this: -
main/libavcodec
- Symlinking is not enough, you have to copy or move it!
Compile. Configure should detect problems before compilation.

- -

Note: MPlayer from CVS does contain a libavcodec - subdirectory, but it does not contain the source for libavcodec! - You must follow the steps above to obtain the source for this library.

- -

With FFmpeg and my Matrox G400, I can view even the highest resolution DivX - movies without dropped frames on my K6/2 500.

- - -

2.2.1.3 XAnim codecs

- -

FOREWORD

- Be advised that the XAnim binary codecs are packaged with a piece of text - claiming to be a legally binding software license which, besides other - restrictions, forbids the user to use the codecs in conjunction with any - program other than XAnim. However, the XAnim author has yet to bring legal - action against anyone for codec-related issues. -

- -

INSTALLATION AND USAGE

MPlayer is capable of employing the XAnim codecs for decoding. Follow - the instructions to enable them:

- -

Download the codecs you wish to use from the - XAnim site. The 3ivx codec - is not there, but at the 3ivx site.
OR download the codecs pack from our - codecs page. -
Use the --with-xanimlibdir option to tell configure where - to find the XAnim codecs. By default, it looks for them at - /usr/local/lib/codecs, /usr/local/lib/xanim/mods, /usr/lib/xanim/mods and /usr/lib/xanim. - Alternatively you can set the environment variable XANIM_MOD_DIR to - the directory of the XAnim codecs.
Rename/symlink the files, cutting out the architecture stuff, so they will - have filenames like these: vid_cvid.xa, vid_h263.xa, vid_iv50.xa.

- -

XAnim is video codec family xanim, so you may want to use the -vfm xanim - option to tell MPlayer to use them if possible.

- -

Tested codecs include: Indeo 3.2, 4.1, 5.0, CVID, - 3ivX, h263.

- - -

2.2.1.4 VIVO video

- -

MPlayer can play Vivo (1.0 and 2.0) videos. The most suitable codec - for 1.0 files is FFmpeg's H263 decoder, you can use it with the -vc - ffh263 option. For 2.0 files, use the Win32 DLL through the - -vc vivo option. If you do not supply command line options - MPlayer selects the best codec automatically.

- - -

2.2.1.5 MPEG 1/2 video

- -

MPEG1 and MPEG2 are decoded by the multiplatform native libmpeg2 - library, whose source code is included in MPlayer. We handle buggy - MPEG 1/2 video files by catching Signal 11 (Segmentation fault), - and quickly reinitializing the codec, continuing exactly from where the - failure occurred. This recovery technique has no measurable speed penalty.

- - -

2.2.1.6 MS Video1

- -

This is a very old and very bad codec from Microsoft. In the past it was - decoded with the msvidc32.dll Win32 codec, now we have our own - open source implementation (by Mike - Melanson).

- - -

2.2.1.7 Cinepak CVID

- -

MPlayer uses its own open source, multiplatform Cinepak decoder (by - Dr. Tim Ferguson), by default. - It supports YUV outputs, so that hardware scaling is possible if the video - output driver permits it.

- - -

2.2.1.8 RealVideo

- -MPlayer supports decoding all versions of RealVideo: - -

RealVideo 1.0 (fourcc RV10) - en/decoding supported by libavcodec
RealVideo 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 (fourcc RV20, RV30, RV40) - decoding supported by RealPlayer libraries

- -

It is recommended to download and install RealPlayer8 or RealONE, because - MPlayer can use their libraries to decode files with RealVideo 2.0 - - 4.0 video. The MPlayer configure script should detect the - RealPlayer libraries in the standard locations of a full installation. If it - does not, tell configure where to look with the - --with-reallibdir option.

- -

As a second chance you can download the codecs from - http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/. - After downloading the Real codecs package, extract it to the /usr/local/lib/codecs - directory, or you can specify a unique path with the --with-reallibdir option.

- -

Note: RealPlayer libraries currently only work with Linux, FreeBSD, - NetBSD and Cygwin on the x86, Alpha and PowerPC (Linux/Alpha and Linux/PowerPC - have been tested) platforms.

- - -

2.2.1.9 XviD

- -

XviD is a forked development of - the OpenDivX codec. It happened when ProjectMayo changed OpenDivX to closed - source DivX4 (now DivX5), and the non-ProjectMayo people working on OpenDivX - got angry, then started XviD. So both projects have the same origin.

- -

ADVANTAGES

- -

open source
its API is compatible with DivX4 so adding support for it is easy
2-pass encoding support
nice encoding quality, higher speed than DivX4 (you can optimize it for - your box while compiling)

- -

DISADVANTAGES

- -

currently it does not properly decode all DivX/DivX4 files (no - problem as libavcodec can play them)
under development

- -

INSTALLING XVID CVS

- -

XviD is currently available only from CVS. Here are download and installation - instructions (you need at least autoconf 2.50, automake and libtool):

- -

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid co xvidcore
cd xvidcore/build/generic
./bootstrap.sh
./configure
- You may have to add some options (examine the output of - ./configure --help).
make && make install
If you specified --enable-divxcompat, - copy the divx4.h header file from - xvidcore/src/ to /usr/local/include/.
Recompile MPlayer with - --with-xvidcore=/path/to/libxvidcore.a.

- - -

2.2.1.10 Sorenson

- -

Sorenson is a video codec family developed by Sorenson Media and - licensed to Apple who distribute it with their QuickTime Player. We are - currently able to decode all versions of Sorenson video files with the - following decoders:

- -

Sorenson Video v1 (fourcc SVQ1) - decoding supported by native - codec (libavcodec)
Sorenson Video v3 (fourcc SVQ3) - decoding supported by native - codec (libavcodec)

- -

COMPILING MPLAYER WITH QUICKTIME LIBRARIES SUPPORT

- -

NOTE: currently only 32bit Intel platforms are supported.

- -

download MPlayer CVS
download QuickTime DLL pack from - http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/
extract QuickTime DLL pack to your Win32 codecs directory (default: - /usr/local/lib/codecs/)
compile MPlayer

- - -

2.2.2 Audio codecs

- -

The most important audio codecs above all:

- -

MPEG layer 2 (MP2), and layer 3 (MP3) audio (native code, with - MMX/SSE/3DNow! optimization)
MPEG layer 1 audio (native code, with libavcodec)
Windows Media Audio v1, v2 (native code, with libavcodec)
Windows Media Audio 9 (WMAv3) (using DMO DLL)
AC3 Dolby audio (native code, with MMX/SSE/3DNow! - optimization)
AC3 passing through soundcard hardware
Ogg Vorbis audio codec (native library)
RealAudio: DNET (low bitrate AC3), Cook, Sipro and ATRAC3
QuickTime: Qualcomm and QDesign audio codecs
VIVO audio (g723, Vivo Siren)
Voxware audio (using DirectShow DLL)
alaw and ulaw, various gsm, adpcm and pcm formats and other simple old - audio codecs
AAC

- - -

2.2.2.1 Software AC3 decoding

- -

This is the default decoder used for files with AC3 audio.

- -

The AC3 decoder can create audio output mixes for 2, 4, or 6 speakers. When - configured for 6 speakers, this decoder provides separate output of all the - AC3 channels to the sound driver, allowing for full "surround sound" - experience without the external AC3 decoder required to use the hwac3 - codec.

- -

Use the -channels option to select the number of output - channels. Use -channels 2 for a stereo downmix. For a 4 - channel downmix (Left Front, Right Front, Left Surround and Right Surround - outputs), use -channels 4. In this case, any center channel will - be mixed equally to the front channels. -channels 6 will output - all the AC3 channels as they are encoded - in the order Left, Right, Left - Surround, Right Surround, Center and LFE.

- -

The default number of output channels is 2.

- -

To use more than 2 output channels, you will need to use OSS, and have a - sound card that supports the appropriate number of output channels via the - SNDCTL_DSP_CHANNELS ioctl. An example of a suitable driver is emu10k1 (used - by Soundblaster Live! cards) from August 2001 or newer (ALSA CVS is also - supposed to work).

- - -

2.2.2.2 Hardware AC3 decoding

- -

You need an AC3 capable sound card, with digital out (SP/DIF). The card's - driver must properly support the AFMT_AC3 format (C-Media does). Connect - your AC3 decoder to the SP/DIF output, and use the -ac hwac3 - option. It is experimental but known to work with C-Media cards, - Soundblaster Live! using ALSA (but not OSS) drivers and DXR3/Hollywood+ MPEG - decoder cards.

- - -

2.2.2.3 libmad support

- -

libmad is a multiplatform MPEG - audio decoding library. It does not handle broken files well, and it - sometimes has problems with seeking.

- -

To enable support, compile with the --enable-mad configure - option.

- - -

2.2.2.4 VIVO audio

- -

The audio codec used in VIVO files depends on whether it is a VIVO/1.0 or - VIVO/2.0 file. VIVO/1.0 files have g.723 audio, and VIVO/2.0 files - have Vivo Siren audio. Both are supported.

- -

2.2.2.5 RealAudio

- -MPlayer supports decoding nearly all versions of RealAudio: - -

RealAudio DNET - decoding supported by liba52
RealAudio Cook/Sipro/ATRAC3 - decoding supported by RealPlayer - libraries

- -

On how to install RealPlayer libraries, see the - RealVideo section.

- - -

2.2.2.6 QDesign codecs

- -

QDesign audio streams (fourcc: QDMC, QDM2) are found in MOV/QT - files. Both versions of this codec can be decoded with QuickTime libraries. - For installation instructions please see the Sorenson - video codec section.

- - -

2.2.2.7 Qualcomm codec

- -

Qualcomm audio stream (fourcc: Qclp) is found in MOV/QT files. - It can be decoded with QuickTime libraries. For installation instructions - please see the Sorenson video codec section.

- - -

2.2.2.8 AAC codec

- -

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is an audio codec sometimes found in MOV and MP4 - files. An open source decoder called FAAD is available from - AudioCoding.com. - MPlayer includes libfaad 2.0RC1, so you do not need to get it separately.

- - - -

2.2.3 Win32 codec importing HOWTO

- - -

2.2.3.1 VFW codecs

- -

VFW (Video for Windows) is the old Video API for Windows. Its codecs have - the .DLL or (rarely) .DRV extension. - If MPlayer fails at playing your AVI with this kind of message:

- -

UNKNOWN video codec: HFYU (0x55594648)

- -

It means your AVI is encoded with a codec which has the HFYU fourcc (HFYU = - HuffYUV codec, DIV3 = DivX Low Motion, etc...). Now that you know this, you - have to find out which DLL Windows loads in order to play this file. In our - case, the system.ini contains this information in a line that - reads:

- -

VIDC.HFYU=huffyuv.dll

- -

So you need the huffyuv.dll file. Note that the audio codecs are - specified by the MSACM prefix:

- -

msacm.l3acm=L3codeca.acm

- - -

This is the MP3 codec. Now that you have all the necessary information - (fourcc, codec file, sample AVI), submit your codec support request by mail, - and upload these files to the FTP site:

- -

ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/

- -

Note: On Windows NT/2000/XP search for this info in the registry, e.g. search for - "VIDC.HFYU". To find out how to do this, look at the old DirectShow method below.

- -

2.2.3.2 DirectShow codecs

- -

DirectShow is the newer Video API, which is even worse than its predecessor. - Things are harder with DirectShow, since

- -

system.ini does not contain the needed information, instead it - is stored in the registry and
we need the GUID of the codec.

- -

New Method: Using Microsoft GraphEdit (fast)

- -

Get GraphEdit from either DirectX SDK or - Doom9.
Start graphedit.exe.
From the menu select Graph -> Insert Filters.
Expand item DirectShow Filters.
Select the right codec name and expand item.
In the entry DisplayName look at the text in winged brackets - after the backslash and write it down (five dash-delimited blocks, the - GUID).
The codec binary is the file specified in the Filename - entry.

- -

Note: If there is no Filename entry and DisplayName - contains something like device:dmo, then it is a DMO-Codec.

- -

Old Method: Take a deep breath and start searching the registry...

- -

Start regedit.
Press Ctrl-f, disable the first two checkboxes, and enable - the third. Type in the fourcc of the codec (e.g. TM20).
You should see a field which contains the path and the filename - (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\TM20DEC.AX).
Now that you have the file, we need the GUID. Try searching again, but - now search for the codec's name, not the fourcc. Its name can be acquired - when Media Player is playing the file, by checking File -> Properties - -> Advanced. - If not, you are out of luck. Try guessing (e.g. search for TrueMotion).
If the GUID is found you should see a FriendlyName and a CLSID - field. Write down the 16 byte CLSID, this is the GUID we need.

- -

Note: If searching fails, try enabling all the checkboxes. You may have - false hits, but you may get lucky...

- -

Now that you have all the necessary information (fourcc, GUID, codec file, - sample AVI), submit your codec support request by mail, and upload these files - to the FTP site:

- -

ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/documentation.html b/DOCS/en/documentation.html deleted file mode 100644 index 7e83668790..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/documentation.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2130 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Documentation - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - -

MPlayer - The Movie Player for LINUX

- -

© 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (A'rpi/ESP-team)
- http://www.mplayerhq.hu

- -

[ English ] - [ Hungarian ] - [ German ] - [ French ] - [ Polish ] - [ Italian ] - [ Chinese ]

- -

0. How to read this documentation
1. Introduction -
- 1.1 History
- 1.2 Installation
- 1.3 What about the GUI?
- 1.4 Subtitles and OSD -
  -
- 1.5 RTC
-
2. Features -
-
3. Usage -
- 3.1 Command line
- 3.2 Control -
  - 3.2.1 Controls configuration -
    - 3.2.1.1 Key names
    - 3.2.1.2 Commands
    -
  - 3.2.2 Control from LIRC
  - 3.2.3 Slave mode
  -
- 3.3 Streaming from network or pipes
-
4. CD/DVD section -
- 4.1 CD/DVD drives
- 4.2 DVD playback
- 4.3 VCD playback
-
5. FAQ section -
-
6. Ports -
- 6.1 Linux -
  - 6.1.1 Debian packaging
  - 6.1.2 RPM packaging
  - 6.1.3 ARM
  -
- 6.2 *BSD -
  - 6.2.1 FreeBSD
  - 6.2.2 OpenBSD
  -
- 6.3 Solaris
- 6.4 Silicon Graphics / Irix
- 6.5 QNX
- 6.6 Windows
-
7. Encoding with MEncoder -
-
Appendix A - Mailing lists
Appendix B - How to report bugs
Appendix C - Known bugs
Appendix D - MPlayer skin format -
- D.1 Overview -
  - D.1.1 Directories
  - D.1.2 Images
  - D.1.3 Skin components
  - D.1.4 Files
  -
- D.2 The skin file -
  -
- D.3 Fonts -
  - D.3.1 Symbols
  -
- D.4 GUI messages
-
Appendix E - Developer Cries -
- E.1 GCC 2.96
- E.2 Binary distribution
- E.3 nVidia
- E.4 Joe Barr
-
Appendix F - How to send patches

- -

- - - -

0. How to read this documentation

- -

If you are a first-time installer: be sure to read everything from here to - the end of the Installation section, and follow the links you will find. If - you have any other questions, return to the Table of Contents and - search for the topic, read the FAQ, or try grepping - through the files. Most questions should be answered somewhere here and the - rest has probably already been asked on our - mailing lists. Check the - archives, there is a - lot of valuable information to be found there. And for another good advice, - let me quote Chris Phillips from the - mplayer-users - mailing list:

- -

- I said a while ago that there is such a difference between a newbie and - a dumbass. No matter what you actually know about a system (linux, cars, - girls :D) you should ALWAYS be able to take a step back and be objective, - otherwise, you're just dumb IMHO. A girl i live with assumed the vacuum - cleaner was broken because it didn't suck things up. never thought to change - the bag, becasue she'd never done it before... now that's just stupid, not a - case of simply not knowing what to do... Simply not being that familiar with - your surroundings is no excuse for a) laziness and b) ignorance. So many - people seem to see the word "error" and then stop... few seem to actually - read the words on the OTHER side of the colon. -

- - -

1. Introduction

- - -

MPlayer is a movie player for LINUX (runs on many other Unices, and - non-x86 CPUs, see the ports section). It plays most - MPEG, VOB, AVI, OGG/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, FLI, RM, NuppelVideo, yuv4mpeg, - FILM, RoQ, PVA, Matroska files, supported by many native, XAnim, RealPlayer, and - Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, - 3ivx, RealMedia, Sorenson, Theora and DivX - movies too (and you don't need the avifile - library at all!). Another big feature of MPlayer is the wide range of - supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, - AAlib, DirectFB, but you can also use GGI and SDL (and this way all their - drivers) and some lowlevel card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3Dfx and Radeon, - Mach64, Permedia3) too! Most - of them supports software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in - fullscreen. MPlayer supports displaying through some hardware MPEG - decoder boards, such as the DVB and - DXR3/Hollywood+. And what about the nice big antialiased - shaded subtitles (10 supported types) with European/ISO 8859-1,2 - (Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic, Korean fonts, and the onscreen - display (OSD)?

- -

The player is rock solid playing damaged MPEG files (useful for some VCDs), - and it plays bad AVI files which are unplayable with the famous - windows media player. Even AVI files without index chunk are playable, and - you can temporarily rebuild their indexes with the -idx option, or - permanently with MEncoder, thus enabling seeking! - As you see, stability and quality are the most important things, - but the speed is also amazing.

- -

MEncoder (MPlayer's Movie Encoder) is a simple movie encoder, - designed to encode MPlayer-playable movies - (AVI/ASF/OGG/DVD/VCD/VOB/MPG/MOV/VIV/FLI/RM/NUV/NET/PVA) to other - MPlayer-playable formats (see below). It can encode with various codecs, like - DivX4 (1 or 2 passes), libavcodec, - PCM/MP3/VBR MP3 audio. Also has powerful plugin system - for video manipulation.

- -

MEncoder features

- -

encoding from the wide range of fileformats and decoders of MPlayer
encoding to all the codecs of ffmpeg's - libavcodec
video encoding from V4L compatible TV tuners
encoding/multiplexing to interleaved AVI files with proper index
creating files from external audio stream
1, 2 or 3 pass encoding
VBR MP3 audio - IMPORTANT NOTE: VBR MP3 audio doesn't - always play nicely on Windows players!
PCM audio
stream copying
input A/V synchronizing (PTS-based, can be disabled with -mc 0 option)
FPS correction with -ofps option (useful when encoding - 29.97fps VOB to 24fps AVI)
using our very powerful plugin system (crop, expand, flip, postprocess, - rotate, scale, rgb/yuv conversion)
can encode DVD/VOBsub AND text subtitles into the output file
can rip DVD subtitles to Vobsub format

- -

Planned features

- -

even wider variety of available en/decoding formats/codecs - (creating VOB files with DivX4/Indeo5/VIVO streams :)

- -

MPlayer and MEncoder can be distributed under the terms of the GNU General - Public License Version 2.

- - -

1.1 History

- -

"This began a year ago... - I have tried lots of players under linux (mtv,xmps,dvdview,livid/oms,videolan, - xine,xanim,avifile,xmmp) but they all have some problem. Mostly with special - files or with audio/video sync. Most of them is unable to play both MPEG1, - MPEG2 and AVI (DivX) files. Many players have image quality or speed problems - too. So I've decided to write/modify one..." A'rpi, 2001

- -

mpg12play v0.1-v0.3: Sep 22-25, 2000
- The first try, hacked together in a half hour! - I've used libmpeg3 from www.heroinewarrior.com up to the version 0.3, - but there were image quality and speed problems with it.
mpg12play v0.5-v0.87: Sep 28-Oct 20, 2000
- Mpeg codec replaced with DVDview by Dirk Farin, it was a great stuff, - but it was slow and was written in C++ (A'rpi hates C++!)
mpg12play v0.9-v0.95pre5: Oct 21-Nov 2, 2000
- Mpeg codec was libmpeg2 (mpeg2dec) by Aaron Holtzman & Michel Lespinasse. - It's great, optimized very fast C code with perfect image quality and - 100% MPEG standard conformance.
MPlayer v0.01: Nov 11, 2000
- The first MPlayer.
MPlayer v0.3-v0.9: Nov 18-Dec 4, 2000
- It was a pack of two programs: mpg12play v0.95pre6 and my new simple AVI - player 'avip' based on avifile's Win32 DLL loader.
MPlayer v0.10: Jan 1, 2001
- The MPEG and AVI player in a single binary!
MPlayer v0.11pre series:
- Some new developers joined and from 0.11 the mplayer project is a team-work! - Added .ASF file support, and OpenDivX (see www.projectmayo.com) en/decoding.
MPlayer v0.17a "The IdegCounter" Apr 27, 2001
- The release version of the 0.11pre after 4 months of heavy development! - Try it, and be amazed! Thousands of new features added... and of course - old code was improved too, bugs removed etc.
MPlayer 0.18 "The BugCounter" Jul 9, 2001
- 2 months since 0.17 and here's a new release.. Completed ASF support, - more subtitle formats, introduced libao (similar to libvo but to audio), - even more stable than ever, and so on. It's a MUST!
MPlayer 0.50 "The Faszom(C)ounter" Oct 8, 2001
- Hmm. Release again. Tons of new features, beta GUI version, bugs fixed, - new vo and ao drivers, ported to many systems, including opensource DivX - codecs and much more. Try it!
MPlayer 0.60 "The RTFMCounter" Jan 3, 2002
- MOV/VIVO/RM/FLI/NUV fileformats support, native CRAM, Cinepak, ADPCM codecs, - and support for XAnim's binary codecs; DVD subtitles support, first - release of MEncoder, TV grabbing, cache, liba52, countless fixes.
MPlayer 0.90pre10 "The BirthdayCounter" Nov 11, 2002
- Although this is not a release, I am going to mention it because it - came out 2 years after MPlayer v0.01. Happy birthday, MPlayer!
MPlayer 0.90rc1 "The CodecCounter" Dec 7, 2002
- Again not a release, but after adding Sorenson 3 (QuickTime) and Windows - Media 9 support, MPlayer is the world's first movie player with support - for all known video formats!
MPlayer 0.90 "The CounterCounter" Apr 6, 2003
- After more than 1 year, we finally concluded that the code was indeed - stable again, and ready to be published as a release. Unfortunately we - forgot even to increase the version number, and other annoying bugs went - in, so get ready for...
MPlayer 0.91 Aug 13, 2003
- The above mentioned and lot of other bugs have been fixed. This is the - latest stable version.
MPlayer 1.0pre1 "Development" on the beach Sep 1, 2003
- Altought this is not a stable release, I am going to mention it because it - is the first pre version of the 1.0 series of MPlayer and it is intended - to help the big bug hunting party. This is a huge step forward!
MPlayer 1.0 "?" Date yet unknown

- - -

1.2 Installation

- -

In this chapter I'll try to guide you through the compiling and - configuring process of MPlayer. It's not easy, but it won't necessarily - be hard. If you experience a different behavior than what I explain, please - search through this documentation and you'll find your answers. If you - see links, please follow them and read carefully what they contain. It - will take some time, but it IS worth it.

- -

You need a fairly recent system. On Linux, 2.4.x kernels are recommended.

- -

Software requirements:

- -

binutils - suggested version is 2.11.x . This program is - responsible for generating MMX/3DNow!/etc instructions, thus very important.
gcc - suggested versions are: 2.95.3 (maybe 2.95.4) and 3.3+. - NEVER use 2.96 or 3.0.x! They generate faulty code for MPlayer. - If you decide to change gcc from 2.96, then don't decide in favor of 3.x - just because it's newer! Early releases of 3.x were even more buggy than - 2.96. So downgrade to 2.95.x (downgrade libstdc++ too, other programs may - need it) or don't up/downgrade at all (but in this case, be prepared for - runtime problems). If you vote for 3.x, try to use the latest version, - early releases had various bugs, so be sure you use at least 3.3, it's - tested and working. For detailed information about gcc 2.96's bugs (that are - still NOT fixed, they have been WORKED AROUND in MPlayer!), see the - gcc 2.96 section and the - FAQ.
XFree86 - suggested version is always the newest (4.3). - Normally, everyone wants this, as starting with XFree86 4.0.2, it contains - the XVideo extension (somewhere referred to - as Xv) which is needed to enable the hardware YUV acceleration (fast - image display) on cards that support it.
- Make sure its development package is installed, too, otherwise - it won't work.
- For some video cards you don't need XFree86. See list below.
make - suggested version is always the newest (at least 3.79.x). This - usually isn't important.
SDL - it's not mandatory, but can help in some cases (bad audio, - video cards that lag strangely with the xv driver). Always use the newest - (beginning from 1.2.x).
libjpeg - optional JPEG decoder, used by -mf and some QT MOV files. - Useful for both MPlayer and MEncoder if you plan to work with jpeg files.
libpng - recommended and default (M)PNG decoder. Required for GUI. - Useful for both MPlayer and MEncoder.
lame - recommended, needed for encoding MP3 audio with MEncoder, - suggested version is always the newest (at least 3.90).
libogg - optional, needed for playing OGG file format.
libvorbis - optional, needed for playing OGG Vorbis audio.
LIVE.COM Streaming Media - - optional, needed for playing RTSP/RTP streams.
directfb - optional, from - http://www.directfb.org
cdparanoia - optional, for CDDA support
libfreetype - optional, for TTF fonts support. At least 2.0.9 is - required.
libxmms - optional, for XMMS input plugin support. At least 1.2.7 is - required.
libsmb - optional, for Samba support.

- -

Codecs:

- -

libavcodec: This codec package is capable of decoding - H263/MJPEG/RV10/DivX3/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42/WMV1/WMV2/SVQ1/SVQ3 encoded - video streams and WMA (Windows Media Audio) v1/v2 audio streams, on - multiple platforms. It is also known to be the fastest for this task. - See the libavcodec section for details. - Features:
-
- gain decoding of videos mentioned above, on non-x86 machines
- encoding with most of the mentioned codecs
- this codec is the fastest codec available for DivX/3/4/5 and - other MPEG4 types. Recommended!
-
Win32 codecs: If you plan to use MPlayer on x86 architecture, you - will possibly need them. Download the Win32 codecs from our - codecs page - and install them to /usr/local/lib/codecs/ BEFORE compiling - MPlayer, otherwise no Win32 support will be compiled!
- Note: the avifile project has a similar codecs package, but it differs - from ours. If you want to use all supported codecs, then install our package - (do not worry, avifile works with it without problems). Features:
-
- you need this if you want to play or encode for example movies recorded - with various hardware compressors, like tuner cards, digital cameras - (example: DV, ATI VCR, MJPEG)
- needed if you want to play WMV9/WMA9 movies.
- Not needed for old - ASF's with MP41 or MP42 video (though VoxWare audio is frequent for these - files - it's done by the Win32 codec), or WMV7. Also not needed - for WMA (Windows Media Audio), libavcodec has opensource decoder - for that.
-
QuickTime codecs: on x86 platforms these codecs are needed - to decode RPZA, and other QuickTime video, and QDesign audio streams. - Installation instructions can be found in the - Sorenson video codec section.
DivX4/DivX5: information about this codec is available in the - DivX4/DivX5 section. You possibly don't want - this codec as libavcodec (see above) is much faster and has better - quality than this, for both decoding and encoding.
- Features: -
- 1 pass or 2 pass encoding with - MEncoder
- can play old DivX3 movies much faster than the Win32 DLL but - slower than libavcodec!
- it's closed-source, and only an x86 version is available.
-
XviD: Open source encoding alternative to Divx4Linux
- Features: -
- 1 pass or 2 pass encoding with - MEncoder
- it's open-source, so it's multiplatform.
- it's about 2 times faster than DivX4 when encoding - about the same - quality
-
The XAnim codecs are the best (full - screen, hardware YUV zoom) for decoding 3ivx and Indeo 3/4/5 movies, - and some old formats. And they are multiplatform, so this is the only way to - play Indeo on non-x86 platforms (well, apart from using XAnim:). But for - example Cinepak movies are best played with MPlayer's own Cinepak - decoder!
For Ogg Vorbis audio decoding you need to install - libvorbis properly. Use deb/rpm packages if available, or - compile from - source - (this is a nightly updated tarball of Vorbis CVS).
MPlayer can use the libraries of RealPlayer 8 or RealONE to play - files with RealVideo 2.0 - 4.0 video, and Sipro/Cook audio. See - RealMedia file format section for - installation instructions and more information.

- -

Video Cards

- -

There are generally two kind of video cards. One kind (the newer cards) has - hardware scaling and YUV acceleration support, the other cards don't.

- -

YUV cards

- -

They can display and scale (zoom) the picture to any size that fits in - their memory, with small CPU usage (even when zooming), thus - fullscreen playing is nice and very fast.

- -

Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 cards: although a - Vidix driver is provided, it is recommended - to use the mga_vid kernel module instead, for it works much better. - Please see the mga_vid section about its - installation and usage. It is important to do these steps before - compiling MPlayer, otherwise no mga_vid support will be built. Also - check out the Matrox TV-out section. - If you don't use Linux, your only possibility is the VIDIX - driver: read the VIDIX section.
3Dfx Voodoo3/Banshee cards: please see the - tdfxfb section in order to gain big - speedup. It is important to do these steps before compiling - MPlayer, otherwise no 3Dfx support will be built. Also see the 3dfx TV-out section. If you use X, use - at least 4.2.0, as the 3dfx Xv driver was broken in 4.1.0 and earlier - releases.
ATI cards: Vidix driver is - provided for the following cards: - Radeon, Rage128, Mach64 (Rage XL/Mobility, Xpert98). - Also see the ATI cards - section of the TV-out documentation, to know if you card's TV-out is - supported under Linux/MPlayer.
S3 cards: the Savage and Virge/DX chips have hardware acceleration. - Use as new XFree86 version as possible, older drivers are buggy. Savage chips - have problems with YV12 display, see S3 Xv - section for details. Older, Trio cards have no, or slow hardware - support.
nVidia cards: may or may not be good choice for video playing. - If you do not have a GeForce2 (or newer) card, it's not likely to work - without bugs. - The built-in nVidia driver in XFree86 does not support hardware YUV - acceleration on all nVidia cards. You have to download nVidia's - closed-source drivers from nVidia.com. See the - nVidia Xv driver section for - details. Please also check the nVidia - TV-out section if you wish to use a TV.
3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3: a VIDIX driver is provided - (pm3_vid). Please see the VIDIX section for - details.
Other cards: None of the above? -
- Try if the XFree86 driver (and your card) supports hardware - acceleration. See the Xv section for - details.
- If it doesn't, then your card's video features aren't supported under - your operating system :(
  - If hardware scaling works under Windows, it doesn't mean it will work - under Linux or other operating systems: it depends on the drivers. Most - manufacturers neither make Linux drivers nor release specifications - for their chips, so you are unlucky using their cards. - See 'Non-YUV cards'.
-

- -

Non-YUV cards

- -

Fullscreen playing can be achieved by either enabling software scaling - (use the -zoom or -vf scale - option, but I warn you: this is slow), or switching to a small resolution - video mode, for example 352x288. If you don't have YUV acceleration, the - latter method is recommended. Video mode switching can be enabled by - using the -vm option and it works with the following drivers:

- -

using XFree86: see the - DGA driver and - X11 driver sections for details. DGA is - recommended! Also try DGA via SDL, sometimes it's better.
not using XFree86: try the drivers in the following order: - vesa, - fbdev, - svgalib, - aalib.

- -

Some cards:

- -

Cirrus Logic cards: -
- GD 7548: present on-board and tested in Compaq Armada 41xx notebook - series. -
  - XFree86 3: works in 8/16bpp modes. However, the driver is - dramatically slow and buggy in 800x600@16bpp. - Recommended: 640x480@16bpp
  - XFree86 4: the Xserver freezes soon after start unless - acceleration is disabled, but then the whole thing gets - slower than XFree86 3. No XVideo.
  - FBdev: framebuffer can be turned on with the clgenfb - driver in the kernel, though for me it worked only in 8bpp, thus - unusable. The clgenfb source had to be extended with the 7548 ID - before compilation.
  - VESA: the card is only VBE 1.2 capable, so VESA output can't be - used. Can't be workarounded with UniVBE.
  - SVGAlib: detects an older Cirrus chip. Usable but slow with - -bpp 8.
  -
-

- - -

Sound cards:

- -

Soundblaster Live!: with this card you can use 4 or 6 (5.1) - channels AC3 decoding instead of 2. Read the - Software AC3 decoding section. - For hardware AC3 passthrough you must use ALSA 0.9 with OSS emulation!
C-Media with SP/DIF out: hardware AC3 passthrough is possible - with these cards, see - Hardware AC3 decoding section.
Features of other cards aren't supported by MPlayer. - It's very recommended to read the sound card - section!

- -

Features:

- -

Decide if you need GUI. If you do, see the GUI section - before compiling.
If you want to install MEncoder (our great all-purpose encoder), - see the MEncoder section.
If you have a V4L compatible TV tuner card, and wish to watch/grab - and encode movies with MPlayer, read the TV input - section.
There is a neat OSD Menu support ready to be used. Check the - OSD Menu section.

- -

Then build MPlayer:

- -

-    ./configure
-    make
-    make install
-

- -

At this point, MPlayer is ready to use. The - $PREFIX/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf file is needed only when you - want to change its properties, as the main binary contains an internal copy - of it.
Check if you have codecs.conf in your home directory - (~/.mplayer/codecs.conf) left from old MPlayer versions, and - remove it.

- -

Note that if you have a codecs.conf in ~/.mplayer/, - the builtin and system codecs.conf will be ignored completely. - Do not do this unless you want to fiddle with MPlayer internals as this can - can cause many problems. If you want to change the codecs search order, use - the -vc, -ac, -vfm, or -afm - options either on the command line or in your config file (see the manual - page).

- -

Debian users can build a .deb package for themselves, - it's very simple. Just exec fakeroot debian/rules binary in - MPlayer's root directory. See - Debian packaging for detailed - instructions.

- -

Always browse the output of ./configure, and the - configure.log file, they contain information about what will be - built, and what will not. You may also want to view config.h and - config.mak files.
- If you have some libraries installed, but not detected by - ./configure, then check if you also have the proper header files - (usually the -dev packages) and their version matches. The - configure.log file usually tells you what is missing.

- -

Though not mandatory, the fonts should be installed in order to gain OSD, - and subtitle functionality. The recommended method is installing a TTF - font file and telling MPlayer to use it. See the - Subtitles and OSD section for details.

- - - -

1.3 What about the GUI?

- -

The GUI needs GTK 1.2.x (it isn't fully GTK, but the panels are). The skins - are stored in PNG format, so gtk, libpng (and their devel stuff, usually - called gtk-dev and libpng-dev) has to be installed. - You can build it by specifying --enable-gui during - ./configure. Then, to turn on GUI mode, you have to

- execute the gmplayer binary. - - -

Currently you can't use the -gui option on the command line, - due to technical reasons.

- -

As MPlayer doesn't have a skin included, you have to download them if - you want to use the GUI. See the - download page. - They should be extracted to the usual system-wide directory - ($PREFIX/share/mplayer/Skin), or to - $HOME/.mplayer/Skin. MPlayer by default looks in these - directories for a directory named default, but you can use the - -skin newskin option, or the skin=newskin config - file directive to use the skin in */Skin/newskin directory.

- - -

1.4 Subtitles and OSD

- -

- MPlayer can display subtitles along with movie files. Currently the following - formats are supported:

VobSub
OGM
CC (closed caption)
Microdvd
SubRip
SubViewer
Sami
VPlayer
RT
SSA
MPsub
AQTitle
JACOsub

- -

MPlayer can dump the previously listed subtitle formats (except - the three first) into the following destination formats, with the given - options:

- -

MPsub: -dumpmpsub
SubRip: -dumpsrtsub
Microdvd: -dumpmicrodvdsub
JACOsub: -dumpjacosub
Sami: -dumpsami

- -

MEncoder can dump DVD subtitles into - VobSub format.

- -

The command line options differ slightly for the different formats:

- -

VobSub subtitles

- -

VobSub subtitles consist of a big (some megabytes) .SUB file, and optional - .IDX and/or .IFO files.
- Usage: If you have files like sample.sub, - sample.ifo (optional), sample.idx - you have to pass - MPlayer the -vobsub sample [-vobsubid <id>] options (full - path optional). The -vobsubid option is like -sid - for DVDs, you can choose between subtitle tracks (languages) with it. In case - that -vobsubid is omitted, MPlayer will try to use the languages - given by the -slang option and fall back to the - langidx item in the .IDX file to set the subtitle language. If - that fails, there will be no subtitles.

- -

Other subtitles

- -

The other formats consist of a single text file containing timing, - placement and text information.
- Usage: If you have a file like sample.txt, you have to pass the - option -sub sample.txt (full path optional).

- -

Adjusting subtitle timing and placement:

- -

-subdelay <sec>: Delays subtitles by <sec> seconds. Can be negative.
-subfps <rate>: Specify frame/sec rate of subtitle file (float number)
-subpos <0 - 100>: Specify the position of subtitles.

- -

If you experience a growing delay between the movie and the subtitles when - using a MicroDVD subtitle file, most likely the frame rate of the movie and - the subtitle file are different.
Please note that the MicroDVD subtitle - format uses absolute frame numbers for its timing, and therefore the - -subfps option cannot be used with this format. As - MPlayer has no way to guess the frame rate of the subtitle file, you - have to manually convert the frame rate. There is a little perl script in the - contrib directory of the MPlayer FTP site to do this conversion - for you.

- -

MPlayer will try to guess the subtitle files you want to use when playing a - movie. If, like in most cases, subtitle and movie files have the same name and - are in the same place, you do not need to set the subtitle options. Just play - the movie, MPlayer will handle the subtitles automatically.

- -

About DVD subtitles, read the DVD section.

- - -

1.4.1 MPlayer's own subtitle format (MPsub)

- -

MPlayer introduces a new subtitle format called MPsub. It was - designed by Gabucino. Basically its main feature is being - dynamically time-based (although it has frame-based mode too). Example - (from - DOCS/tech/mpsub.sub):

- -

- FORMAT=TIME - # first number : wait this much after previous subtitle disappeared - # second number : display the current subtitle for this many seconds - - 15 3 - A long long, time ago... - - 0 3 - in a galaxy far away... - - 0 3 - Naboo was under an attack.

- -

So you see, the main goal was to make subtitle - editing/timing/joining/cutting easy. And, if you - say - get an SSA - subtitle but it's badly timed/delayed to your version of the movie, you - simply do a mplayer dummy.avi -sub source.ssa -dumpmpsub. - A dump.mpsub file will be created in the current directory, - which will contain the source subtitle's text, but in MPsub format. - Then you can freely add/subtract seconds to/from the subtitle.

- -

Subtitles are displayed with a technique called 'OSD', On Screen - Display. OSD is used to display current time, volume bar, seek bar - etc.

- -

1.4.2 Installing OSD and subtitles

- -

You need an MPlayer font package to be able to use OSD/SUB feature. - There are many ways to get it:

- -

using a TrueType (TTF) font, by the means of the freetype - library. Version 2.0.9 or greater is mandatory! Then you - have two methods: -
- use the -font /path/to/arial.ttf option to specify - a TrueType font file on every occasion
- create a symlink: ln -s /path/to/arial.ttf ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf
-
download ready-to-use font packages from MPlayer site. - Note: Currently available fonts are limited for iso 8859-1/2 support, - but there are some other (including Korean, Russian, 8859-8 etc) fonts - at contrib/font section of FTP, made by users.
-
- Font should have appropriate font.desc file which maps unicode font - positions to the actual code page of the subtitles text. Other solution is - to have subtitles encoded in utf8 encoding and use -utf8 - option or just name the subtitles file <video_name>.utf and have it - in the same dir as the video file. Recoding from different codepages to - utf8 could be done by using konwert (Debian) or iconv (Red Hat) - programs.
- Some URLs: -
- ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/fonts/ - ISO fonts
- ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/contrib/fonts/ - various fonts by users
- http://realtime.ssu.ac.kr/~lethean/mplayer/ - Korean fonts & RAW plugin
-
use the font generator tool at TOOLS/subfont-c - It's a complete tool to convert from TTF/Type1/etc font to mplayer font pkg. - (read TOOLS/subfont-c/README for details)
use the font generator GIMP plugin at TOOLS/subfont-GIMP - (note: you must have HSI RAW plugin too, see URL below)

- -

If you chose non-TTF fonts, UNZIP the file you downloaded to ~/.mplayer or - $PREFIX/share/mplayer. Then rename or symlink one of the extracted directories to - font (like: ln -s ~/.mplayer/arial-24 - ~/.mplayer/font). Now you have to see a timer at the upper left corner - of the movie (switch it off with the "o" key).

- - -

OSD has 4 states: (switch with 'o')

- -

(subtitles are always enabled, for disabling them please read the man - page)

- -

volume bar + seek bar (default)
volume bar + seek bar + timer + file position percentage on seeking
volume bar + seek bar + timer + total duration of media
subtitles only

- -

You can change default behaviour by setting osdlevel= variable - in config file, or the -osdlevel command line option.

- - -

1.4.3 OSD menu

- -

MPlayer has a completely user definiable OSD Menu interface.

- -

NOTE: the Preferences menu is currently UNIMPLEMENTED!

- -

Installation

- -

compile MPlayer by passing the --enable-menu parameters to - ./configure
make sure you have an OSD font installed
copy etc/menu.conf to your .mplayer - directory
copy etc/input.conf to your .mplayer - directory, or to the system-wide MPlayer config dir (default: - /usr/local/etc/mplayer)
check and edit input.conf to enable menu movement - keys (it is described there).
start MPlayer by the following example:
- $ mplayer -menu file.avi
push any menu key you defined

- - -

1.5 RTC

- -There are three timing methods in MPlayer. - -

To use the old method, you don't have to do anything. It uses - usleep() to tune A/V sync, with +/- 10ms accuracy. However - sometimes the sync has to be tuned even finer.
The new timer code uses PC's RTC (Real Time Clock) for this task, - because it has precise 1ms timers. It is automatically enabled when - available, but requires root privileges, a setuid root - MPlayer binary or a properly set up kernel. -
- If you are running kernel 2.4.19pre8 or later you can adjust the maximum - RTC frequency for normal users through the /proc filesystem. - Use this command to enable RTC for normal users: -
- echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq -
- If you do not have such a new kernel, you can also change one line in - drivers/char/rtc.c and recompile your kernel. Find the - section that reads -
```
-       * We don't really want Joe User enabling more
-       * than 64Hz of interrupts on a multi-user machine.
-       */
-      if ((rtc_freq > 64) && (!capable(CAP_SYS_RESOURCE)))
-    
```
- and change the 64 to 1024. You should really know what you are doing, though. -
- You can see the new timer's efficiency in the status line. -
- The power management functions of some notebook BIOSes with speedstep CPUs - interact badly with RTC. Audio and video may get out of sync. Plugging the - external power connector in before you power up your notebook seems to help. - You can always turn off RTC support with the -nortc option. - In some hardware combinations (confirmed during usage of non-DMA DVD - drive on an ALi1541 board) usage of the RTC timer causes skippy playback. - It's recommended to use the third method in these cases.
The third timer code is turned on with the -softsleep - option. It has the efficiency of the RTC, but it doesn't use RTC. On the other - hand, it requires more CPU.

- -Note: NEVER install a setuid root MPlayer binary on a multiuser system! -It's a clear way for everyone to become root. - - - -

2. Features

- - -

2.1 Supported formats

- - -

2.2 Supported codecs

- - -

2.3 Video & Audio output devices

- - -

2.4 TV input

- -

This section is about how to enable watching/grabbing from V4L compatible -TV tuner. See the man page for a description of TV options and keyboard -controls.

- -

2.4.1 Compilation

- -

First, you have to recompile. ./configure will autodetect - kernel headers of v4l stuff and the existence of /dev/video* - entries. If they exist, TV support will be built (see the output of - ./configure).
Make sure your tuner works with another TV software in Linux, for example - xawtv.

- -

2.4.2 Usage tips

- -The full listing of the options is available on the manual page. Here -are just a few tips: - -

Use the channels option. An example:
- -tv channels=26-MTV1,23-TV2
- Explanation: using this option, only the 26 and 23 channels will be usable, - and there will be a nice OSD text upon channel switching, displaying the - channel's name. Spaces in the channel name must be replaced by the "_" - character.
Choose some sane image dimensions. The dimensions of the resulting image - should be divisible by 16.
If you capture the video with the vertical resolution higher than half of - the full resolution (i.e. 288 for PAL or 240 for NTSC), make sure you - turned deinterlacing on. Otherwise you'll get a movie which is distorted - during fast-motion scenes and the bitrate controller will be probably even - unable to retain the specified bitrate as the interlacing artifacts produce - high amount of detail and thus consume lot of bandwidth. You can enable - deinterlacing with -vf pp=DEINT_TYPE. Usually - pp=lb does a good job, but it can be matter of personal - preference. See other deinterlacing algorithms in the manual and give it a - try.
Crop out the dead space. When you capture the video, the areas at the - edges are usually black or contain some noise. These again consume lots of - unnecessary bandwidth. More precisely it's not the black areas themselves - but the sharp transitions between the black and the brighter video image - which do but that's not important for now. Before you start capturing, - adjust the arguments of the crop option so that all the crap - at the margins is cropped out. Again, don't forget to keep the resulting - dimensions sane.
Watch out for CPU load. It shouldn't cross the 90% boundary for most of - the time. If you have a large capture buffer, MEncoder can survive an - overload for few seconds but nothing more. It's better to turn off the 3D - OpenGL screensavers and similar stuff.
Don't mess with the system clock. MEncoder uses the system clock for - doing A/V sync. If you adjust the system clock (especially backwards in - time), MEncoder gets confused and you will lose frames. This is an - important issue if you are hooked to a network and run some time - synchronization software like NTP. You have to turn NTP off during the - capture process if you want to capture reliably.
Don't change the outfmt unless you know what you are doing - or your card/driver really doesn't support the default (YV12 colorspace). - In the older versions of MPlayer/MEncoder it was necessary to specify the - output format. This issue should be fixed in the current releases and - outfmt isn't required anymore, and the default suits the most - purposes. For example, if you are capturing into DivX using libavcodec and - specify outfmt=RGB24 in order to increase the quality of the - captured images, the captured image will be actually later converted back - into YV12 so the only thing you achieve is a massive waste of CPU power. -
To specify the I420 colorspace (outfmt=i420), you have to - add an option -vc rawi420 due to a fourcc conflict with an - Intel Indeo video codec.
There are several ways of capturing audio. You can grab the sound either - using your soundcard via an external cable connection between video card - and line-in, or using the built-in ADC in the bt878 chip. In the latter - case, you have to load the btaudio driver. Read the - linux/Documentation/sound/btaudio file (in the kernel tree, - not MPlayer's) for some instructions on using this driver.
If MEncoder cannot open the audio device, make sure that it is really - available. There can be some trouble with the sound servers like arts - (KDE) or esd (GNOME). If you have a full duplex soundcard (almost any - decent card supports it today), and you are using KDE, try to check the - "full duplex" option in the sound server preference menu.

- -

2.4.3 Examples

- -

Dummy output, to AAlib :)
-     mplayer -tv driver=dummy:width=640:height=480 -vo aa tv://
-
- Input from standard V4L
-     mplayer -tv driver=v4l:width=640:height=480 -vo xv tv://
-
- - A more sophisticated example. This makes MEncoder capture the full - PAL image, crop the margins, and deinterlace the picture using - a linear blend algorithm. Audio is compressed with a constant - bitrate of 64kbps, using LAME codec. This setup is suitable for - capturing movies.
    mencoder -tv - driver=v4l:width=768:height=576 \ -     -ovc lavc -lavcopts - vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900 \     -oac - mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64 \     -vf - crop=720:544:24:16,pp=lb -o output.avi tv://
- -
- This will additionally rescale the image to 384x288 and compresses - the video with the bitrate of 350kbps in high quality mode. The - vqmax option looses the quantizer and allows the video compressor to - actualy reach so low bitrate even at the expense of the - quality. This can be used for capturing long TV series, where the - video quality isn't so important.
- -     mencoder -tv driver=v4l:width=768:height=576 \ -     -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=350:vhq:vqmax=31:keyint=300 \ -     -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=48 \ -     -vf crop=720:540:24:18,pp=tn/lb,scale=384:288 -sws 1 -o output.avi tv:// -
- - It's also possible to specify smaller image dimensions in the - -tv option and omit the software scaling but this - approach uses the maximum available information and is a little more - resistant to noise. The bt8x8 chips can do the pixel averaging only - in the horizontal direction due to a hardware limitation.

- - -

2.5 Edit Decision Lists (EDL)

- -

The edit decision list (EDL) system allows you to automatically skip or mute - sections of videos during playback, based on a movie specific EDL - configuration file.

- -

This is useful for those who may want to watch a film in "family-friendly" - mode. You can cut out any violence, profanity, Jar-Jar Binks .. from a movie - according to your own personal preferences. Aside from this, there are other - uses, like automatically skipping over commercials in video files you - watch.

- -

The EDL file format is pretty bare-bones. Once the EDL system has reached a - certain level of maturity, an XML-based file format will probably be - implemented (keeping backwards compatibility with previous EDL formats).

- -

The maximum number of EDL entries for the current incarnation of EDL is 1000. - If you happen to need more, change the #define MAX_EDL_ENTRIES - in the edl.h file.

- -

2.5.1 Using an EDL file

- -

Include the -edl <filename> flag when you run MPlayer, - with the name of the EDL file you want applied to the video.

- -

2.5.2 Making an EDL file

- -

The current EDL file format is:

- -[begin second] [end second] [action] - -

Where the seconds are floating-point numbers and the action is either - 0 for skip or 1 for mute. Example:

- -

-5.3   7.1    0
-15    16.7   1
-420   422    0
-

- -

This will skip from second 5.3 to second 7.1 of the video, then mute at - 15 seconds, unmute at 16.7 seconds and skip from second 420 to second - 422 of the video. These actions will be performed when the playback timer - reaches the times given in the file.

- -

To create an EDL file to work from, use the - -edlout <filename> flag. During playback, when you want to - mark the previous two seconds to skip over, hit i. A - corresponding entry will be written to the file for that time. You can then go - back and fine-tune the generated EDL file.

- - - -

3. Usage

- - -

3.1 Command line

- -

MPlayer utilizes a complex playtree. It consists of global options - written as first (for example mplayer -vfm 5), and options - written after filenames, that apply only to the given filename/URL/whatever - (for example mplayer -vfm 5 movie1.avi movie2.avi -vfm 4).
- You can group filenames/URLs together using { and }. It's useful with - option -loop: mplayer { 1.avi -loop 2 2.avi } -loop 3 - will play files in this order: 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 2
-

- - - - - - - - -

	file		`mplayer [options] [path/]filename`
	files		`mplayer [default options] [path/]filename1 [options for filename1] filename2 [options for filename2] ...`
	VCD		`mplayer [options] vcd:// trackno [-cdrom-device /dev/cdrom]`
	DVD		`mplayer [options] dvd:// titleno [-dvd-device /dev/dvd]`
	WWW		`mplayer [options] http://site.com/file.asf (playlists can be used, too)`
	RTSP		`mplayer [options] rtsp://server.example.com/streamName`

- -

-  mplayer -vo x11 /mnt/Films/Contact/contact2.mpg
-  mplayer vcd://2 -cdrom-device /dev/hdc
-  mplayer -afm 3 /mnt/DVDtrailers/alien4.vob
-  mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /dev/hdc
-  mplayer -abs 65536 -delay -0.4 -nobps ~/movies/test.avi
-

- - -

3.2 Control

- -

MPlayer has a fully configurable, command driven, control layer which - lets you control MPlayer with keyboard, mouse, joystick or remote - control (using LIRC). See the man page for the complete list of keyboard - controls.

- - -

3.2.1 Controls configuration

- -

MPlayer allows you bind any key/button to any MPlayer command - using a simple config file. The syntax consist of a key name followed by a - command. The default config file location is - $HOME/.mplayer/input.conf but it can be overridden using the - -input conf option (relative path are relative to - $HOME/.mplayer). - -

Example:

- -

-##
-## MPlayer input control file
-##
-
-RIGHT seek +10
-LEFT seek -10
-- audio_delay 0.100
-+ audio_delay -0.100
-q quit
-> pt_step 1
-< pt_step -1
-ENTER pt_step 1 1
-

- - -

3.2.1.1 Key names

- -

You can have a full list by running mplayer -input keylist

- -

Keyboard:

- -

Any printable character
SPACE
ENTER
TAB
CTRL
BS
DEL
INS
HOME
END
PGUP
PGDWN
ESC
RIGHT
LEFT
UP
DOWN

- -

Mouse (only supported under X):

- -

MOUSE_BTN0 (Left button)
MOUSE_BTN1 (Right button)
MOUSE_BTN2 (Middle button)
MOUSE_BTN3 (Wheel)
MOUSE_BTN4 (Wheel)
...
MOUSE_BTN9

- -

Joystick (support must be enabled at compile time):

- -

JOY_RIGHT or JOY_AXIS0_PLUS
JOY_LEFT or JOY_AXIS0_MINUS
JOY_UP or JOY_AXIS1_MINUS
JOY_DOWN or JOY_AXIS1_PLUS
JOY_AXIS2_PLUS
JOY_AXIS2_MINUS
...
JOY_AXIS9_PLUS
JOY_AXIS9_MINUS

- - -

3.2.1.2 Commands

- -

You can have a full list of known commands by running "mplayer -input cmdlist"

- -

seek (int) val [(int) type=0] -
Seek to some place in the movie.
- Type 0 is a relative seek of +/- val seconds.
- Type 1 seek to val % in the movie.
audio_delay (float) val -
Adjust the audio delay of val seconds
quit -
Quit MPlayer
pause -
Pause/unpause the playback
grap_frames -
Somebody know ?
pt_step (int) val [(int) force=0] -
Go to next/previous entry in playtree. Val sign tell the direction.
- If no other entry is available in the given direction it won't do anything - unless force is non 0.
pt_up_step (int) val [(int) force=0] -
Like pt_step but it jump to next/previous in the parent list. It's useful - to break inner loop in the playtree.
alt_src_step (int) val -
When more than one source is available it select the next/previous one - (only supported by asx playlist).
sub_delay (float) val [(int) abs=0] -
Adjust the subtitles delay of +/- val seconds or set it to val seconds - when abs is non zero.
osd [(int) level=-1] -
Toggle osd mode or set it to level when level > 0.
volume (int) dir -
Increase/decrease volume
contrast (int) val [(int) abs=0]
brightness (int) val [(int) abs=0]
hue (int) val [(int) abs=0]
saturation (int) val [(int) abs=0] -
Set/Adjust video parameters. Val range from -100 to 100.
frame_drop [(int) type=-1] -
Toggle/Set frame dropping mode.
sub_visibility -
Toggle subtitle visibility.
sub_pos (int) val -
Adjust subtitles position.
vobsub_lang -
Change the language of VobSub subtitles.
vo_fullscreen -
Switch fullscreen mode.
tv_step_channel (int) dir -
Select next/previous tv channel.
tv_step_norm -
Change TV norm.
tv_step_chanlist -
Change channel list.
gui_loadfile
gui_loadsubtitle
gui_about
gui_play
gui_stop
gui_playlist
gui_preferences
gui_skinbrowser -
GUI actions

- - -

3.2.2 Control from LIRC

- -

Linux Infrared Remote Control - use an easy to build home-brewn IR-receiver, - an (almost) arbitrary remote control and control your Linux box with it! - More about it at www.lirc.org.

- -

If you have installed the lirc-package, configure will autodetect it. If - everything went fine, MPlayer will print a message like "Setting up - lirc support..." on startup. If an error occurs it will tell you. If it - doesn't tell you anything about LIRC there's no support compiled in. That's - it :-)

- -

The application name for MPlayer is - oh wonder - mplayer. - You can use any mplayer commands and even pass more than one command by - separating them with \n. Don't forget to enable the repeat flag in .lircrc - when it make sense (seek, volume, etc). Here's an excerpt from my - .lircrc:

- -

-begin
-     button = VOLUME_PLUS
-     prog = mplayer
-     config = volume 1
-     repeat = 1
-end
-
-begin
-    button = VOLUME_MINUS
-    prog = mplayer
-    config = volume -1
-    repeat = 1
-end
-
-begin
-    button = CD_PLAY
-    prog = mplayer
-    config = pause
-end
-
-begin
-    button = CD_STOP
-    prog = mplayer
-    config = seek 0 1\npause
-end
-

- -

If you don't like the standard location for the lirc-config file (~/.lircrc) - use the -lircconf <filename> option to specify another file.

- - -

3.2.3 Slave mode

- -

The slave mode allow you to build simple frontend to MPlayer. When - enabled (with the -slave option) MPlayer will read - commands separated by new line (\n) from stdin.

- - -

3.3 Streaming from network or pipes

- -

MPlayer can play files from network, using the HTTP, FTP, MMS or RTSP/RTP - protocol.

- -

Playing goes by simply using adding the URL to the command line. - MPlayer also honors the http_proxy environment variable, and uses - proxy if available. Proxy usage can also be forced:

- -

mplayer http_proxy://proxy.micorsops.com:3128/http://micorsops.com:80/stream.asf

- -

MPlayer can read from stdin (NOT named pipes). This can be for example - used to play from FTP:

- -

wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -

- -

Note: it's also recommended to enable CACHE when playback from network:

- -

wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -cache 8192 -

- - - -

4. FAQ section

- - - -

5. CD/DVD section

- - - -

6. Ports

- - -

6.1 Linux

- -

The main development platform is Linux on x86, although MPlayer works on many - other Linux ports. Binary packages of MPlayer are available from several - sources. However, none of these packages are supported. Report problems - to the authors, not to us.

- - -

6.1.1 Debian packaging

- -

To build a Debian package, run the following command in the MPlayer source - directory:

- -

-    fakeroot debian/rules binary
-

- -

As root you can then install the .deb package as usual:

- -

-    dpkg -i ../mplayer_<version>.deb
-

- -

Christian Marillat has been making unofficial Debian MPlayer, MEncoder and - font packages for a while, you can (apt-)get them from his - homepage.

- - -

6.1.2 RPM packaging

- -

Dominik Mierzejewski created and maintains official Red Hat RPM packages of - MPlayer. He has packaged the player, the GUI, fonts, skins, several drivers - and codecs. All of this is available from his - homepage.

- -

Mandrake RPM packages are available from the - P.L.F. SuSE includes a crippled version of - MPlayer in their distribution. You can get working SuSE RPMs from - links2linux.de.

- - -

6.1.3 ARM

- -

MPlayer works on Linux PDAs with ARM CPU e.g. Sharp Zaurus, Compaq Ipaq. - The easiest way to obtain MPlayer is to get it from one of the - OpenZaurus package feeds. - If you want to compile it yourself, you should look at the - mplayer - and the - libavcodec - directory in the OpenZaurus distribution buildroot. These always have the - latest Makefile and patches used for building a CVS MPlayer with libavcodec. -
If you need a GUI frontend, you can use xmms-embedded.

- - -

6.2 *BSD

- -

MPlayer runs on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS and Darwin. There are - ports/pkgsrc/fink/etc versions of MPlayer available that are probably easier - to use than our raw sources.

- -

To build MPlayer you will need GNU make (gmake - native BSD make will not - work) and a recent version of binutils.

- -

If MPlayer complains about not finding /dev/cdrom or - /dev/dvd, create an appropiate symbolic link:
- ln -s /dev/(your_cdrom_device) /dev/cdrom.

- -

To use Win32 DLLs with MPlayer you will need to re-compile the kernel with - "option USER_LDT" (unless you run FreeBSD -CURRENT, where this - is the default).

- -

6.2.1 FreeBSD

- -

If your CPU has SSE, recompile your kernel with "options CPU_ENABLE_SSE" to - use it (FreeBSD-STABLE or kernel patches required).

- -

6.2.2 OpenBSD

- -

Due to limitations in different versions of gas (relocation vs MMX), you will - need to compile in two steps: First make sure that the non-native as is first - in your $PATH and do a gmake -k, then make sure that - the native version is used and do gmake.

- - -

6.3 Solaris

- -

MPlayer should work on Solaris 2.6 or newer.

- -

On UltraSPARCs, MPlayer takes advantage of their VIS - extensions (equivalent to MMX), currently only in libmpeg2, - libvo and libavcodec, but not in mp3lib. You can watch a VOB - file on a 400MHz CPU. You'll need - mLib installed.

- -

To build the package you will need GNU make (gmake, /opt/sfw/gmake), native - Solaris make will not work. Typical error you get when building with Solaris' - make instead of GNU make:

- -

-   % /usr/ccs/bin/make
-   make: Fatal error in reader: Makefile, line 25: Unexpected end of line seen
-

- -

On Solaris SPARC, you need the GNU C/C++ Compiler; it does not matter - if GNU C/C++ compiler is configured with or without the GNU assembler.

- -

On Solaris x86, you need the GNU assembler and the GNU C/C++ compiler, - configured to use the GNU assembler! The mplayer code on the x86 platform - makes heavy use of MMX, SSE and 3DNOW! instructions that cannot be compiled - using Sun's assembler /usr/ccs/bin/as.

- -

The configure script tries to find out, which assembler program is used by - your "gcc" command (in case the autodetection fails, use the - --as=/whereever/you/have/installed/gnu-as option to tell the - configure script where it can find GNU "as" on your system).

- -

Error message from configure on a Solaris x86 system using GCC - without GNU assembler:

- -

-   % configure
-   ...
-   Checking assembler (/usr/ccs/bin/as) ... , failed
-   Please upgrade(downgrade) binutils to 2.10.1...
-

- -

(Solution: Install and use a gcc configured with "--with-as=gas")

- -

Typical error you get when building with a GNU C compiler that does - not use GNU as:

- -

-   % gmake
-   ...
-   gcc -c -Iloader -Ilibvo -O4 -march=i686 -mcpu=i686 -pipe -ffast-math
-	-fomit-frame-pointer  -I/usr/local/include   -o mplayer.o mplayer.c
-   Assembler: mplayer.c
-   "(stdin)", line 3567 : Illegal mnemonic
-   "(stdin)", line 3567 : Syntax error
-   ... more "Illegal mnemonic" and "Syntax error" errors ...
-

- -

Due to bugs in Solaris 8, you may not be able to play DVD discs larger - than 4 GB:

- -

The sd(7D) driver on Solaris 8 x86 has a bug when accessing a disk - block >4GB on a device using a logical blocksize != DEV_BSIZE (i.e. CD-ROM - and DVD media). Due to a 32Bit int overflow, a disk address modulo 4GB is - accessed. - (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/22516) -
- This problem does not exist in the SPARC version of Solaris 8. -
-
A similar bug is present in the hsfs(7FS) filesystem code (aka - ISO9660), hsfs may not not support partitions/disks larger than 4GB, all data - is accessed modulo 4GB. - (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/22592). -
- The hsfs problem can be fixed by installing patch 109764-04 (sparc) / - 109765-04 (x86). -
-

- -

On Solaris with an UltraSPARC CPU, you can get some extra speed by - using the CPU's VIS instructions for certain time consuming operations. - VIS acceleration can be used in MPlayer by calling functions in Sun's - mediaLib.

- -

VIS accelerated operations from mediaLib are used for mpeg2 video - decoding and for color space conversion in the video output drivers.

- - -

6.4 Silicon Graphics / IRIX

- -

You can either try to install the GNU install program, and (if you did not - put it in your global path) then point to the location with:

- -

-  ./configure --install-path=PATH
-

- -

Or you can use the default install delivered with IRIX 6.5 in which case you - will have to edit the Makefile by hand a little bit. Change the following - line:

- -

-  $(INSTALL) -c -m 644 DOCS/mplayer.1 $(MANDIR)/man1/mplayer.1
-

- -

to:

- -

-  $(INSTALL) -m 644 mplayer.1 $(MANDIR)/man1/
-

- -

And then do (from within the MPlayer source dir):

- -

-  cp DOCS/mplayer.1 .
-

- -

and then go on with building and installing.

- - -

6.5 QNX

- -

Works. You'll need to download SDL for QNX, and install it. Then run - MPlayer with -vo sdl:photon and -ao sdl:nto - options, and it should be fast.

- -

The -vo x11 output will be even slower than on Linux, since - QNX has only X emulation which is VERY slow. Use SDL.

- - -

6.6 Windows

- -

Yes, MPlayer runs on Windows under - Cygwin and - MinGW. - It does not have a GUI yet, but the command line version is almost completely - functional. Patches are always welcome. - You should check out the - mplayer-cygwin - mailing list for help and latest information.

- -

Best results are achieved with the native DirectX video output driver - (-vo directx) and the native Windows waveout audio driver - (-ao win32) as OpenGL does not work and SDL is known to - distort sound and image or crash on some systems. You can make the movie - window stay on top with -vo directx:ontop. If the image is - distorted, try turning off hardware acceleration with - -vo directx:noaccel. Download - DirectX 7 header files - to compile the DirectX video output driver.

- -

Win32 codecs, QuickTime DLLs and Real Win32 codecs (not Real Linux codecs) - also work. Put the codecs somewhere in your path or pass - --with-codecsdir=c:/path/to/your/codecs (alternatively - --with-codecsdir=/path/to/your/codecs only on Cygwin) to - configure. We have had some reports that Real DLLs need to - be writable by the user running MPlayer, but only on some systems. Try - making them writable if you have problems.

- -

The Cygwin/MinGW console is rather slow. Redirecting output or using the - -quiet option has been reported to improve performance on some - systems. Direct rendering (-dr) may also help. You can prevent - OSD flicker through double buffering with the -double option. - If playback is jerky, try -autosync 100. If some of - these options help you, you may want to put them in your config file.

- -

There are precompiled binary versions made by Sascha Sommer available for - download from - our homepage. - Joey Parrish has been making - unofficial Windows packages - complete with installer.

- - -

6.6.1 Cygwin

- -

Cygwin versions prior to 1.5.0 do not include inttypes.h. You - will have to copy or symlink etc/cygwin_inttypes.h from the - MPlayer source directory to /usr/include/inttypes.h in order to - make MPlayer compile.

- -

DirectX header files need to be extracted to /usr/include/ or - /usr/local/include/.

- -

Instructions and files for making SDL run under Cygwin can be found on the - libsdl site.

- -

You can play VCDs by playing the .DAT or .MPG files - that Windows exposes on VCDs. It works like this (adjust for the drive letter - of your CD-ROM):

- -

mplayer d:/mpegav/avseq01.dat

- -

mplayer /cygdrive/d/MPEG2/AVSEQ01.MPG

- -

DVDs also work, adjust -dvd-device for the drive letter of - your DVD-ROM:

- -

mplayer dvd://<title> -dvd-device '\\.\d:'

- - -

6.6.2 MinGW

- -

Installing a version of MinGW that could compile MPlayer used to be quite - tricky, but works out of the box now. Just install MinGW 3.1.0 or later - and MSYS 1.0.9 or later and tell the MSYS postinstall that MinGW is - installed.

- -

If you use a version of MinGW before 3.1.0, you need to replace - /mingw/include/sys/types.h with this - types.h. - -

Extract DirectX header files to /mingw/include/.

- -

VCDs and DVDs work almost like Cygwin (adjust for the drive letter of your - CD-ROM/DVD-ROM):

- -

mplayer d:/mpegav/avseq01.dat

- -

mplayer /d/MPEG2/AVSEQ01.MPG

- -

mplayer dvd://<title> -dvd-device /d/

- - - - - -

7. Encoding with MEncoder

- - - -

Appendix A - Mailing lists

- -

There are some public mailing lists on MPlayer. Unless explicitly - stated otherwise the language of these lists is English. Please do - not send messages in other languages or HTML mail! Message size limit is 80k. - If you have something bigger put it up for download somewhere. Click the - links to subscribe. On the mailing lists, the same rules about writing - and quoting apply as on usenet. Please follow them, it makes the life of - those who read your mails a lot easier. If you do not know them please - read HOWTO edit messages or - (if you are in a hurry) - - Quoting HOWTO.

- -

MPlayer announce list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-announce
- List for MPlayer announcements. Subscribe here if you want to get - announcements about new features.
MPlayer developers list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dev-eng
- This list is about MPlayer development! Talking about interface/API - changes, new libraries, code optimization, configure changes is ontopic - here. Send patches but not bug reports, user questions, feature - requests or flames here to keep the list traffic low.
MPlayer users list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users -
- Send bug reports here after reading the Known Bugs - and bug reporting section).
- Send feature requests here (after reading the whole - documentation).
- Send user questions here (after reading the whole - documentation).
-
MPlayer Hungarian users list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-felhasznalok -
- Hungarian language list
- Topic? We'll see about it... mostly flame and RTFM questions up to - now :(
-
MPlayer & Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 users: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-matrox
- Matrox related questions like -
- things about mga_vid
- Matrox's official beta drivers (for X 4.x.x)
- matroxfb-TVout stuff
-
MPlayer & DVB card users: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb
- Things related to the hardware decoder card called DVB (not DXR3!). -
MPlayer CVS-log: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cvslog
- All changes in MPlayer code are automatically sent to this list. Only - questions about these changes belong here (if you do not understand why a - change is required or you have a better fix or you have noticed a possible - bug/problem in the commit). -
MPlayer Cygwin-porting list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cygwin
- List for discussion about MPlayer's Cygwin port. -
MPlayer OS/2-porting list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-os2
- List for discussion about MPlayer's OS/2 port. -
MPlayer Weekly News' editors and translators list: - http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-mwn
- List for discussion about the Weekly News releases. -

- -

Note: You can reach the searchable mailing list archives at - http://www.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch. - - - -

Appendix B - How to report bugs

- - - -

Appendix C - Known bugs

- -

Special system/CPU-specific bugs/problems:

SIGILL (signal 4) on P3 using 2.2.x kernels:
- Problem: kernel 2.2.x doesn't have proper (working) SSE support
- Solution: upgrade kernel to 2.4.x
- Workaround: ./configure --disable-sse
General SIGILL (signal 4):
- Problem: you compiled and run MPlayer on different machines - (for example compiled on P3 and running on Celeron)
- Solution: compile MPlayer on the same machine where you will use it!
- Workaround: ./configure --disable-sse etc. options
"Internal buffer inconsistency" during MEncoder run:
- Problem: known problem when lame < 3.90 was compiled with gcc 2.96 or 3.x.
- Solution: use lame >=3.90.
- Workaround: compile lame with gcc 2.95.x and remove any already installed - lame packages, they may have been compiled with gcc 2.96.
Messed up MP2/MP3 sound on PPC:
- Problem: known GCC miscompilation bug on PPC platforms, no fix yet.
- Workaround: use FFmpeg's (slow) MP1/MP2/MP3 decoder (-ac ffmpeg)
sig11 in libmpeg2, when scaling+encoding:
- Problem: known GCC 2.95.2 MMX bug, upgrade to 2.95.3.

- -

Various A-V sync and other audio problems:

- -General audio delay or jerky sound (exists with all or many files): -

most common: buggy audio driver! - try to use different drivers, try - ALSA 0.9 OSS emulation with -ao oss, also try -ao sdl, sometimes it helps. - If your file plays fine with -nosound, then you can be sure it's sound card - (driver) problem.
audio buffer problems (buffer size badly detected)
- Workaround: mplayer -abs option
samplerate problems - maybe your card doesn't support the samplerate - used in your files - try the resampling plugin (-aop)
slow machine (CPU or VGA)
- try with -vo null, if it plays well, then you have slow VGA card/driver
- Workaround: buy a faster card or read this documentation about how to speed up
- Also try -framedrop

- -Audio delay/de-sync specific to one or a few files: -

bad file
- Workaround: -
- -ni or -nobps option (for non-interleaved or bad files)
  - and/or
- -mc 0 (required for files with badly interleaved VBR audio)
  - and/or
- -delay option or +/- keys at runtime to adjust delay
- If none of these help, please upload the file, we'll check (and fix). -
your sound card doesn't support 48kHz playback
- Workaround: buy a better sound card... or try to decrease fps by 10% (use - -fps 27 for a 30fps movie) or use the resampler plugin
slow machine
- (if A-V is not around 0, and the last number in the status line increasing)
- Workaround: -framedrop

- -No sound at all: -

your file uses an unsupported audio codec
- Workaround: read the documentation and help us adding support for it

- -No picture at all (just plain grey/green window): -

your file uses an unsupported video codec
- Workaround: read the documentation and help us adding support for it
auto-selected codec can't decode the file, try to select another using -vc - or -vfm options
you try to play DivX 3.x file with OpenDivX decoder or XviD (-vc odivx) - - install Divx4Linux and recompile player

- -

Video-out problems:

- -

First note: options -fs -vm and -zoom are just recommendations, not (yet) - supported by all drivers. So it isn't a bug if it doesn't work. - Only a few driver supports scaling/zooming, don't expect this from x11 or dga.

- -

OSD/sub flickering:
- - x11 driver: sorry, it can't be fixed now
- - xv driver: use -double option

- -

Green image using mga_vid (-vo mga / -vo xmga):
- - mga_vid misdetected your card's RAM amount, reload it using mga_ram_size option

- - - -

Appendix D - MPlayer skin format

- - - -

Appendix E - Developer Cries

- - - -

Appendix F - How to send patches

- - - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/encoding.html b/DOCS/en/encoding.html deleted file mode 100644 index 26befde98a..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/encoding.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,374 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Encoding - MEncoder - The Movie Encoder for Linux - - - - - - - -

7. Encoding with MEncoder

- -

For the complete list of available MEncoder options and examples, please see - the man page. For a series of hands-on examples and detailed guides on using - several encoding parameters, read the - encoding-tips that were collected from - several mailing list threads on - mplayer-users. - Search the archives - for a wealth of discussions about all aspects of and problems related to - encoding with MEncoder.

- - -

7.1 Encoding 2 or 3-pass MPEG-4 ("DivX")

- -

2-pass encoding: the name comes from the fact that this method - encodes the file twice. The first encoding (dubbed pass) - creates some temporary files (*.log) with a size of few megabytes, do not - delete them yet (you can delete the AVI). In the second pass, the 2-pass - output file is created, using the bitrate data from the temporary files. The - resulting file will have much better image quality. If this is the first time - you heard about this, you should consult some guides available on the - Net.

- -

This example shows how to encode a DVD to a 2-pass MPEG-4 ("DIVX") AVI. Just - two commands are needed:
- rm frameno.avi - remove this file, which - can come from a previous 3-pass encoding (it interferes with current - one)
- mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts - vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -oac copy -o movie.avi - mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts - vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2 -oac copy -o movie.avi

- -

3-pass encoding: this is an extension of 2-pass encoding, - where the audio encoding takes place in a separate pass. This method enables - estimation of recommended video bitrate in order to fit on a CD. Also, the - audio is encoded only once, unlike in 2-pass mode. The schematics:

- -

Remove conflicting temporary file: -
rm frameno.avi
First pass: -
mencoder <file/DVD> -ovc frameno -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o frameno.avi
-
An audio-only avi file will be created, containing - only the requested audio stream. Don't forget -lameopts, - if you need to set it. If you were encoding a long movie, MEncoder - prints the recommended bitrate values for 650Mb, 700Mb, and 800Mb - destination sizes, after this pass finishes.
Second pass: -
mencoder <file/DVD> -oac copy - -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1:vbitrate=<bitrate>
-
This is the first pass of video encoding. - Optionally specify the video bitrate MEncoder printed at the end of - the previous pass.
Third pass: -
mencoder <file/DVD> -oac copy - -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2:vbitrate=<bitrate>
-
This is the second pass of video encoding. - Specify the same bitrate as in the previous pass unless you really know - what you are doing. In this pass, audio from frameno.avi - will be inserted into the destination file.. and it's all ready!

- -

Example for 3-pass encoding:

- -

rm frameno.avi - remove this file, - which can come from a previous 3-pass encoding (it interferes with current - one)
- mencoder dvd://2 -ovc frameno - -o frameno.avi -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 - mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc - -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -oac copy -o movie.avi - mencoder dvd://2 -ovc lavc - -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2 -oac copy -o movie.avi

- - -

7.2 Encoding to MPEG format

- -

MEncoder can create MPEG (MPEG-PS) format output files. It's probably - useful only with libavcodec's - mpeg1video codec, because players - except MPlayer - expect MPEG1 - video, and MPEG1 layer 2 (MP2) audio streams in MPEG files.

- -

This feature is not very useful right now, aside that it probably has - many bugs, but the more importantly because MEncoder currently cannot encode - MPEG1 layer 2 (MP2) audio, which all other players expect in MPEG files.

- -

To change MEncoder's output file format, use the -of mpeg - option.

- -

Example:
- mencoder -of mpeg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video - -oac copy <other options> media.avi -o output.mpg

- - -

7.3 Rescaling movies

- -

Often the need to resize movie images' size emerges. Its reasons can be - many: decreasing file size, network bandwidth, etc. Most people - even do rescaling when converting DVDs or SVCDs to DivX AVI. This is bad. - Instead of even you doing so, read the Preserving - aspect ratio section.

- -

The scaling process is handled by the 'scale' video filter: - -vf scale=width:height. Its quality can be set with the - -sws option. If it's not specified, MEncoder will use 0: - fast bilinear.

- -

Usage:

- -

mencoder input.mpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts - vcodec=mpeg4 -vf scale=640:480 -oac copy -o - output.avi

- - -

7.4 Stream copying

- -

MEncoder can handle input streams in two ways: encode or - copy them. This section is about copying.

- -

Video stream (option -ovc copy): nice stuff can be - done :)
- Like, putting (not converting) FLI or VIVO or MPEG1 video into - an AVI file. Of course only MPlayer can play such files :) And it - probably has no real life value at all. Rationally: video stream copying - can be useful for example when only the audio stream has to be encoded - (like, uncompressed PCM to MP3).
Audio stream (option -oac copy): straightforward. - It is possible to take an external audio file (MP3, WAV) and mux it - into the output stream. Use the -audiofile <filename> - option for this.

- - -

7.5 Fixing AVIs with broken index or interleaving

- -

Easiest thing. We simply copy the video and audio streams, and - MEncoder generates the index. Of course this cannot fix possible bugs - in the video and/or audio streams. It also fixes files with broken - interleaving, thus the -ni option won't be needed for them - anymore.

- -

Command: mencoder -idx input.avi -ovc copy -oac copy -o output.avi

- - -

7.5.1 Appending multiple AVI files

- -

As a side-effect, the broken AVI fixer function enables MEncoder to append - 2 (or more) AVI files:

- -

Command: cat 1.avi 2.avi | mencoder -noidx -ovc copy -oac copy -o output.avi -

- -

Note: This expects 1.avi and 2.avi to use the same codecs, resolution, - stream rate etc, and at least 1.avi must not be broken. You may need to fix - your input AVI files first, as described above.

- - -

7.6 Encoding with the libavcodec codec family

- -

libavcodec provides simple encoding to a - lot of interesting video and audio formats (currently its audio codecs are - unsupported). You can encode to the following codecs (more or less up to date):

- -

mjpeg - Motion JPEG
ljpeg - Lossless JPEG
h263 - H263
h263p - H263 Plus
mpeg4 - ISO standard MPEG-4 (DivX 5, XVID compatible)
msmpeg4 - pre-standard MPEG-4 variant by MS, v3 (aka DivX3)
msmpeg4v2 - pre-standard MPEG-4 by MS, v2 (used in old asf files)
wmv1 - Windows Media Video, version 1 (aka WMV7)
wmv2 - Windows Media Video, version 2 (aka WMV8)
rv10 - an old RealVideo codec
mpeg1video - MPEG1 video
mpeg2video - MPEG2 video
huffyuv - lossless compression
asv1 - ASUS Video v1
asv2 - ASUS Video v2
ffv1 - FFmpeg's lossless video codec

- -

The first column contains the codec names that should be passed after the - vcodec config, like: -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4

- -

An example, with MJPEG compression:
- mencoder dvd://2 -o title2.avi -ovc lavc - -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -oac copy

- - -

7.7 Encoding from multiple input image files (JPEGs, PNGs or TGAs)

- -

MEncoder is capable of creating movies from one or more JPEG, PNG or TGA - files. With simple framecopy it can create MJPEG (Motion JPEG), MPNG - (Motion PNG) or MTGA (Motion TGA) files.

- -Explanation of the process: - -

MEncoder decodes the input image(s) with - libjpeg (when decoding PNGs, it will use libpng).
MEncoder then feeds the decoded image to the chosen video compressor - (DivX4, XviD, ffmpeg msmpeg4, etc...).

- -

Examples

- -

The explanation of the -mf option can be found below in the - man page.

- -

Creating a DivX4 file from all the JPEG files in the current dir:
- mencoder -mf on:w=800:h=600:fps=25 -ovc divx4 - -o output.avi \*.jpg

- -

Creating a DivX4 file from some JPEG files in the current dir:
- mencoder -mf on:w=800:h=600:fps=25 - -ovc divx4 -o output.avi frame001.jpg,frame002.jpg

- -

Creating a Motion JPEG (MJPEG) file from all the JPEG files in the current dir:
- mencoder -mf on:w=800:h=600:fps=25 -ovc copy - -o output.avi \*.jpg

- -

Creating an uncompressed file from all the PNG files in the current dir:
- mencoder -mf on:w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=png -ovc rawrgb - -o output.avi \*.png

- -

Note: Width must be integer multiple of 4, it's a limitation of the - RAW RGB AVI format.

- -

Creating a Motion PNG (MPNG) file from all the PNG files in the current dir:
- mencoder -mf on:w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=png -ovc copy - -o output.avi \*.png

- -

Creating a Motion TGA (MTGA) file from all the TGA files in the current dir:
- mencoder -mf on:w=800:h=600:fps=25:type=tga -ovc copy - -o output.avi \*.tga

- - -

7.8 Extracting DVD subtitles to a Vobsub file

- -

MEncoder is capable of extracting subtitles from a DVD into - Vobsub fomat files. They consist of a pair of files ending in - .idx and .sub and are usually packaged in a single - .rar archive. MPlayer can play these with the - -vobsub and -vobsubid options.

- -

You specify the basename (i.e without the .idx or - .sub extension) of the output files with -vobsubout - and the index for this subtitle in the resulting files with - -vobsuboutindex.

- -

If the input is not from a DVD you should use -ifo to - indicate the .ifo file needed to construct the resulting - .idx file.

- -

If the input is not from a DVD and you do not have the .ifo - file you will need to use the -vobsubid option to let it know - what language id to put in the .idx file.

- -

Each run will append the running subtitle if the .idx and - .sub files already exist. So you should remove any before - starting.

- -

Examples

- -

Copying two subtitles from a DVD while doing 3-pass encoding
-   rm subtitles.idx subtitles.sub
-   mencoder dvd://1 -vobsubout subtitles -vobsuboutindex 0 - -sid 2 -o frameno.avi -ovc frameno -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3
-   mencoder dvd://1 -oac copy -ovc divx4 -divx4opts pass=1
-   mencoder dvd://1 -oac copy -ovc divx4 -divx4opts pass=2 -vobsubout - subtitles -vobsuboutindex 1 -sid 5

- -

Copying a french subtitle from an MPEG file
- rm subtitles.idx subtitles.sub
- mencoder movie.mpg -ifo movie.ifo -vobsubout subtitles - -vobsuboutindex 0 -vobsuboutid fr -sid 1

- - -

7.9 Preserving aspect ratio

- -

DVDs and SVCDs (i.e. MPEG1/2) files contain an aspect ratio value, - which describes how the player should scale the video stream, so humans - won't have egg heads (ex.: 480x480 + 4:3 = 640x480). However when encoding - to AVI (DivX) files, you have be aware that AVI headers don't store this - value. Rescaling the movie is disgusting and time consuming, there - has to be a better way!

- -

There is.

- -

MPEG4 has an unique feature: the video stream can contain - its needed aspect ratio. Yes, just like MPEG1/2 (DVD, SVCD) and H263 files. - Regretfully, there are no video players outside which support this - attribute of MPEG4. Except MPlayer.

- -

This feature can be used only with - libavcodec's mpeg4 codec. Keep in mind: although MPlayer - will correctly play the created file, other players will use the wrong - aspect ratio.

- -

You seriously should crop the black bands over and below the movie image. - See the man page for the usage of the cropdetect and - crop filters.

- -

Usage:

- -

$ mencoder sample-svcd.mpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts - vcodec=mpeg4:autoaspect -vf crop=714:548:0:14 -oac copy -o output.avi

- -

7.10 Custom inter/intra matrices

- -

With this feature of libavcodec you are - able to set custom inter (I-frames/key frames) and intra (P-frames/predicted - frames) matrices. It is supported by many of the codecs: mpeg1video - and mpeg2video are reported as working.

- -

A typical usage of this feature is to set the matrices preferred by the - KVCD specifications.

- The KVCD "Notch" Quantization Matrix:
- Intra: -

-   8  9 12 22 26 27 29 34
-   9 10 14 26 27 29 34 37
-  12 14 18 27 29 34 37 38
-  22 26 27 31 36 37 38 40
-  26 27 29 36 39 38 40 48
-  27 29 34 37 38 40 48 58
-  29 34 37 38 40 48 58 69
-  34 37 38 40 48 58 69 79
-

- Inter: -

-  16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
-  18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32
-  20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34
-  22 24 26 30 32 32 34 36
-  24 26 28 32 34 34 36 38
-  26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40
-  28 30 32 34 36 38 42 42
-  30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44
-

- -

Usage:

- -

$ mencoder input.avi -o output.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts - inter_matrix=...:intra_matrix=...

- -

$ mencoder input.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts - vcodec=mpeg2video:intra_matrix=8,9,12,22,26,27,29,34,9,10,14,26,27,29,34,37, - 12,14,18,27,29,34,37,38,22,26,27,31,36,37,38,40,26,27,29,36,39,38,40,48,27, - 29,34,37,38,40,48,58,29,34,37,38,40,48,58,69,34,37,38,40,48,58,69,79 - :inter_matrix=16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,20,22,24,26, - 28,30,32,34,22,24,26,30,32,32,34,36,24,26,28,32,34,34,36,38,26,28,30,32,34, - 36,38,40,28,30,32,34,36,38,42,42,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44 -oac copy -o svcd.mpg

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/faq.html b/DOCS/en/faq.html deleted file mode 100644 index ba4dc396cb..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/faq.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,802 +0,0 @@ - - - - - FAQ - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - - -

5. FAQ

- -

5.1 Development
5.2 Compilation
5.3 General questions
5.4 Playback problems
5.5 Video/audio driver problems (vo/ao)
5.6 DVD playback
5.7 Feature requests
5.8 Encoding

- - -

5.1 Development

- -

Q: How do I create a proper patch for MPlayer?: A: Send a unified diff (diff -u) of your changes - against the CVS version of MPlayer to the - mplayer-dev-eng - mailing list. We wrote a short document - that has more details. Please follow those instructions.
Q: How can I support MPlayer development?: A: We are more than happy to accept your hardware and software - donations. - They help us in continuously improving MPlayer.
Q: How can I become an MPlayer developer?: A: We always welcome coders and documenters. Read the - technical documentation to get a first grasp. Then you - should subscribe to the - mplayer-dev-eng - mailing list and start coding.
Q: Why don't you use autoconf/automake?: A: We have a modular, handwritten build system. It does a reasonably good - job, so why change? Besides, we dislike the auto* tools, just like - other people.

- - -

5.2 Compilation

- -

Q: Are there binary (RPM/deb) packages of MPlayer?: A: See the - Debian and - RPM section for details.
Q: Compilation stops with an error message similar to this one: - - In file included from mplayer.c:34: - mw.h: In function `mplMainDraw': - mw.h:209: Internal compiler error in print_rtl_and_abort, at flow.c:6458 - Please submit a full bug report, - with preprocessed source if appropriate. - -: A: This is a known problem of gcc 3.0.4, upgrade to 3.1 to solve the - problem. How to install gcc is described in the - gcc 2.96 section.
Q: Configure ends with this text, and MPlayer won't compile! - "Your gcc does not support even i386 for '-march' and '-mcpu'." -: A: Your gcc isn't installed correctly, check the config.log - file for details.
Q: What's the problem with gcc 2.96?: A: We strongly discourage the use of gcc 2.96!
- Read this document for - details about why Red Hat released gcc 2.96 and what the problems are all - about. If you still really really want to use it, be sure to get the latest - release and give the --disable-gcc-checking option to - configure. Remember that you are on your own from this point. Do not - report bugs, do not ask for help on the mailing lists. We will - not provide any support in case you run into problems.
Q: Great, I have gcc 3.0.1 from Red Hat/Mandrake, then I'm fine!: A: No, since there have been/are issues with these compilers as well. - To check the status of current compilers' MPlayer support, see the - Installation section.
Q: I tried to compile MPlayer, but I got this output: -
- In file included from /usr/include/g++-v3/bits/std_cwchar.h:42, - from /usr/include/g++-v3/bits/fpos.h:40, - from /usr/include/g++-v3/bits/char_traits.h:40, - from /usr/include/g++-v3/bits/std_string.h:41, - from /usr/include/g++-v3/string:31, - from libwin32.h:36, - from DS_AudioDecoder.h:4, - from DS_AudioDec.cpp:5: - /usr/include/wchar.h: In function Long long int wcstoq(const wchar_t*, - wchar_t**, int)': - /usr/include/wchar.h:514: cannot convert `const wchar_t* __restrict' to - `const -
-: A: Upgrade your glibc to the latest release. On Mandrake, use 2.2.4-8mdk.
Q: ... gcc 2.96 ... (Yes, some people are STILL flaming about gcc 2.96!): A: Quoted from a - mail - A'rpi sent to the - mplayer-users - list (the word 'ideg' is described below): -
-
And we have idegs. And our idegcounter overflowed again and again.
- -
Unfortunately MPlayer is out of our control. It's used by lamers, Linux - users who can't even use Windows, and never tried to compile a kernel. They - installed (with default options) Mandrake or Red Hat or SuSE, and without - RTFM'ing they send messages saying 'it doesn't work! help me! please! i'm - new to Linux! help! oh! help me!'. We can't stop them, but at least we try - to force them to RTFM and to read the messages of ./configure and MPlayer.
- -
And you clever guys come and flame us with gcc 2.96 and binary packages. - Instead of helping users or making patches to help solve problems.
- -
Half of our spare/free time is spent by answering silly mails here and - making newer tricks and checks to configure to avoid such mails.
- -
And there is a balance. On the one side are you, clever guys, saying we - are very bad because we don't like buggy gcc 2.96, and on the other side - there are the 'new to Linux' guys who are showing us gcc 2.96 is buggy.
- -
Conclusion: We can't be good. Half the people will always say we are bad.
- -
Maybe we should close the project, make it closed source, commercial, and - provide install support for it. then we could leave current work, so - development could go faster, and we could earn lots of money with it and buy - a big house, etc etc. Do you really want it? It seems.
-
-
Q: SDL output doesn't work or compile. The problem is ...: A: It was tested to work with SDL 1.2.x and may run on SDL 1.1.7+. - It does not work with any previous version. So if you choose to use - such a version, you are on your own.
Q: I am still having trouble compiling with SDL support. gcc says - something about "undefined reference to `SDL_EnableKeyRepeat'". What - now?: A: Where did you install the SDL library? If you installed in /usr/local - (the default) then edit the top level config.mak and add - "-L/usr/local/lib" after "X_LIBS=". Now type make. You're done!
Q: It doesn't compile, and it misses uint64_t inttypes.h and similar - things ...: A: Copy etc/inttypes.h to the MPlayer directory - (cp etc/inttypes.h .) and try again ...
Q: I have Linux running on a Pentium III but ./configure - doesn't detect SSE ...: A: Only kernel versions 2.4.x support SSE (or try 2.2.19 or newer, but - be prepared for problems).
Q: I have a Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550, how do I compile and use the - mga_vid kernel driver?: A: Read the mga_vid section.
Q: Hmm, strange. When loading the mga_vid.o kernel module, I found this in - the logs: - Warning: loading mga_vid.o will taint the kernel: no license: A: The latest kernel modutils require a flag indicating the license - (mainly to avoid kernel hackers debugging closed source drivers). - Upgrade your kernel, modutils and MPlayer.
Q: During 'make', MPlayer complains about X11 libraries. I don't - understand, I DO have X installed!?: A: ... but you don't have the X development package installed. Or not - correctly. It's called XFree86-devel* under Red Hat, and xlibs-dev under - Debian. Also check if the /usr/X11 and /usr/include/X11 - symlinks exist (this can be a problem on Mandrake systems). They can be - created with these commands:
- $ ln -sf /usr/X11R6 /usr/X11
- $ ln -sf /usr/X11R6/include/X11 /usr/include/X11
- Your distribution may differ from the - Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.
Q: I can't compile SVGAlib. I'm using kernel 2.3/2.4 ...: A: You have to edit SVGAlib's Makefile.cfg and comment - BACKGROUND = y out.
Q: I compiled MPlayer with libdvdcss/libdivxdecore support, but when - I try to start it, it says: - > error while loading shared libraries: lib*.so.0: cannot load - shared object file: No such file or directory - I checked up on the file and it IS there in /usr/local/lib ...: A: Add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf and run - ldconfig.
Q: When compiling MEncoder, it segfaults at linking!: A: This is a linker problem. Upgrading binutils should help (2.11.92.* - or newer should be good). Since it is not our fault, please do not - report!
Q: MPlayer dies with segmentation fault upon pthread check!: A: chmod 644 /usr/lib/libc.so
Q: I'd like to compile MPlayer on Minix!: A: Me too. :)

- - -

5.3 General questions

- -

Q: Are there any mailing lists on MPlayer?

A: Yes. See the - mailing lists section.

Q: I've found a nasty bug when I tried to play my favorite video! - Who should I inform?

A: Please read the bug reporting guidelines - and follow the instructions.

Q: I have problems playing files with the ... codec. Can I use them?

A: Check the - codec status, - if it doesn't contain your codec, read the - codec documentation, especially the - codec importing HOWTO and contact us.

Q: When I start playing, I get this message but everything seems fine: - Linux RTC init: ioctl (rtc_pie_on): Permission denied

A: You need root privileges or a - specially set up kernel to use the new timing code. For details see the - RTC section of the documentation.

Q: There is a timer in the upper left corner. How can I get rid of it?

A: Press o and try the -osdlevel option.

Q: The -xy or -fs option doesn't work with the - x11 driver (-vo x11) ...

A: It does, but you have to explicitly specify software scaling (very - slow) with the -zoom option. You better use XF86VidMode - support: You must specify the -vm and the -fs - option, and you're done. Make sure you have the right modelines in your - XF86Config file, and try to make the DGA driver - and SDL's DGA driver work for you. - It's much faster. If SDL's DGA works, use that, it'll be even faster.

Q: What is the meaning of the numbers on the status line?

A: Example: - A: 2.1 V: 2.2 A-V: -0.167 ct: 0.042 57/57 41% 0% 2.6% 0 4 49% -

A: audio position in seconds
V: video position in seconds
A-V: audio-video difference in seconds (delay)
ct: total A-V sync correction done
frames played (counting from last seek)
frames decoded (counting from last seek)
video codec cpu usage in percent (for slices and DR this includes - video_out)
video_out cpu usage
audio codec cpu usage in percent
frames needed to drop to maintain A-V sync
current level of image postprocessing (when using -autoq)
current cache size used (around 50% is normal)

- Most of them are for debug purposes and will be removed at some point.

Q: What if I don't want them to appear?

A: Use the -quiet or -really-quiet option as - described in the man page.

Q: Why is video_out cpu usage zero (0%) for some files?

A1: It's not zero, but it's called from the codec and thus cannot be - measured separately. You should try to play the file using - -vo null and then -vo ... and check the - difference to see the video_out speed.

A2: You are using Direct Rendering, - where the codec renders to the video memory itself. In this case, the - decoding percentage contains the display percentage, too.

Q: There are error messages about file not found - /usr/local/lib/codecs/...

A: Download the Win32 codecs from our - codecs page - (avifile's codec package has a different DLL set) and install it.

Q: Can I run multiple instances of MPlayer?

A: Yes. Some video out drivers like xv, dga or (x)mga are exclusive, some - are exclusive in combination with certain graphics boards and drivers. You - will not be able to run more than one instance of MPlayer with one of those - video out drivers. To a lesser degree this also applies to audio drivers. - Not all allow playback of multiple streams on the same device.

Q: Umm, what is "IdegCounter"?

A: A combination of a Hungarian and an English word. "Ideg" in Hungarian - means the same as "nerve" in English, and is pronounced as something like - "ydaegh". It was first used to measure the nervousness of A'rpi, after some - (umm) "mysterious" disappearance of CVS code ;)

Q: And what is "Faszom(C)ounter"?

A: "Fasz" is a Hungarian word you don't want to know, the others are - connected to the perverted minds of the MPlayer developers.

Q: LIRC doesn't work, because ...

A: Are you sure you are using mplayer instead of - mplayer_lirc? Note that it was mplayer_lirc for a - long time, including the 0.60 release, but it was recently changed back to - mplayer.

Q: Subtitles are very nice, the most beautiful I've ever seen, but they - slow down playing! I know it's unlikely ...

A: After running ./configure, edit config.h and - replace #undef FAST_OSD with #define FAST_OSD. - Then recompile.

Q: The onscreen display (OSD) is flickering!

A: You use a vo driver with single buffering (x11,xv). With xv, - use the -double option. Also try -vf expand.

Q: What exactly is this libavcodec thing?

A: See the libavcodec section.

Q: But configure tells me "Checking for libavcodec ... no"!

A: You need to get libavcodec from FFmpeg's CVS. Read the instructions in - the libavcodec section.

Q: Icewm's taskbar keeps covering the movie in fullscreen mode!

A: This shouldn't happen anymore, if it still does use the - -fstype layer option and report it to the - mplayer-users - mailing list.

Q: I can't access the GUI menu. I press right click, but I can't access - any menu items!

A: Are you using FVWM? Try the following:
- Start -> Settings -> Configuration -> Base Configuration
- Set "Use Applications position hints" to "Yes".

Q: How can I run MPlayer in the background?

A: Use: mplayer <options> <filename> < /dev/null &

- - -

5.4 Playback problems

- -

Q: I cannot pinpoint the cause of some strange playback problem.

A: Do you have a stray codecs.conf file in - ~/.mplayer/, /etc/, /usr/local/etc/ - or a similar location? Remove it, outdated codecs.conf files - can cause obscure problems. MPlayer will use its builtin one instead.

Q: ... works with xine/avifile/... but doesn't with MPlayer.

A: MPlayer is not xine/avifile/... Although these players have some code - in common, the codecs (DLL) set, synchronization, demultiplexing etc is - different and should not be compared. If you have a file MPlayer fails to - play correctly but works in another player, please read the - bug reporting guidelines and upload the file - to our FTP server.

Q: Audio goes out of sync playing an AVI file.

A: Try the -bps or -nobps option. If it does not - improve, read the bug reporting guidelines and - upload the file to our FTP server.

Q: MPlayer exits with some error when using l3codeca.acm.

A: Check ldd /usr/local/bin/mplayer output. If it contains
- libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4???????)
- where "?" is any number then it's OK, the error is not here. If it is:
- libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00??????)
- then there is a problem with your kernel/libc. Maybe you are using some - security patches (for example Solar Designer's OpenWall patch) which - forces loading libraries to very low addresses. - Because l3codeca.acm is a non-relocatable DLL, it must be loaded to - 0x00400000, we can't change this. You should use a non-patched kernel, - or use MPlayer's -afm 1 option to disable using - l3codeca.acm.

Q: My computer plays M$ DivX AVIs with resolutions ~ 640x300 and stereo - mp3 sound too slow. When I use -nosound option, everything is OK (but - quiet).

A: Your machine is too slow or your soundcard driver is broken. Consult - the documentation to see if you can improve performance.

Q: MPlayer dies with "MPlayer interrupted by signal 4 in module: - decode_video".

A: Try running MPlayer on the machine you compiled on. Or recompile - with runtime CPU detection - (./configure --enable-runtime-cpudetection). Don't - use MPlayer on a CPU different from the one it was compiled on, - without using the feature mentioned just now.

Q: I have problems with [your window manager] and fullscreen - xv/xmga/sdl/x11 modes ...

A: Read the bug reporting guidelines and - send us a proper bug report.

Q: When starting MPlayer under KDE I just get a black screen and nothing - happens. After about one minute the video starts playing.

A: The KDE arts sound daemon is blocking the sound device. Either wait - until the video starts or disable the arts-daemon in kontrol center. If you - want to use arts sound, specify audio output via our native arts audio - driver (-ao arts). If it fails or isn't compiled in, try SDL - (-ao sdl) and make sure your SDL can handle arts sound. Yet - another option is to start MPlayer with artsdsp.

Q: When I play this movie I get video-audio desync and/or MPlayer crashes - with the following message: - DEMUXER: Too many (945 in 8390980 bytes) video packets in the buffer!

A: This can have multiple reasons. -

Your CPU and/or video card and/or bus is too slow. - MPlayer displays a message if this is the case (and the dropped - frames counter goes up fast).
If it is an AVI, maybe it has bad interleaving. Try the - -ni option.
Your sound driver is buggy, or you use ALSA 0.5 with -ao oss. - See the sound card section.
The AVI has a bad header, try the -nobps option, and/or - -mc 0.

Q: I have an MJPEG file which works with other players but displays only a - black image in MPlayer.

A: Use another codec to play the file, try -vc ffmjpeg.

Q: When I try to grab from my tuner, it works, but colors are strange. - It's OK with other applications.

A: Your card probably misreports its colorspace capacity. Try with YUY2 - instead of default YV12 (see the TV - section).

Q: I have A/V sync problems. Some of my AVIs play fine, but some play with - double speed!

A: You have a buggy sound card/driver. Most likely it's fixed at 44100Hz, - and you try to play a file which has 22050Hz audio. Try the resample audio - plugin.

Q: I get very strange percentage values (way too big) while playing files - on my notebook.

A: It's an effect of the power management / power saving system of your - notebook (BIOS, not kernel). Plug the external power connector in - before you power on your notebook. You can also try whether - cpufreq (a SpeedStep interface - for Linux) helps you.

Q: The audio/video gets totally out of sync when I run MPlayer as root on - my notebook. It works normal when i run it as a user.

A: This is again a power management effect (see above). Plug the external - power connector in before you power on your notebook or use the - -nortc option.

Q: While playing a movie it suddenly gets jerky and I get - the following message: - Badly interleaved AVI file detected - switching to -ni - mode... -

A: Badly interleaved files and -cache don't work well - together. Try -nocache.

- - -

5.5 Video/audio driver problems (vo/ao)

- -

Q: I have no sound when playing a video and get error messages similar to - this one: - - AO: [oss] 44100Hz 2ch Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian) - audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy - couldn't open/init audio device -> NOSOUND - Audio: no sound!!! - Start playing... - -: A: Are you running KDE or GNOME with the ARTS or ESD sound daemon? Try - disabling the sound daemon or use the -ao arts or - -ao esd option to make MPlayer use ARTS or ESD.
Q: What about the DGA driver? I can't find it!: A: ./configure autodetects your DGA driver. If - -vo help doesn't show DGA, then there's a problem with your X - installation. Try ./configure --enable-dga and read the - DGA section. Alternatively, try SDL's DGA - driver with the -vo sdl:dga option.
Q: OK, -vo help shows DGA driver, but it complains about - permissions. Help me!: A: It works only if running as root! It's a DGA limitation. - You should become root (su -), and try again. - Another solution is making MPlayer SUID root, but it's - not recommended!
-     chown root /usr/local/bin/mplayer
-     chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/mplayer
-     chmod +s /usr/local/bin/mplayer
-
- Warning: security risk
- This is a big security risk! Never do this on a server or - on a computer that you do not control completely because other users can - gain root privileges through SUID root MPlayer. You have been - warned. -
-
Q: When using Xvideo, my Voodoo 3/Banshee says: - X Error of failed request: BadAccess (attempt to access private - resource denied) - Major opcode of failed request: 147 (MIT-SHM) - Minor opcode of failed request: 1 (X_ShmAttach) - Serial number of failed request: 26 - Current serial number in output stream:27: A: The "tdfx" driver in XFree86 4.0.2/4.0.3 had this bug. This was solved - by bugfix #621 of the - XFree86 4.1.0 CVS log. So upgrade to XFree86 4.1.0 or later. - Alternatively, either download (at least) DRI version 0.6 from the - DRI homepage, or use CVS DRI.
Q: OpenGL (-vo gl) output doesn't work (hang/black window/X11 - errors/...).: A: Your OpenGL driver doesn't support dynamic texture changes - (glTexSubImage). It's known not to work with nVidia's binary mess. - It's known to work with Utah-GLX/DRI and Matrox G400 cards. Also with - DRI and Radeon cards. It won't work with DRI and other cards. - it will not work with 3DFX cards because of the 256x256 texture size limit.
Q: I have an nVidia TNT/TNT2 card, and I have a band with strange colors, - right under the movie! Whose fault is this?: A: This is a bug of nVidia's binary X driver. These bugs appear ONLY with - the TNT/TNT2 cards, and we can't do anything about it. To fix the problem, - upgrade to the latest nVidia binary driver version. If still bad, complain - to nVidia!
Q: I have an nVidia XYZ card, and when I click on the GUI's display window - to toggle displaying the GUI panel, a black square appears where I clicked. - I have the newest driver.: A: Yes, nVidia corrected a previous bug (above), and introduced a new one. - Let's congratulate them. UPDATE: According to - nVidia, this has already - been fixed.
Q: Oh the world is cruel ...! SDL has only x11 target, but - not xv!: A: Try that x11 target again. Now try - -vo x11 -fs -zoom. See the difference? No?! OK, here comes the - enlightenment: SDL's x11 target uses xv when available, you - don't have to worry about it ... Note: you can force/disable Xv via SDL - using -forcexv and -noxv

- - -

5.6 DVD playback

- -

Q: What about DVD navigation?: A: Support for dvdnav in MPlayer is currently broken, normal playback - does work, though. If you want to have fancy menus, you will have to use - another player like xine or - Ogle. If you care - about DVD navigation, send a patch.
Q: While playing a DVD, I encountered this error: - mplayer: ifo_read.c:1143: ifoRead_C_ADT_internal: Assertion - nfo_length / sizeof(cell_adr_t) >= c_adt->nr_of_vobs' failed.: A: This is a known libdvdread 0.9.1/0.9.2 bug. Use libmpdvdkit2, - which is present in MPlayer source, and used by default.
Q: Can I compile libdvdread and libdvdcss on my sweet SPARC under - Solaris?: A: Who knows ... It's said to work, so please test it and send feedback. - Refer to the documentation of libdvdread and its homepage as well. We're not - the authors of libdvdread. Use libmpdvdkit2, which is present in - MPlayer source, and used by default.
Q: What about subtitles? Can MPlayer display them?: A: Yes. See the DVD chapter.
Q: How can I set the region code of my DVD-drive? I don't have - Windows!: A: Use the - regionset tool.
Q: Do I need to be (setuid) root/setuid fibmap_mplayer to be able to play - a DVD?: A: No, only for old-style DVD support. However you must have - the proper rights on the DVD device entry (in /dev/).
Q: Where can I get libdvdread and libdvdcss packages?: A: You don't need to. Use libmpdvdkit2, which is present in the - MPlayer source, and used by default. You can get the mentioned packages - from the - Ogle site.
Q: Is it possible to play/encode only selected chapters?: A: Yes, try the -chapter option.
Q: My DVD playback is sluggish!: A: Use the -cache option (described in the man page) - and try enabling DMA for the DVD drive with the hdparm tool (described in - the CD chapter).

- - -

5.7 Feature requests

- -

Q: If MPlayer is paused and I try to seek or press any key at all, - MPlayer ceases to be paused. I would like to be able to seek in the - paused movie.: A: This is very tricky to implement without losing A/V synchronization. - All attempts have failed so far, but patches are welcome.
Q: I'd like to seek +/- 1 frames instead of 10 seconds.: A: This won't be done. It was, but then it messed up A/V sync. Feel free - to implement it, and send a patch. Don't ask for it.
Q: How can I make MPlayer remember the options I use for this - particular file?: A: Create a file named movie.avi.conf with the - file-specific options in it and put it in ~/.mplayer or in - the same directory as the file.

- - -

5.8 Encoding

- -

Q: How can I encode?: A: Read the MEncoder section.
Q: How can I create VCDs?: A: Try the mencvcd script from the TOOLS - subdirectory. With it you can encode DVDs or other movies to VCD or SVCD - format and even burn them directly to CD.
Q: How can I join two video files?: A: This has been discussed to no end on mplayer-users. Go search the - archives - for a complete answer. This is a complicated topic and your mileage may - vary a lot depending on the kind of files you want to merge. MPEGs can be - concatenated into a single file with luck. For AVIs there are two tools, - avidemux - and avimerge (part of the - transcode - tool set), available that might do the job. You can also try MEncoder if - you have two files sharing the same dimensions and codec. Try
- cat file1 file2 > file3
- mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy -o out.avi -forceidx file3.avi
Q: My tuner works, I can hear the sound and watch the video with MPlayer, - but MEncoder doesn't encode audio!: A: TV audio encoding for Linux is currently unimplemented, we're working - on it. At the moment it works only on BSD.
Q: I can't encode DVD subtitles into the AVI!: A: You have to specify the -sid option correctly!
Q: MEncoder segfaults on startup!: A: Upgrade DivX4Linux.
Q: How can I encode only selected chapters from a DVD?: A: Use the -chapter option correctly, like: - -chapter 5-7
Q: I'm trying to work with 2GB+ files on a VFAT file system. Does it work?: A: No, VFAT doesn't support 2GB+ files.
Q: Why is the recommended bitrate printed by MEncoder negative?: A: Because the bitrate you encoded the audio with is too large to fit the - movie on any CD. Check if you have libmp3lame installed properly.
Q: I can't encode ASF files to AVI/DivX because it uses 1000 fps?: A: Because ASF uses variable frame rate but AVI uses a fixed one, you - have to set it by hand using -ofps.
Q: How can I put subtitles in the output file?: A: Just pass the -sub <filename> option (or - -sid, -vobsub, respectively) to MEncoder.

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/formats.html b/DOCS/en/formats.html deleted file mode 100644 index 13ac14234e..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/formats.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,320 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Formats - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

2.1 Supported formats

- -

It is important to clarify a common mistake. When people see a file with a - .AVI extension, they immediately conclude that it is not an MPEG file. - That is not true. At least not entirely. Contrary to popular belief such a - file can contain MPEG1 video.

- -

You see, a codec is not the same as a file format.
- Examples of video codecs are: MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX, Indeo5, 3ivx.
- Examples of file formats are: MPG, AVI, ASF.

- -

In theory, you can put an OpenDivX video and MP3 audio into an MPG - format file. However, most players will not play it, since they expect MPEG1 - video and MP2 audio (unlike AVI, MPG does not have the - necessary fields to describe its video and audio streams). Or you might put - MPEG1 video into an AVI file. - FFmpeg and - MEncoder can create these files.

- - - -

2.1.1 Video formats

- - -

2.1.1.1 MPEG files

- -

MPEG files come in different guises:

- -

MPG: This is the most basic form of the MPEG file formats. It - contains MPEG1 video, and MP2 (MPEG-1 layer 2) or rarely MP1 audio.
DAT: This is the very same format as MPG with a different extension. It - is used on Video CDs. Due to the way VCDs are created and Linux is - designed, DAT files cannot be played nor copied from VCDs as regular files. - You have to use vcd:// to play a Video CD.
VOB: This is the MPEG file format on DVDs. It is the same as MPG, - plus the capability to contain subtitles or non-MPEG (AC3) audio. It - contains encoded MPEG2 video and usually AC3 audio, but DTS, MP2 and - uncompressed LPCM are allowed, too.
Read the DVD section!

- -

Series of frames form independent groups in MPEG files. This means that you - can cut/join an MPEG file with standard file tools (like dd, - cut), and it remains completely functional.

- -

One important feature of MPGs is that they have a field to describe the - aspect ratio of the video stream within. For example SVCDs have 480x480 - resolution video, and in the header that field is set to 4:3, so that it is - played at 640x480. AVI files do not have this field, so they have to be - rescaled during encoding or played with the -aspect option.

- - -

2.1.1.2 AVI files

- -

Designed by Microsoft, AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) is a widespread - multipurpose format currently used mostly for DivX and DivX4 video. It has - many known drawbacks and shortcomings (for example in streaming). It - supports one video stream and 0 to 99 audio streams. File size is limited to - 2GB, but there exists an extension allowing bigger files called - OpenDML. Microsoft currently strongly discourages its use and - encourages ASF/WMV. Not that anybody cares.

- -

There is a hack that allows AVI files to contain an Ogg Vorbis audio - stream, but makes them incompatible with standard AVI. MPlayer - supports playing these files. Seeking is also implemented but severely - hampered by badly encoded files with confusing headers. Unfortunately the - only encoder currently capable of creating these files, NanDub, has this - problem.

- -

Note: DV cameras create raw DV streams that DV grabbing utilities - convert to two different types of AVI files. The AVI will then contain either - separate audio and video streams that MPlayer can play or the raw DV - stream for which support is under development.

- -

There are two kinds of AVI files:

Interleaved: Audio and video content is interleaved. This is the - standard usage. Recommended and mostly used. Some tools create - interleaved AVIs with bad sync. MPlayer detects these as - interleaved, and this climaxes in loss of A/V sync, probably at seeking. - These files should be played as non-interleaved (with the -ni - option).
Non-interleaved: First comes the whole video stream, then the whole - audio stream. It thus needs a lot of seeking, making playing from network or - CD-Rom difficult.

- -

MPlayer supports two kinds of timings for AVI files:

bps-based: It is based on the bitrate/samplerate of the video/audio stream. This - method is used by most players, including avifile - and Windows Media Player. - Files with broken headers, and files created with VBR audio but not with a - VBR-compliant encoder will result in A/V desync with this method (mostly at - seeking).
interleaving-based: It does not use the bitrate value of the header, instead - it uses the relative position of interleaved audio and video chunks, making - badly encoded files with VBR audio playable.

- -

Any audio and video codec is allowed, but note that VBR audio is not well - supported by most players. The file format makes it possible to use VBR - audio, but most players expect CBR audio, thus they fail with VBR. VBR is - uncommon and the Microsoft AVI specs only describe CBR audio. Most AVI - encoders/multiplexers create bad files when using VBR audio. There are only - two known exceptions: NanDub and MEncoder.

- - -

2.1.1.3 ASF/WMV files

- -

ASF (active streaming format) comes from Microsoft. They developed two - variants of ASF, v1.0 and v2.0. v1.0 is used by their media tools (Windows - Media Player and Windows Media Encoder) and is very secret. v2.0 is published - and patented :). Of course they differ, there is no compatibility at all (it - is just another legal game). MPlayer supports only v1.0, as nobody has - ever seen v2.0 files :). Note that ASF files nowadays come with the extension - .WMA or .WMV.

- - -

2.1.1.4 QuickTime/MOV files

- -

These formats were designed by Apple and can contain any codec, CBR or VBR. - They usually have a .QT or .MOV extension. Ever since the MPEG4 group chose - QuickTime as the recommended file format for MPEG4, their MOV files come with - an - .MPG or .MP4 extension (Interestingly the video and audio streams in these - files are real MPG and AAC files. You can even extract them with the - -dumpvideo and -dumpaudio options.).

- -

Note: Most new QuickTime files use Sorenson video and QDesign - Music audio. See our Sorenson codec - section.

- - -

2.1.1.5 VIVO files

- -

MPlayer happily demuxes VIVO file formats. The biggest disadvantage - of the format is that it has no index block, nor a fixed packet size or sync - bytes and most files lack even keyframes, so forget seeking!

- -

The video codec of VIVO/1.0 files is standard h.263. The video codec - of VIVO/2.0 files is a modified, nonstandard h.263v2. The audio is the - same, it may be g.723 (standard), or Vivo Siren.

- -

See the VIVO video codec and - VIVO audio codec sections for installation - instructions.

- - -

2.1.1.6 FLI files

- -

FLI is a very old file format used by Autodesk Animator, but it is a - common file format for short animations on the net. MPlayer demuxes - and decodes FLI movies and is even able to seek within them (useful when - looping with the -loop option). FLI files do not have keyframes, - so the picture will be messy for a short time after seeking.

- - -

2.1.1.7 RealMedia (RM) files

- -

Yes, MPlayer can read (demux) RealMedia (.rm) files. Seeking works, - but you have to explicitly specify the -forceidx option - (the format supports keyframes). Here are the lists of the supported - RealVideo - and RealAudio codecs.

- - -

2.1.1.8 NuppelVideo files

- -

NuppelVideo - is a TV grabber tool (AFAIK:). MPlayer can read its .NUV files (only - NuppelVideo 5.0). Those files can contain uncompressed YV12, YV12+RTJpeg - compressed, YV12 RTJpeg+lzo compressed, and YV12+lzo compressed frames. - MPlayer decodes them all (and also encodes them with - MEncoder to DivX/etc!). Seeking works.

- - -

2.1.1.9 yuv4mpeg files

- -

yuv4mpeg / yuv4mpeg2 is a file - format used by the mjpegtools programs. - You can grab, produce, filter or encode video in this format using these - tools. The file format is really a sequence of uncompressed YUV 4:2:0 - images.

- - -

2.1.1.10 FILM files

- -

This format is used on old Sega Saturn CD-Rom games.

- - -

2.1.1.11 RoQ files

- -

RoQ files are multimedia files used in some ID games such as Quake III and - Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

- - -

2.1.1.12 OGG/OGM files

- -

This is a new file format from Xiphophorus. - It can contain any video or audio codec, CBR or VBR. You will need to - have libogg and libvorbis installed - before compiling MPlayer to be able to play it.

- - -

2.1.1.13 SDP files

- -

SDP - is an IETF standard format for describing video and/or audio RTP streams. - (The "LIVE.COM Streaming Media" - libraries are required.)

- - -

2.1.1.14 PVA files

- -

PVA is an MPEG-like format used by DVB TV boards' software (e.g.: MultiDec, - WinTV) under Windows.

- -

The PVA specifications can be downloaded from the following address: - http://www.technotrend.de/download/av_format_v1.pdf

- - -

2.1.1.15 GIF files

- -

The GIF format is a common format for web graphics. There are two - versions of the GIF spec, GIF87a and GIF89a. The main difference is that - GIF89a allows for animation. MPlayer supports both formats through use - of libungif or another libgif-compatible library. Non-animated GIFs will - be displayed as single frame videos. (Use the -loop and - -fixed-vo options to display these longer.)

- -

MPlayer currently does not support seeking in GIF files. GIF files do - not necessarily have a fixed frame size, nor a fixed framerate. Rather, - each frame is of independent size and is supposed to be positioned in a - certain place on a field of fixed-size. The framerate is controlled by - an optional block before each frame that specifies the next frame's delay - in centiseconds.

- -

Standard GIF files contain 24-bit RGB frames with at most an 8-bit - indexed pallete. These frames are usually LZW-compressed, although - some GIF encoders produce uncompressed frames to avoid patent issues - with LZW compression.

- -

If your distribution does not come with libungif, download a copy from the - libungif homepage. - For detailed technical information, have a look at the - GIF89a specification.

- - -

2.1.2 Audio formats

- -

MPlayer is a Movie and not a Media player, although - it can play some audio file formats (they are listed in the sections below). - This is not a recommended usage of MPlayer, you better use - xmms.

- - -

2.1.2.1 MP3 files

- -

You may have problems playing certain MP3 files that MPlayer will - misdetect as MPEGs and play incorrectly or not at all. This cannot be fixed - without dropping support for certain broken MPEG files and thus will remain - like this for the foreseeable future. The -demuxer flag - described in the man page may help you in these cases.

- - -

2.1.2.2 WAV files

- - -

2.1.2.3 OGG/OGM files (Vorbis)

- -

Requires properly installed libogg and - libvorbis.

- - -

2.1.2.4 WMA/ASF files

- - -

2.1.2.5 MP4 files

- - -

2.1.2.6 CD audio

- -

MPlayer can use cdparanoia (lib) to play CDDA (Audio CD). - The scope of this section does not contain enumerating cdparanoia's - features.

- -

See the man page's -cdda option which can be used to - pass options to cdparanoia.

- - -

2.1.2.7 XMMS

- -

MPlayer can use XMMS input plugins to play many file formats. There are - plugins for SNES game tunes, SID tunes (from Commodore 64), many Amiga - formats, .xm, .it, VQF, musepack, Bonk, shorten and many others. You can find - them at the - XMMS input plugin page.

- -

For this feature you need to have XMMS and compile MPlayer with - ./configure --enable-xmms. If that does not work, you might need - to set the XMMS plugin and library path explicitly by way of the - --with-xmmsplugindir and --with-xmmslibdir - options.

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/skin.html b/DOCS/en/skin.html deleted file mode 100644 index 8838f0948d..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/skin.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,802 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - Creating Skins - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - -

Appendix D - MPlayer skin format

- -

The purpose of this document is to describe the MPlayer skin format. - The information contained here might be wrong, for

- -

It is not me who wrote the GUI.
The GUI is not finished.
I might be wrong.

- -

So do not be surprised if something does not work as described here.

- -

Thanks to Zoltán Ponekker for his help.

- -

András Mohari <mayday@freemail.hu>

- - -

D.1 Overview

- -

It does not really have anything to do with the skin format, but you should - know that MPlayer has no builtin skin, so at least one skin - must be installed in order to be able to use the GUI.

- - -

D.1.1 Directories

- -

The directories searched for skins are (in order):

- -

-    $(DATADIR)/Skin/
-    $(PREFIX)/share/mplayer/Skin/
-    ~/.mplayer/Skin/
-

- -

Note that the first path may vary according to the way MPlayer was configured - (see the --prefix and --datadir arguments of the - configure script).

- -

Every skin is installed into its own directory under one of the directories - listed above, for example:

- -

-    $(PREFIX)/share/mplayer/Skin/default/
-

- - -

D.1.2 Image formats

- -

Images must be truecolor (24 or 32 bpp) PNGs.

- -

In the main window and in the playbar (see below) you can use images with - `transparency': Regions filled with the color #FF00FF - (magenta) are fully transparent when viewed by - MPlayer. This means that you can even have shaped windows if your X server - has the XShape extension.

- - -

D.1.3 Skin components

- -

Skins are quite free-format (unlike the fixed-format skins of Winamp/XMMS, - for example), so it is up to you to create something great.

- -

Currently there are three windows to be decorated: the - main window, the subwindow, - the playbar, and the skin menu - (which can be activated by a right click).

- -

The main window and/or the playbar is where you can - control MPlayer. The background of the window is an image. Various items - can (and must) be placed in the window: buttons, potmeters - (sliders) and labels. For every item, you must specify its position - and size.
- -
A button has three states (pressed, released, disabled), thus its - image must be divided into three parts vertically. See the - button item for details.
- -
A potmeter (mainly used for the seek bar and volume/balance - control) can have any number of phases by dividing its image into - different parts below each other. See - hpotmeter and - potmeter for details.
- -
Labels are a bit special: The characters needed to draw them are - taken from an image file, and the characters in the image are described by - a font description file. The latter is a plain text - file which specifies the x,y position and size of each character in the - image (the image file and its font description file form a font - together). See dlabel and - slabel for details.
- -
Note: all images can have full transparency as - described in the section about image formats. If the X - server doesn't support the XShape extension, the parts marked transparent - will be black. If you'd like to use this feature, the width of the main - window's background image must be dividable by 8.
-
The subwindow is where the movie appears. It can display a - specified image if there is no movie loaded (it is quite boring to have an - empty window :-)) Note: transparency is - not allowed here.
The skin menu is just a way to control MPlayer by means of menu - entries. Two images are required for the menu: one of them is the base image - that shows the menu in its normal state, the other one is used to display - the selected entries. When you pop up the menu, the first image is shown. If - you move the mouse over the menu entries, the currently selected entry is - copied from the second image over the menu entry below the mouse pointer - (the second image is never shown as a whole).
- -
A menu entry is defined by its position and size in the image (see the - section about the skin menu for details).
-

- -

There is an important thing not mentioned yet: For buttons, potmeters and - menu entries to work, MPlayer must know what to do if they are clicked. This - is done by messages (events). For these items you must - define the messages to be generated when they are clicked.

- - -

D.1.4 Files

- -

You need the following files to build a skin:

- -

The configuration file named skin tells MPlayer how - to put different parts of the skin together and what to do if you click - somewhere in the window.
The background image for the main window.
Images for the items in the main window (including one or more font - description files needed to draw labels).
The image to be displayed in the subwindow (optional).
Two images for the skin menu (they are needed only if you want to create - a menu).

- -

With the exception of the skin configuration file, you can name the other - files whatever you want (but note that font description files must have - a .fnt extension).

- - -

D.2 The skin file

- -

As mentioned above, this is the skin configuration file. It is line oriented; - comment lines start with a ';' character at the beginning of the - line (only spaces and tabs are allowed before the ';').

- -

The file is made up of sections. Each section describes the skin for an - application and has the following form:

- - - - - -

-section = section name
-.
-.
-.
-end
-

- -

Currently there is only one application, so you need only one section: its - name is movieplayer.

- -

Within this section each window is described by a block of the following - form:

- - - - - -

-window = window name
-.
-.
-.
-end
-

- -

where window name can be one of these strings:

- -

main - for the main window
sub - for the subwindow
menu - for the skin menu
playbar - playbar

- -

(The sub and menu blocks are optional - you do not need to create a menu or - decorate the subwindow.)

- -

Within a window block, you can define each item for the window by a line in - this form:

- -

item = parameter: Where item is a string that identifies the type of the GUI - item, parameter is a numeric or textual value (or a list of - values separated by commas).

- -

Putting the above together, the whole file looks something like this:

- - - - - -

-section = movieplayer
-  window = main
-  ; ... items for main window ...
-  end
-  
-  window = sub
-  ; ... items for subwindow ...
-  end
-  
-  window = menu
-  ; ... items for menu ...
-  end
-
-  window = playbar
-  ; ... items for playbar ...
-  end
-end
-

- -

The name of an image file must be given without leading directories - images - are searched for in the Skin directory. You may (but you need - not) specify the extension of the file. If the file does not exist, MPlayer - tries to load the file <filename>.<ext>, where - png and PNG are tried for <ext> - (in this order). The first matching file will be used.

- -

Finally some words about positioning. The main window and the subwindow can - be placed in the different corners of the screen by giving X and - Y coordinates. 0 is top or left, -1 is - center and -2 is right or bottom, as shown in this - illustration:

- -

-
-(0, 0)----(-1, 0)----(-2, 0)
-  |          |          |
-  |          |          |
-(0,-1)----(-1,-1)----(-2,-1)
-  |          |          |
-  |          |          |
-(0,-2)----(-1,-2)----(-2,-2)
-
-

- - - - - -

Here is an example to make this clear. Suppose that you have an image - called main.png that you use for the main window: -

- base = main, -1, -1 -

- MPlayer tries to load main, main.png, - main.PNG files. -

- - -

D.2.1 Main window and playbar

- -

Below is the list of entries that can be used in the - 'window = main' . . . 'end', and the - 'window = playbar' . . 'end' blocks.

- -

base = image, X, Y

Lets you specify the background image to be used for the main window. - The window will appear at the given X,Y position on the screen - The window will have the size of the image. -

Note: These coordinates do not currently work - for the display window.

Warning: Transparent regions in the image - (colored #FF00FF) appear black on X servers without the XShape extension. - The image's width must be dividable by 8.

button = image, X, Y, width, height, - message

Place a button of width * height size at - position X,Y. The specified message - is generated when the button is clicked. The image given by - image must have three parts below each other (according to the - possible states of the button), like this: -

-+------------+
-|  pressed   |
-+------------+
-|  released  |
-+------------+
-|  disabled  |
-+------------+
-

decoration = enable|disable -

Enable or disable window manager decoration of the main window. Default - is disable. -

Note: This doesn't work for the display window, - there is no need to.

hpotmeter = button, bwidth, bheight, - phases, numphases, default, X, Y, width, height, message - vpotmeter = button, bwidth, bheight, phases, numphases, default, X, Y, - width, height, message

Place a horizontal (hpotmeter) or vertical (vpotmeter) potmeter of - width * height - size at position X,Y. The image can be divided - into different parts for the different phases of the potmeter (for example, - you can have a pot for volume control that turns from green to red while its - value changes from the minimum to the maximum.). hpotmeter can - have a button that can be dragged horizontally. - -

The parameters are:

- -

button - the image to be used for the button (must have - three parts below each other, like in case of - button)
bwidth, bheight - size of the button
phases - The image to be used for the different phases of - the hpotmeter. A special value of NULL can be used if you - want no such image. The image must be divided into - numphasesparts vertically like this: -
```
-+------------+
-|  phase #1  |
-+------------+
-|  phase #2  |
-+------------+
-     ...
-+------------+
-|  phase #n  |
-+------------+
-
```
-
numphases - number of phases stored in the - phases image
default - default value for hpotmeter (in the range 0 to - 100)
X, Y - position for the hpotmeter
width, height - width and height of the - hpotmeter
message - the message to be generated when the value of - hpotmeter is changed

potmeter = phases, numphases, default, X, - Y, width, height, message

A hpotmeter without a button. (I guess it is meant to be - turned around, but it reacts to horizontal dragging only.) For the - description of the parameters see hpotmeter. - phases can be NULL, but it is quite useless, since - you cannot see where the potmeter is set.

font = fontfile, fontid

Defines a font. fontfile is the name of a font description - file with a .fnt extension (do not specify the extension - here). fontid is used to refer to the font (see - dlabel and slabel). - Up to 25 fonts can be defined.

slabel = X, Y, fontid, "text" -

- Place a static label at the position X,Y. - text is displayed using the font identified by fontid. - The text is just a raw string ($x variables do not work) that must - be enclosed between double quotes (but the " character cannot be - part of the text). The label is displayed using the font identified by - fontid.

dlabel = X, Y, length, align, fontid, - "text"

Place a dynamic label at the position X,Y. The - label is called dynamic because its text is refreshed periodically. The - maximum length of the label is given by length (its height is - the height of a character). If the text to be displayed is wider than that, - it will be scrolled, otherwise it is aligned within the specified space by - the value of the align parameter: 0 is for right, - 1 is for center, 2 is for left.
- The text to be displayed is given by text: It must be written - between double quotes (but the " character cannot be part of - the text). The label is displayed using the font identified by - fontid. You can use the following variables in the text: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Variable	Meaning
`$1`	play time in hh:mm:ss format
`$2`	play time in mmmm:ss format
`$3`	play time in hh format (hours)
`$4`	play time in mm format (minutes)
`$5`	play time in ss format (seconds)
`$6`	movie length in hh:mm:ss format
`$7`	movie length in mmmm:ss format
`$8`	play time in h:mm:ss format
`$v`	volume in xxx.xx% format
`$V`	volume in xxx.x format
`$b`	balance in xxx.xx% format
`$B`	balance in xxx.x format
`$$`	the `$` character
`$a`	a character according to the audio type (none: `n`, - mono: `m`, stereo: `t`)
`$t`	track number (in playlist)
`$o`	filename
`$f`	filename in lower case
`$F`	filename in upper case
`$T`	a character according to the stream type (file: `f`, - Video CD: `v`, DVD: `d`, URL: `u`) -
`$p`	the "p" character (if a movie is playing and the font has the "p" - character)
`$s`	the "s" character (if the movie is stopped and the font has the "s" - character)
`$e`	the "e" character (if playback is paused and the font has the "e" - character)
`$x`	movie width
`$y`	movie height
`$C`	name of the codec used

- - Note: The $a, $T, - $p, $sand $e variables all return - characters that should be displayed as special symbols (for example, "e" is - for the pause symbol that usually looks something like ||). You - should have a font for normal characters and a different font for symbols. - See the section about symbols for more - information. -

- - -

D.2.2 Subwindow

- -

The following entries can be used in the 'window = sub' - . . . 'end' block.

- -

base = image, X, Y, width, height -: The image to be displayed in the window. The window will appear at the - given X,Y position on the screen (0,0 - is the top left corner). You can specify -1 for center and - -2 for right (X) and bottom (Y). The - window will be as large as the image. width and - height denote the size of the window; they are optional (if - they are missing, the window is the same size as the image).
background = R, G, B: Lets you set the background color. It is useful if the image is smaller - than the window. R, G and B specifies - the red, green and blue component of the color (each of them is a decimal - number from 0 to 255).

- - -

D.2.3 Skin menu

- -

As mentioned earlier, the menu is displayed using two images. Normal menu - entries are taken from the image specified by the base item, - while the currently selected entry is taken from the image specified by the - selected item. You must define the position and size of each menu - entry through the menu item.

- -

These are the entries that can be used in the 'window = menu' - . . . 'end' block.

- -

base = image: The image for normal menu entries.
selected = image: The image showing the menu with all entries selected.
menu = X, Y, width, height, message -: Defines the X,Y position and the size of a menu entry in the - image. message is the message to be generated when the mouse - button is released over the entry.

- - -

D.3 Fonts

- -

As mentioned in the section about the parts of a skin, a font is defined by - an image and a description file. You can place the characters anywhere in the - image, but make sure that their position and size is given in the description - file exactly.

- -

The font description file (with .fnt extension) can have comment - lines starting with ';'. The file must have a line in the - form

- -

image = image: Where image is the name of the image file to be used for the - font (you do not have to specify the extension).
"char" = X, Y, width, height -: Here X and Y specify the position of the - char character in the image (0,0 is the upper left - corner). width and height are the dimensions of - the character in pixels.

- -

This example defines the A, B, C characters using font.png.

- - - - - -

-; Can be "font" instead of "font.png".
-image = font.png
-
-; Three characters are enough for demonstration purposes :-)
-"A" =  0,0, 7,13
-"B" =  7,0, 7,13
-"C" = 14,0, 7,13
-

- - -

D.3.1 Symbols

- -

Some characters have special meanings when returned by some of the variables - used in dlabel. These characters are meant to be - shown as symbols so that things like a nice DVD logo can be displayed instead - of the character 'd' for a DVD stream.

- -

The following table lists all the characters that can be used to display - symbols (and thus require a different font).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Character	Symbol
`p`	play
`s`	stop
`e`	pause
`n`	no sound
`m`	mono sound
`t`	stereo sound
`f`	stream is a file
`v`	stream is a Video CD
`d`	stream is a DVD
`u`	stream is a URL

- - -

D.4 GUI messages

- -

These are the messages that can be generated by buttons, potmeters and menu - entries.

- -

Note: Some of the messages might not work as expected - (or not work at all). As you know, the GUI is under development.

- - -

Playback control:

- -

-
-
evNext
-
Jump to next track in the playlist.
- -
evPause
-
Pause playing.
- -
evPauseSwitchToPlay
-
Forms a switch together with evPlaySwitchToPause. They can - be used to have a common play/pause button. Both messages should be - assigned to buttons displayed at the very same position in the window. - This message pauses playing and the image for the - evPlaySwitchToPause button is displayed (to indicate that the - button can be pressed to continue playing).
- -
evPlay
-
Start playing.
- -
evPlaySwitchToPause
-
The opposite of evPauseSwitchToPlay. This message starts - playing and the image for the evPauseSwitchToPlay button is - displayed (to indicate that the button can be pressed to pause - playing).
- -
evPrev
-
Jump to previous track in the playlist.
- -
evStop
-
Stop playing.
-
-

- - -

Seeking:

- -

-
-
evBackward10sec
-
evBackward1min
-
evBackward10min
-
Seek backward 10 seconds / 1 minute / 10 minutes.
- -
evForward10sec
-
evForward1min
-
evForward10min
-
Seek forward 10 seconds / 1 minute / 10 minutes.
- -
evSetMoviePosition
-
Seek to position (can be used by a potmeter; the relative value (0-100%) - of the potmeter is used).
-
-

- - -

Video control:

- -

-
-
evDoubleSize
-
Set the movie window to double size.
- -
evFullScreen
-
Switch fullscreen mode on/off.
- -
evNormalSize
-
Set the movie window to its normal size.
-
-

- - -

Audio control:

- -

-
-
evDecAudioBufDelay
-
Decrease audio buffer delay.
- -
evDecBalance
-
Decrease balance.
- -
evDecVolume
-
Decrease volume.
- -
evIncAudioBufDelay
-
Increase audio buffer delay.
- -
evIncBalance
-
Increase balance.
- -
evIncVolume
-
Increase volume.
- -
evMute
-
Mute/unmute the sound.
- -
evSetBalance
-
Set balance (can be used by a potmeter; the relative value (0-100%) of - the potmeter is used).
- -
evSetVolume
-
Set volume (can be used by a potmeter; the relative value (0-100%) of - the potmeter is used).
-
-

- - -

Miscellaneous:

- -

-
-
evAbout
-
Open the about window.
- -
evDropSubtitle
-
Disables the currently used subtitle.
- -
evEqualizer
-
Turn the equalizer on/off.
- -
evExit
-
Quit the program.
- -
evIconify
-
Iconify the window.
- -
evLoad
-
Load a file (by opening a file browser window, where you can choose a - file).
- -
evLoadPlay
-
Does the same as evLoad, but it automatically starts - playing after the file is loaded.
- -
evLoadSubtitle
-
Loads a subtitle file (with the fileselector)
- -
evLoadAudioFile
-
Loads an audio file (with the fileselector)
- -
evNone
-
Empty message, it has no effect (except maybe in CVS versions :-)).
- -
evPlayList
-
Open/close the playlist window.
- -
evPlayDVD
-
Tries to open the disc in the given DVD-ROM drive.
- -
evPlayVCD
-
Tries to open the disc in the given CD-ROM drive.
- -
evPreferences
-
Open the preferences window.
- -
evSetAspect
-
Sets displayed image aspect.
- -
evSetURL
-
Displays the URL dialog window.
- -
evSkinBrowser
-
Open the skin browser window.
-
-

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/sound.html b/DOCS/en/sound.html deleted file mode 100644 index 09d3056ae6..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/sound.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,854 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Sound - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

2.3.2 Audio output devices

- -

2.3.2.1 Audio/Video synchronisation

- -

MPlayer's audio interface is called libao2. It currently - contains these drivers:

- -

oss: OSS (ioctl) driver (supports hardware AC3 passthrough)
sdl: SDL driver (supports sound daemons like ESD and ARTS)
nas: NAS (Network Audio System) driver
alsa5: native ALSA 0.5 driver
alsa9: native ALSA 0.9 driver (supports hardware AC3 passthrough)
sun: SUN audio driver (/dev/audio) for BSD and Solaris8 users
macosx: native MacOSX driver
win32: native Win32 driver
arts: native ARTS driver (mostly for KDE users)
esd: native ESD driver (mostly for GNOME users)

- -

Linux sound card drivers have compatibility problems. This is because MPlayer - relies on an in-built feature of properly coded sound drivers that - enable them to maintain correct audio/video sync. Regrettably, some driver - authors don't take the care to code this feature since it is not needed for - playing MP3s or sound effects.

- -

Other media players like aviplay - or xine possibly work - out-of-the-box with these drivers because they use "simple" methods with - internal timing. Measuring showed that their methods are not as efficient - as MPlayer's.

- -

Using MPlayer with a properly written audio driver will never result - in A/V desyncs related to the audio, except only with very badly created - files (check the man page for workarounds).

- -

If you happen to have a bad audio driver, try the -autosync - option, it should sort out your problems. See the man page for detailed - information.

- -

Some notes:

- -

If you have an OSS driver, first try -ao oss (this is the - default). If you experience glitches, halts or anything out of the - ordinary, try -ao sdl (NOTE: You need to have SDL libraries - and header files installed). The SDL audio driver helps in a lot of cases - and also supports ESD (GNOME) and ARTS (KDE).
If you have ALSA version 0.5, then you almost always have to use - -ao alsa5 , since ALSA 0.5 has buggy OSS emulation code, and - will crash MPlayer with a message like this:
- DEMUXER: Too many (945 in 8390980 bytes) video packets in the buffer!
On Solaris, use the SUN audio driver with the -ao sun option, - otherwise neither video nor audio will work.
If the sound clicks when playing from CD-ROM, turn on IRQ unmasking, e.g. - hdparm -u1 /dev/cdrom (man hdparm). This is - generally beneficial and described in more detail in the - CD-ROM section.

- - -

2.3.2.2 Sound Card experiences, recommendations

- -

On Linux, a 2.4.x kernel is highly recommended. Kernel 2.2 is not tested.

- -

Linux sound drivers are primarily provided by the free version of OSS. These - drivers have been superceded by ALSA - (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) in the 2.5 development series. If your - distribution does not already use ALSA you may wish to try their drivers if - you experience sound problems. ALSA drivers are generally superior to OSS in - compatibility, performance and features. But some sound cards are only - supported by the commercial OSS drivers from - 4Front Technologies. They also support - several non-Linux systems.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SOUND CARD	DRIVER				Max kHz	Max Channels	Max Opens[1]
SOUND CARD	OSS/Free	ALSA	OSS/Pro	other	Max kHz	Max Channels	Max Opens[1]
VIA onboard (686/A/B, 8233, 8235)	via82cxxx_audio	snd-via82xx			4-48 kHz or 48 kHz only, depending on the chipset
Aureal Vortex 2	none	none	OK	Linux Aureal Drivers - buffer size increased to 32k	48	4.1	5+
SB Live!	Analog OK, SP/DIF not working	Both OK	Both OK	Creative's OSS driver (SP/DIF support)	192	4.0/5.1	32
SB 128 PCI (es1371)	OK	?			48	stereo	2
SB AWE 64	max 44kHz	48kHz sounds bad			48
GUS PnP	none	OK	OK		48
Gravis UltraSound ACE	not OK	OK			44
Gravis UltraSound MAX	OK	OK (?)			48
ESS 688	OK	OK (?)			48
C-Media cards (CMI8338/8738)	OK	OK SP/DIF is supported with ALSA 0.9.x	?		44	stereo	1
*Yamaha cards (ymf)*	not OK (?) (maybe `-ao sdl`)	OK only with ALSA 0.5 with OSS emulation AND - `-ao sdl` (!) (?)			?
Cards with envy24 chips (like Terratec EWS88MT)	?	?	OK		?
PC Speaker or DAC	OK	none		Linux PC speaker OSS driver	The driver emulates 44.1, maybe more.	mono	1

- -

[1]: the number of applications that are able to use the - device at the same time.

- -

Feedback to this document is welcome. Please tell us how MPlayer - and your sound card(s) worked together.

- - -

2.3.2.3 Audio filters

- -

The old audio plugins have been superseded by a new audio filter layer. Audio - filters are used for changing the properties of the audio data before the - sound reaches the sound card. The activation and deactivation of the filters - is normally automated but can be overridden. The filters are activated when - the properties of the audio data differ from those required by the sound card - and deactivated if unnecessary. The -af filter1,filter2,... - option is used to override the automatic activation of filters or to insert - filters that are not automatically inserted. The filters will be executed as - they appear in the comma separated list.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af resample,pan movie.avi

- -

would run the sound through the resampling filter followed by the pan filter. - Observe that the list must not contain any spaces, else it will fail.

- -

The filters often have options that change their behavior. These options - are explained in detail in the sections below. A filter will execute using - default settings if its options are omitted. Here is an example of how to use - filters in combination with filter specific options:

- -

mplayer -af resample=11025,pan=1:0.5:0.5 -channels 1 - -srate 11025 media.avi

- -

would set the output frequency of the resample filter to 11025Hz and downmix - the audio to 1 channel using the pan filter.

- -

The overall execution of the filter layer is controlled using the - -af-adv option. This option has two suboptions:

- -

force

-

is a Bit field that controls how the filters are inserted and what - speed/accuracy optimizations they use: -

0: Use automatic insertion of filters and optimize according to CPU - speed.
1: Use automatic insertion of filters and optimize for the highest - speed.
- Warning: Some features in the audio filters may silently fail, - and the sound quality may drop.
2: Use automatic insertion of filters and optimize for quality.
3: Use no automatic insertion of filters and no optimization.
- Warning: It may be possible to crash MPlayer using this - setting.
4: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 0 above, but use - floating point processing when possible.
5: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 1 above, but use - floating point processing when possible.
6: Use automatic insertion of filters according to 2 above, but use - floating point processing when possible.
7: Use no automatic insertion of filters according to 3 above, and use - floating point processing when possible.

list

is an alias for the -af option.

- -

The filter layer is also affected by the following generic options: - -

-v: Increases the verbosity level and makes most filters print out extra - status messages.
-channels: This option sets the number of output channels you would like your - sound card to use. - It also affects the number of channels that are being decoded from the - media. If the media contains less channels than requested the channels - filter (see below) will automatically be inserted. The routing will be the - default routing for the channels filter.
-srate: This option selects the sample rate you would like your sound card to - use (of course the cards have limits on this). If the sample - frequency of your sound card is different from that of the current media, - the resample filter (see below) will be inserted into the audio filter layer - to compensate for the difference.
-format
-: This option sets the sample format between the audio filter layer and the sound - card. If the requested sample format of your sound card is different from - that of the current media, a format filter (see below) will be inserted to - rectify the difference.

- - -

2.3.2.3.1 Up/Down-sampling

- -

MPlayer fully supports sound up/down-sampling through the - resample filter. It can be used if you - have a fixed frequency sound card or if you are stuck with an old sound card - that is only capable of max 44.1kHz. This filter is automatically enabled if - it is necessary, but it can also be explicitly enabled on the command line. It - has three options:

- -

srate <8000-192000>: is an integer used for setting the output sample - frequency in Hz. The valid range for this parameter is 8kHz to 192kHz. If - the input and output sample frequency are the same or if this parameter is - omitted the filter is automatically unloaded. A high sample frequency - normally improves the audio quality, especially when used in combination - with other filters.
sloppy: is an optional binary parameter that allows the output frequency to differ - slightly from the frequency given by srate. This option can be - used if the startup of the playback is extremely slow. It is enabled by - default.
type <0-2>
-: is an optional integer between 0 and 2 that - selects which resampling method to use. Here 0 represents - linear interpolation as resampling method, 1 represents - resampling using a poly-phase filter-bank and integer processing and - 2 represents resampling using a poly-phase filter-bank and - floating point processing. Linear interpolation is extremely fast, but - suffers from poor sound quality especially when used for up-sampling. The - best quality is given by 2 but this method also suffers from - the highest CPU load.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af resample=44100:0:0

- -

would set the output frequency of the resample filter to 44100Hz using exact - output frequency scaling and linear interpolation.

- - -

2.3.2.3.2 Changing the number of channels

- -

The channels filter can be used for adding and removing - channels, it can also be used for routing or copying channels. It is - automatically enabled when the output from the audio filter layer differs from - the input layer or when it is requested by another filter. This filter unloads - itself if not needed. The number of options is dynamic:

- -

nch <1-6>: is an integer between 1 and 6 that is used for - setting the number of output channels. This option is required, leaving it - empty results in a runtime error.
nr <1-6>: is an integer between 1 and 6 that is used for - specifying the number of routes. This parameter is optional. If it is - omitted the default routing is used.
from1:to1:from2:to2:from3:to3...: are pairs of numbers between 0 and 5 that define - where each channel should be routed.

- -

If only nch is given the default routing is used, it works as - follows: If the number of output channels is bigger than the number of input - channels empty channels are inserted (except mixing from mono to stereo, then - the mono channel is repeated in both of the output channels). If the number of - output channels is smaller than the number of input channels the exceeding - channels are truncated.

- -

Example 1:
- mplayer -af channels=4:4:0:1:1:0:2:2:3:3 media.avi

- -

would change the number of channels to 4 and set up 4 routes that swap - channel 0 and channel 1 and leave channel 2 and 3 intact. Observe that if - media containing two channels was played back, channels 2 and 3 would contain - silence but 0 and 1 would still be swapped.

- -

Example 2:
- mplayer -af channels=6:4:0:0:0:1:0:2:0:3 media.avi

- -

would change the number of channels to 6 and set up 4 routes that copy - channel 0 to channels 0 to 3. Channel 4 and 5 will contain silence.

- - -

2.3.2.3.3 Sample format converter

- -

The format filter converts between different sample formats. It - is automatically enabled when needed by the sound card or another filter.

- -

bps <number>: can be 1, 2 or 4 and denotes the - number of bytes per sample. This option is required, leaving it empty - results in a runtime error.
f <format>: is a text string describing the sample format. The string is a - concatenated mix of: alaw, mulaw or - imaadpcm, float or int, - unsigned or signed, le or - be (little or big endian). This option is required, leaving it - empty results in a runtime error.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af format=4:float media.avi

- -

would set the output format to 4 bytes per sample floating point - data.

- - -

2.3.2.3.4 Delay

- -

The delay filter delays the sound to the loudspeakers such that - the sound from the different channels arrives at the listening position - simultaneously. - It is only useful if you have more than 2 loudspeakers. This filter has a - variable number of parameters:

- -

d1:d2:d3...: are floating point numbers representing the delays in ms that should be - imposed on the different channels. The minimum delay is 0ms and the maximum - is 1000ms.

- -

To calculate the required delay for the different channels do as follows:

- -

Measure the distance to the loudspeakers in meters in relation to your - listening position, giving you the distances s1 to s5 (for a 5.1 system). - There is no point in compensating for the sub-woofer (you will not hear the - difference anyway).
Subtract the distances s1 to s5 from the maximum distance i.e.
- s[i] = max(s) - s[i]; i = 1...5
Calculated the required delays in ms as
- d[i] = 1000*s[i]/342; i = 1...5

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af delay=10.5:10.5:0:0:7:0 media.avi

- -

would delay front left and right by 10.5ms, the two rear channels and the sub - by 0ms and the center channel by 7ms.

- - -

2.3.2.3.5 Software volume control

- -

Software volume control is implemented by the volume audio - filter. Use this filter with caution since - it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of the sound. In most cases it is best - to set the level for the PCM sound to max, leave this filter out and control - the output level to your speakers with the master volume control of the mixer. - In case your sound card has a digital PCM mixer instead of an analog one, and - you hear distortion, use the MASTER mixer instead. - If there is an external amplifier connected to the computer (this is almost - always the case), the noise level can be minimized by adjusting the master - level and the volume knob on the amplifier until the hissing noise in the - background is gone. This filter has two options:

- -

v <-200 - +60>: is a floating point number between -200 and +60 - which represents the volume level in dB. The default level is 0dB.
c: is a binary control that turns soft clipping on and off. Soft-clipping can - make the sound more smooth if very high volume levels are used. Enable this - option if the dynamic range of the loudspeakers is very low. Be aware that - this feature creates distortion and should be considered a last resort.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af volume=10.1:0 media.avi

- -

would amplify the sound by 10.1dB and hard-clip if the sound level is too - high.

- -

This filter has a second feature: It measures the overall maximum sound level - and prints out that level when MPlayer exits. This volume estimate can be used - for setting the sound level in MEncoder such that the maximum dynamic range is - utilized.

- - -

2.3.2.3.6 Equalizer

- -

The equalizer filter represents a 10 octave band graphic - equalizer, implemented using 10 IIR - band pass filters. This means that it works regardless of what type of audio - is being played back. The center frequencies for the 10 bands are:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Band No.	Center frequency
0	31.25 Hz
1	62.50 Hz
2	125.0 Hz
3	250.0 Hz
4	500.0 Hz
5	1.000 kHz
6	2.000 kHz
7	4.000 kHz
8	8.000 kHz
9	16.00 kHz

- -

If the sample rate of the sound being played back is lower than the center - frequency for a frequency band, then that band will be disabled. A known bug - with this filter is that the characteristics for the uppermost band are not - completely symmetric if the sample rate is close to the center frequency of - that band. This problem can be worked around by up-sampling the sound using - the resample filter before it reaches this filter.

- -

This filter has 10 parameters:

- -

g1:g2:g3...g10: are floating point numbers between -12 and +12 - representing the gain in dB for each frequency band.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af equalizer=11:11:10:5:0:-12:0:5:12:12 media.avi

- -

would amplify the sound in the upper and lower frequency region while - canceling it almost completely around 1kHz.

- - -

2.3.2.3.7 Panning filter

- -

Use the pan filter to mix channels arbitrarily. It is basically - a combination of the volume control and the channels filter. There are two - major uses for this filter:

- -

Down-mixing many channels to only a few, stereo to mono for example.
Varying the "width" of the center speaker in a surround sound system.

- -

This filter is hard to use, and will require some tinkering before the - desired result is obtained. The number of options for this filter depends on - the number of output channels:

- -

nch <1-6>: is an integer between 1 and 6 and is used for - setting the number of output channels. This option is required, leaving it - empty results in a runtime error.
l00:l01:l02:..l10:l11:l12:...ln0:ln1:ln2:...: are floating point values between 0 and 1. - l[i][j] determines how much of input channel j is mixed into - output channel i.

- -

Example 1:
- mplayer -af pan=1:0.5:0.5 -channels 1 media.avi

- -

would down-mix from stereo to mono.

- -

Example 2:
- mplayer -af pan=3:1:0:1:0.5:0.5 -channels 3 media.avi

- -

would give 3 channel output leaving channels 0 and 1 intact, and mix channels - 0 and 1 into output channel 2 (which could be sent to a sub-woofer for - example).

- - -

2.3.2.3.8 Sub-woofer

- -

The sub filter adds a sub woofer channel to the audio stream. - The audio data - used for creating the sub-woofer channel is an average of the sound in channel - 0 and channel 1. The resulting sound is then low-pass filtered by a 4th - order Butterworth filter with a default cutoff frequency of 60Hz and added to - a separate channel in the audio stream. Warning: Disable this filter when you - are playing DVDs with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, otherwise this filter will - disrupt the sound to the sub-woofer. This filter has two parameters:

- -

fc <20-300>: is an optional floating point number used for setting the cutoff frequency - for the filter in Hz. The valid range is 20Hz to 300Hz. For the best result - try setting the cutoff frequency as low as possible. This will improve the - stereo or surround sound experience. The default cutoff frequency is - 60Hz.
ch <0-5>: is an optional integer between 0 and 5 which - determines the channel number in which to insert the sub-channel audio. - The default is channel number 5. Observe that the number of - channels will automatically be increased to ch if - necessary.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af sub=100:4 -channels 5 media.avi

- -

would add a sub-woofer channel with a cutoff frequency of 100Hz to output - channel 4.

- -

2.3.2.3.9 Surround-sound decoder

- -

Matrix encoded surround sound can be decoded by the surround - filter. Dolby Surround is - an example of a matrix encoded format. Many files with 2 channel audio - actually contain matrixed surround sound. To use this feature you need a sound - card supporting at least 4 channels. This filter has one parameter:

- -

d <0-1000>: is an optional floating point number between 0 and - 1000 used for setting the delay time in ms for the rear - speakers. This delay should be set as follows: if d1 is the distance from - the listening position to the front speakers and d2 is the distance from - the listening position to the rear speakers, then the delay d - should be set to 15ms if d1 <= d2 and to 15 + 5*(d1-d2) if d1 > d2. - The default value for d is 20ms.

- -

Example:
- mplayer -af surround=15 -channels 4 media.avi

- -

would add surround sound decoding with 15ms delay for the sound to the rear - speakers.

- - -

2.3.2.4 Audio plugins (deprecated)

- -

Note: Audio plugins have been deprecated by audio filters and will be - removed soon.

- -

MPlayer has support for audio plugins. Audio plugins can be used to - change the properties of the audio data before it reaches the sound - card. They are enabled using the -aop option which takes a - list=plugin1,plugin2,... argument. The list argument - is required and determines which plugins should be used and in which order they - should be executed. Example:

- -

mplayer media.avi -aop list=resample,format

- -

would run the sound through the resampling plugin followed by the format - plugin.

- -

The plugins can also have options that change their behavior. These - options are explained in detail in the sections below. A plugin will execute - using default settings if its options are omitted. Here is an example of how - to use plugins in combination with plugin specific options:

- -

mplayer media.avi -aop - list=resample,format:fout=44100:format=0x8

- -

would set the output frequency of the resample plugin to 44100Hz and the - output format of the format plugin to AFMT_U8.

- -

Currently audio plugins cannot be used in MEncoder.

- - -

2.3.2.4.1 Up/Downsampling

- -

MPlayer fully supports up/downsampling of the sound. This plugin can - be used if you have a fixed frequency sound card or if you are - stuck with an old sound card that is only capable of max 44.1kHz. - MPlayer autodetects whether or not usage of this plugin is necessary. - This plugin has one option, fout, which is used for setting the - desired output sample frequency. The value is given in Hz, and defaults to - 48kHz.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop list=resample:fout=<required - frequency in Hz, like 44100>

- -

Note that the output frequency should not be scaled up from the default value. - Scaling up will cause the audio and video streams to be played in slow motion - and cause audio distortion.

- - -

2.3.2.4.2 Surround Sound decoding

- -

MPlayer has an audio plugin that can decode matrix encoded - surround sound. Dolby Surround is an example of a matrix encoded format. - Many files with 2 channel audio actually contain matrixed surround sound. - To use this feature you need a sound card supporting at least 4 channels.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop list=surround

- - -

2.3.2.3.3 Sample format converter

- -

If your sound card driver does not support signed 16bit int data type, - this plugin can - be used to change the format to one which your sound card can understand. It - has one option, format, which can be set to one of the numbers - found in libao2/afmt.h. This plugin is hardly ever needed and is - intended for advanced users. Keep in mind that this plugin only changes the - sample format and not the sample frequency or the number of channels.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop - list=format:format=<required output format>

- - -

2.3.2.4.4 Delay

- -

This plugin delays the sound and is intended as an example of how to develop - new plugins. It can not be used for anything useful from a users perspective - and is mentioned here for the sake of completeness only. Do not use this - plugin unless you are a developer.

- -

If you have a file with a consistent A/V sync fault, use the +/- - keys to adjust timings on-the-fly instead. Usage of the OSD is recommended - to make this easier.

- - -

2.3.2.4.5 Software volume control

- -

This plugin is a software replacement for the volume control, and - can be used on machines with a broken mixer device. It can also be - used if one wants to change the output volume of MPlayer - without changing the PCM volume setting in the mixer. It has one - option volume that is used for setting the initial - sound level. The initial sound level can be set to values between 0 - and 255 and defaults to 101 which equals 0dB amplification. Use this - plugin with caution since it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of - the sound. In most cases it is best to set the level for the PCM - sound to max, leave this plugin out and control the output level to - your speakers with the MASTER volume control of the mixer. - In case your sound card has a digital PCM mixer instead of an analog one, and - you hear distortion, use the MASTER mixer instead. - external amplifier connected to the computer (this is almost always - the case), the noise level can be minimized by adjusting the master - level and the volume knob on the amplifier until the hissing noise - in the background is gone.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop - list=volume:volume=<0-255>

- -

This plugin also has compressor or "soft-clipping" capabilities. - Compression can be used if the dynamic range of the sound is very - high or if the dynamic range of the loudspeakers is very - low. Be aware that this feature creates distortion and should be - considered a last resort.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop - list=volume:softclip

- - -

2.3.2.4.6 Extrastereo

- -

This plugin (linearly) increases the difference between left and right - channels (like the XMMS extrastereo plugin) which gives some sort of "live" - effect to playback.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop list=extrastereo
- mplayer media.avi -aop list=extrastereo:mul=3.45

- -

The default coefficient (mul) is a float number that defaults - to 2.5. If you set it to 0.0, you will have mono sound (average of both - channels). If you set it to 1.0, sound will be unchanged, if you set it to - -1.0, left and right channels will be swapped.

- - -

2.3.2.4.7 Volume normalizer

- -

This plugin maximizes the volume without distorting the sound.

- -

Usage:
- mplayer media.avi -aop list=volnorm
- - - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/users_against_developers.html b/DOCS/en/users_against_developers.html deleted file mode 100644 index 10c3354102..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/users_against_developers.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,190 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Developer Cries - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

Appendix E - Developer Cries

- -

There are two major topics which always cause huge dispute and flame on the - mplayer-users - mailing list. Number one is the topic of the

- - -

E.1 GCC 2.96

- -

The background: The GCC 2.95 series is an official GNU release - and version 2.95.3 of GCC is the most bug-free in that series. - We have never noticed compilation problems that we could trace to GCC 2.95.3. - Starting with Red Hat Linux 7.0, Red Hat included a heavily - patched CVS version of GCC in their distribution and named it 2.96. Red - Hat included this version in the distribution because GCC 3.0 was not finished - at the time, and they needed a compiler that worked well on all of their - supported platforms, including IA64 and s390. The Linux distributor - Mandrake also followed Red Hat's example and started shipping GCC 2.96 - with their Linux-Mandrake 8.0 series.

- -

The statements: The GCC team disclaimed any link with GCC 2.96 and - issued an official response to - GCC 2.96. Many developers around the world began having problems with GCC 2.96, - and started recommending other compilers. Examples are - MySQL, - avifile and - Wine. - Other interesting links are - - Linux kernel news flash about kernel 2.4.17 and - Voy Forum. - MPlayer also suffered from intermittent problems that were all solved by - switching to a different version of GCC. Several projects started implementing - workarounds for some of the 2.96 issues, but we refused to fix other people's - bugs, especially since some workarounds may imply a performance penalty.

- -

You can read about the other side of the story - at this site. - GCC 2.96 does not allow | (pipe) characters in assembler comments - because it supports Intel as well as AT&T Syntax and the | character is a - symbol in the Intel variant. The problem is that it silently ignores the - whole assembler block. This is supposedly fixed now, GCC prints a warning instead - of skipping the block.

- -

The present: Red Hat says that GCC 2.96-85 and above is fixed. The - situation has indeed improved, yet we still see problem reports on our - mailing lists that disappear with a different compiler. In any case it does not - matter any longer. Hopefully a maturing GCC 3.x will solve the issue for good. - If you want to compile with 2.96 give the --disable-gcc-checking - flag to configure. Remember that you are on your own and do not report any - bugs. If you do, you will only get banned from our mailing list because - we have had more than enough flame wars over GCC 2.96. Please let the matter - rest.

- -

If you have problems with GCC 2.96, you can get 2.96-85 packages from the - Red Hat ftp server, or just go for the - 3.0.4 packages offered for version 7.2 and later. You can also get - gcc-3.2-10 packages - (unofficial, but working fine) and you can install them along the GCC 2.96 you - already have. MPlayer will detect it and use 3.2-10 instead of 2.96. If you do - not want to or cannot use the binary packages, here is how you can compile the - latest GCC from source:

- -

Go to the GCC mirrors page - page and download gcc-core-XXX.tar.gz where XXX is - the version number. This includes the complete C compiler and is sufficient - for MPlayer. If you also want C++, Java or some of the other advanced GCC - features gcc-XXX.tar.gz may better suit your needs.
Extract the archive with
- tar -xvzf gcc-core-XXX.tar.gz
GCC is not built inside the source directory itself like most programs, - but needs a build directory outside the source directory. Thus you need to - create this directory via
- mkdir gcc-build
Then you can proceed to configure GCC in the build directory, but you need - the configure from the source directory:
- cd gcc-build - ../gcc-XXX/configure
Compile GCC by issuing this command in the build directory:
- make bootstrap
Now you can install GCC (as root) by typing
- make install

- - -

E.2 Binary distribution

- -

MPlayer previously contained source from the OpenDivX project, which - disallows binary redistribution. This code has been removed in version - 0.90-pre1 and the remaining file divx_vbr.c that is derived - from OpenDivX sources has been put under the GPL by its authors as of version - 0.90pre9. You are now welcome to create binary packages as you see fit.

- -

Another impediment to binary redistribution were compiletime optimizations - for CPU architecture. MPlayer now supports runtime CPU detection (specify - the --enable-runtime-cpudetection option when configuring). It - is disabled by default because it implies a small speed sacrifice, but it is - now possible to create binaries that run on different members of the Intel - CPU family.

- - -

E.3 nVidia

- -

We dislike the fact that nVidia - only provides binary drivers (for use with XFree86), which are often buggy. - We have had many reports on - mplayer-users - about problems related to these closed-source drivers - and their poor quality, instability and poor user and expert support. - Some examples can be found on the - - nVidia Linux Forum. - Many of these problems/issues keep appearing repeatedly. - We have been contacted by nVidia lately, and they said these bugs - do not exist, instability is caused by bad AGP chips, and they received - no reports of driver bugs (like the purple line). So if you have a - problem with your nVidia card, you are advised to update the nVidia driver - and/or buy a new motherboard or ask nVidia to supply open-source drivers. - In any case, if you are using the nVidia binary drivers and facing driver related problems, - please be aware that you will receive very little help from our side because we have - little power to help in this matter.

- - -

E.4 Joe Barr

- -

Joe Barr became infamous by writing a less than favorable - - MPlayer review. He found MPlayer hard to install, but then - again he is not very fond of - reading documentation. - He also concluded that the developers were unfriendly and the documentation - incomplete and insulting. You be the judge. - He went on to mention MPlayer negatively in his - 10 Linux predictions for 2002 - In a followup - review of xine - he continued stirring up controversy. Ironically at the end of that article he - quotes his exchange with Günter Bartsch, the original author of xine, that - perfectly summarizes the whole situation:

- -

- However, he also went on to say that he was "surprised" by my column about - MPlayer and thought it was unfair, reminding me that it is a free software - project. "If you don't like it," Bartsch said, "you're free not to use it." -

- -

He does not reply to our mails. His editor does not reply to our mails. - Here are some quotes from different people about Joe Barr, so you can form your - own opinion:

- -

Marc Rassbach has something to say - about the man.

- -

- You may all remember the LinuxWorld 2000, when he claimed that Linus T said - that 'FreeBSD is just a handful of programmers'. Linus said NOTHING of the - sort. When Joe was called on this, his reaction was to call BSD supporters - assholes and jerks. -

- -

A quote - from Robert Munro on the - mplayer-users - mailing list:

- -

-
He's interesting, but not good at avoiding, um... controversy. Joe Barr - used to be one of the regulars on Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on Compuserve, - years ago. He was an OS/2 advocate then (I was an OS/2 fan too).
- -
He used to go over-the-top, flaming people, and I suspect he had some hard - times, then. He's mellowed some, judging by his columns recently. Moderately - subtle humor was not his mode in those earlier days, not at all.
-

- - - diff --git a/DOCS/en/video.html b/DOCS/en/video.html deleted file mode 100644 index 50b1505255..0000000000 --- a/DOCS/en/video.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1595 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Video - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux - - - - - - - -

2.3.1 Video output devices

- - -

2.3.1.1 Setting up MTRR

- -

It is VERY recommended to check if the MTRR registers are set up properly, - because they can give a big performance boost.

- -

Do a 'cat /proc/mtrr':

- -

- --($:~)-- cat /proc/mtrr - reg00: base=0xe4000000 (3648MB), size= 16MB: write-combining, count=9 - reg01: base=0xd8000000 (3456MB), size= 128MB: write-combining, count=1

- -

It's right, shows my Matrox G400 with 16MB memory. I did this from - XFree 4.x.x , which sets up MTRR registers automatically.

- -

If nothing worked, you have to do it manually. First, you have to find the - base address. You have 3 ways to find it:

- -

from X11 startup messages, for example: -
(--) SVGA: PCI: Matrox MGA G400 AGP rev 4, Memory @ 0xd8000000, 0xd4000000 - (--) SVGA: Linear framebuffer at 0xD8000000
from /proc/pci (use lspci -v command): -
- 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc.: Unknown device 0525 - Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) -
from mga_vid kernel driver messages (use dmesg): -
mga_mem_base = d8000000

- -

Then let's find the memory size. This is very easy, just convert video ram - size to hexadecimal, or use this table:

- - - - - - - - -

	1 MB		0x100000
	2 MB		0x200000
	4 MB		0x400000
	8 MB		0x800000
	16 MB		0x1000000
	32 MB		0x2000000

- - -

You know base address and memory size, let's setup MTRR registers! - For example, for the Matrox card above (base=0xd8000000) with 32MB - ram (size=0x2000000) just execute:

- - -

echo "base=0xd8000000 size=0x2000000 type=write-combining" >| /proc/mtrr

- - -

Not all CPUs support MTRRs. For example older K6-2's [around 266MHz, - stepping 0] doesn't support MTRR, but stepping 12's do ('cat - /proc/cpuinfo' to check it').

- -

2.3.1.2 Video outputs for traditional video cards

- -

2.3.1.2.1 Xv

- -

Under XFree86 4.0.2 or newer, you can use your card's hardware YUV routines - using the XVideo extension. This is what the option '-vo xv' uses. Also, - this is driver supports adjusting brightness/contrast/hue/etc (unless you use - the old, slow DirectShow DivX codec, which supports it everywhere), see the - man page.

- -

In order to make this work, be sure to check the following:

- -

You have to use XFree86 4.0.2 or newer (former versions don't have - XVideo)
Your card actually supports hardware acceleration (modern cards do)
X loads the XVideo extension, it's something like this: - -
(II) Loading extension XVideo
- -
in /var/log/XFree86.0.log
- -
NOTE: this loads only the XFree86's extension. In a good install, this - is always loaded, and doesn't mean that the card's XVideo support is - loaded!
-

Your card has Xv support under Linux. To check, try 'xvinfo', it is the - part of the XFree86 distribution. It should display a long text, similar - to this: -

-	X-Video Extension version 2.2
-	screen #0
-	  Adaptor #0: "Savage Streams Engine"
-	    number of ports: 1
-	    port base: 43
-	    operations supported: PutImage
-	    supported visuals:
-	      depth 16, visualID 0x22
-	      depth 16, visualID 0x23
-	    number of attributes: 5
-	(...)
-	    Number of image formats: 7
-	      id: 0x32595559 (YUY2)
-	        guid: 59555932-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
-	        bits per pixel: 16
-	        number of planes: 1
-	        type: YUV (packed)
-	      id: 0x32315659 (YV12)
-	        guid: 59563132-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
-	        bits per pixel: 12
-	        number of planes: 3
-	        type: YUV (planar)
-	(...etc...)
-

It must support YUY2 packed, and YV12 planar pixel formats to be - usable with MPlayer.

And finally, check if MPlayer was compiled with 'xv' support. - ./configure prints this.

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.1 3dfx cards

- -

Older 3dfx drivers were known to have problems with XVideo acceleration, it - didn't support either YUY2 or YV12, and so. Verify that you have XFree86 - version 4.2.0 or greater, it works OK with YV12 and YUY2. Previous versions, - including 4.1.0, crash with YV12. If you experience strange effects - using -vo xv, try SDL (it has XVideo too) and see if it helps. Check the - SDL section for details.

- -

OR, try the NEW -vo tdfxfb driver! See the - tdfxfb section.

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.2 S3 cards

- -

S3 Savage3D's should work fine, but for Savage4, use XFree86 version 4.0.3 - or greater (in case of image problems, try 16bpp). As for S3 Virge.. there is - xv support, but the card itself is very slow, so you better sell it.

- -

NOTE: it's currently unclear which Savage models lack YV12 support, - and convert by driver (slow). If you suspect your card, get a newer driver, - or ask politely on the mplayer-users mailing list for an MMX/3DNow enabled - driver.

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.3 nVidia cards

- -

nVidia isn't a very good choice under Linux (according to nVidia, this is - not true).. You'll have to - use the binary closed-source nVidia driver, available at nVidia's web site. - The standard XFree86 driver doesn't support XVideo for these cards, due to - nVidia's closed sources/specifications.

- -

As far as I know the latest XFree86 driver contains XVideo support for - GeForce 2 and 3.

- -

Riva128 cards don't have XVideo support even with the nVidia driver :( - Complain to nVidia.

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.4 ATI cards

- -

The GATOS driver (which you - should use, unless you have Rage128 or Radeon) has VSYNC enabled by - default. It means that decoding speed (!) is synced to the monitor's - refresh rate. If playing seems to be slow, try disabling VSYNC somehow, or - set refresh rate to n*(fps of the movie) Hz.
Radeon VE - if you need X, use XFree86 4.2.0 or greater for this card. - No TV out support. Of course with MPlayer you can happily get - accelerated display, with or without TV output, and - no libraries or X are needed. Read VIDIX section.

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.5 NeoMagic cards

- -

These cards can be found in many laptops. You must use XFree86 4.3.0 or - above, or else use Stefan Seyfried's - Xv-capable drivers. - Just choose the one that applies to your version of XFree86.

- -

XFree86 4.3.0 includes Xv support, yet Bohdan Horst sent a small - patch - against the XFree86 sources that speeds up framebuffer operations (so XVideo) - up to four times. The patch has been included in XFree86 CVS and should be in - the next release after 4.3.0.

- -

To allow playback of DVD sized content change your XF86Config like this:

- -

Section "Device"
- [...]
- Driver "neomagic"
- Option "OverlayMem" "829440"
- [...]
- EndSection

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.6 Trident cards

- -

If you want to use Xv with a Trident card, provided that it doesn't work - with 4.1.0, install XFree 4.2.0. 4.2.0 adds support for fullscreen xv - support with the Cyberblade XP card.

- - -

2.3.1.2.1.7 Kyro/PowerVR cards

- -

If you want to use Xv with a Kyro based card (for example Hercules Prophet - 4000XT), you should download the drivers from the - PowerVR site.

- - -

2.3.1.2.2 DGA

- - -

PREAMBLE

- -

This section tries to explain in some words what DGA is in general and what - the DGA video output driver for MPlayer can do (and what it can't).

- - -

WHAT IS DGA

- -

DGA is short for Direct Graphics Access and is a means for a program to - bypass the X-Server and directly modifying the framebuffer memory. - Technically spoken this happens by mapping the framebuffer memory into - the memory range of your process. This is allowed by the kernel only - if you have superuser privileges. You can get these either by logging in - as root or by setting the SUID bit on the MPlayer executable (not - recommended).

- -

There are two versions of DGA: DGA1 is used by XFree 3.x.x and DGA2 was - introduced with XFree 4.0.1.

- -

DGA1 provides only direct framebuffer access as described above. For - switching the resolution of the video signal you have to rely on the - XVidMode extension.

- -

DGA2 incorporates the features of XVidMode extension and also allows - switching the depth of the display. So you may, although basically - running a 32 bit depth X server, switch to a depth of 15 bits and vice - versa.

- -

However DGA has some drawbacks. It seems it is somewhat dependent on the - graphics chip you use and on the implementation of the X server's video - driver that controls this chip. So it does not work on every system.

- - -

INSTALLING DGA SUPPORT FOR MPLAYER

- -

First make sure X loads the DGA extension, see in /var/log/XFree86.0.log:

- -

(II) Loading extension XFree86-DGA

- -

See, XFree86 4.0.x or greater is VERY RECOMMENDED! MPlayer's DGA - driver is autodetected on ./configure, or you can force it with - --enable-dga.

- -

If the driver couldn't switch to a smaller resolution, experiment with - options -vm (only with X 3.3.x), -fs, -bpp, -zoom to find a video mode that - the movie fits in. There is no converter right now :(

- -

Become root. DGA needs root access to be able to write directly to video - memory. If you want to run it as user, then install MPlayer SUID - root:

- -

- chown root /usr/local/bin/mplayer - chmod 750 /usr/local/bin/mplayer - chmod +s /usr/local/bin/mplayer

- -

Now it works as a simple user, too.

- -

- Warning: security risk
- This is a big security risk! Never do this on a server or on - a computer that can be accessed by other people because they can gain root - privileges through SUID root MPlayer. -

- -

Now use the -vo dga option, and there you go (hope so :))! - You should also try if the -vo sdl:dga option works for you. It's - much faster.

- - -

RESOLUTION SWITCHING

- -

The DGA driver allows for switching the resolution of the output signal. - This avoids the need for doing (slow) software scaling and at the same time - provides a fullscreen image. Ideally it would switch to the exact resolution - (except for honoring aspect ratio) of the video data, but the X server only - allows switching to resolutions predefined in - /etc/X11/XF86Config (/etc/X11/XF86Config-4 for - XFree 4.0.X respectively). Those are defined by so-called modelines and - depend on the capabilities of your video hardware. The X server scans this - config file on startup and disables the modelines not suitable for your - hardware. You can find out which modes survive with the X11 log file. It can - be found at: - /var/log/XFree86.0.log.

- -

These entries are known to work fine with a Riva128 chip, using the - nv.o X server driver module.

- -

-  Section "Modes"
-    Identifier    "Modes[0]"
-    Modeline	"800x600"  40     800 840 968 1056  600 601 605 628
-    Modeline	"712x600"  35.0   712 740 850 900   400 410 412 425
-    Modeline	"640x480"  25.175 640 664 760 800   480 491 493 525
-    Modeline 	"400x300"  20     400 416 480 528   300 301 303 314 Doublescan
-    Modeline	"352x288"  25.10  352 368 416 432   288 296 290 310
-    Modeline	"352x240"  15.750 352 368 416 432   240 244 246 262 Doublescan
-    Modeline	"320x240"  12.588 320 336 384 400   240 245 246 262 Doublescan
-  EndSection
-

- - -

DGA & MPLAYER

- -

DGA is used in two places with MPlayer: The SDL driver can be made to - make use of it (-vo sdl:dga) and within the DGA driver (-vo dga). The above - said is true for both; in the following sections I'll explain how the DGA - driver for MPlayer works.

- - -

FEATURES

- -

The DGA driver is invoked by specifying -vo dga at the command line. - The default behavior is to switch to a resolution matching the original - resolution of the video as close as possible. It deliberately ignores the - -vm and -fs options (enabling of video mode switching and fullscreen) - - it always tries to cover as much area of your screen as possible by switching - the video mode, thus refraining to use a single additional cycle of your CPU - to scale the image. - If you don't like the mode it chooses you may force it to choose the mode - matching closest the resolution you specify by -x and -y. - By providing the -v option, the DGA driver will print, among a lot of other - things, a list of all resolutions supported by your current XF86-Config - file. - Having DGA2 you may also force it to use a certain depth by using the -bpp - option. Valid depths are 15, 16, 24 and 32. It depends on your hardware - whether these depths are natively supported or if a (possibly slow) - conversion has to be done.

- -

If you should be lucky enough to have enough offscreen memory left to - put a whole image there, the DGA driver will use doublebuffering, which - results in much smoother movie replaying. It will tell you whether double- - buffering is enabled or not.

- -

Doublebuffering means that the next frame of your video is being drawn in - some offscreen memory while the current frame is being displayed. When the - next frame is ready, the graphics chip is just told the location in memory - of the new frame and simply fetches the data to be displayed from there. - In the meantime the other buffer in memory will be filled again with new - video data.

- -

Doublebuffering may be switched on by using the option -double and may be - disabled with -nodouble. Current default option is to disable - doublebuffering. When using the DGA driver, onscreen display (OSD) only - works with doublebuffering enabled. However, enabling doublebuffering may - result in a big speed penalty (on my K6-II+ 525 it used an additional 20% of - CPU time!) depending on the implementation of DGA for your hardware.

- - -

SPEED ISSUES

- -

Generally spoken, DGA framebuffer access should be at least as fast as using - the X11 driver with the additional benefit of getting a fullscreen image. - The percentage speed values printed by MPlayer have to be interpreted - with some care, as for example, with the X11 driver they do not include the - time used by the X-Server needed for the actual drawing. Hook a terminal to a - serial line of your box and start top to see what is really going on in your - box.

- -

Generally spoken, the speedup done by using DGA against 'normal' use of X11 - highly depends on your graphics card and how well the X-Server module for it - is optimized.

- -

If you have a slow system, better use 15 or 16bit depth since they require - only half the memory bandwidth of a 32 bit display.

- -

Using a depth of 24bit is even a good idea if your card natively just - supports 32 bit depth since it transfers 25% less data compared to the 32/32 - mode.

- -

I've seen some AVI files already be replayed on a Pentium MMX 266. AMD K6-2 - CPUs might work at 400 MHZ and above.

- - -

KNOWN BUGS

- -

Well, according to some developers of XFree, DGA is quite a beast. They - tell you better not to use it. Its implementation is not always flawless - with every chipset driver for XFree out there.

- -

With XFree 4.0.3 and nv.o there is a bug resulting in strange - colors.
ATI driver requires to switch mode back more than once after finishing - using of DGA.
Some drivers simply fail to switch back to normal resolution (use - Ctrl-Alt-Keypad +, - to switch back manually).
Some drivers simply display strange colors.
Some drivers lie about the amount of memory they map into the process's - address space, thus vo_dga won't use doublebuffering (SIS?).
Some drivers seem to fail to report even a single valid mode. In this - case the DGA driver will crash telling you about a nonsense mode of - 100000x100000 or something like that.
OSD only works with doublebuffering enabled (else it flickers).

- - -

2.3.1.2.3 SDL

- -

SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) is basically a unified video/audio - interface. Programs that use it know only about SDL, and not about what video - or audio driver does SDL actually use. For example a Doom port using SDL can - run on svgalib, aalib, X, fbdev, and others, you only have to specify the - (for example) video driver to use with the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment - variable. Well, in theory.

- -

With MPlayer, we used its X11 driver's software scaler ability for - cards/drivers that doesn't support XVideo, until we made our own (faster, - nicer) software scaler. Also we used its aalib output, but now we have ours - which is more comfortable. Its DGA mode was better than ours, until - recently. Get it now? :)

- -

It also helps with some buggy drivers/cards if the video is jerky - (not slow system problem), or audio is lagging.

- -

SDL video output supports displaying subtitles under the movie, on the (if - present) black bar.

- -

There are several command line options for SDL:

-vo sdl:name: specifies sdl video driver to use (i.e.. aalib, dga, x11)
-ao sdl:name: specifies sdl audio driver to use (i.e. dsp, esd, arts)
-noxv: disables XVideo hardware acceleration
-forcexv: tries to force XVideo acceleration

- - - - - -

SDL only keys:
	`c`	cycles available fullscreen modes
	`n`	changes back to normal mode

- -

KNOWN BUGS

- -

Keys pressed under sdl:aalib console driver repeat forever. (use -vo aa!) - It's bug in SDL, I can't change it (tested with SDL 1.2.1).
DO NOT USE SDL with GUI! It won't work as it should.

- - -

2.3.1.2.4 SVGAlib

- -

INSTALLATION

- -

You'll have to install svgalib and its development package in order for - MPlayer build its SVGAlib driver (autodetected, but can be forced), - and don't forget to edit /etc/vga/libvga.config to suit your card & - monitor.

- -

NOTES

- -

Be sure not to use the -fs option, since it toggles the usage of the software - scaler, and it's slow. If you really need it, use the -sws 4 - option which will produce bad quality, but is somewhat faster.

- -

EGA (4BPP) SUPPORT

- -

SVGAlib incorporates EGAlib, and MPlayer has the possibility to - display any movie in 16 colors, thus usable in the following sets:

- -

EGA card with EGA monitor: 320x200x4bpp, 640x200x4bpp, 640x350x4bpp
EGA card with CGA monitor: 320x200x4bpp, 640x200x4bpp

- -

The bpp (bits per pixel) value must be set to 4 by hand:
-   -bpp 4
- The movie probably must be scaled down to fit in EGA mode:
-   -vf scale=640:350 or
-   -vf scale=320:200
- For that we need fast but bad quality scaling routine:
-   -sws 4
- Maybe automatic aspect correction has to be shut off:
-   -noaspect

- -

NOTE: according to my experience the best image quality on EGA - screens can be achieved by decreasing the brightness a bit: -vf - eq=-20:0. I also needed to lower the audio samplerate on my box, - because the sound was broken on 44kHz: -srate 22050.

- -

You can turn on OSD and subtitles only with the expand filter, - see the man page for exact parameters.

- - -

2.3.1.2.5 Framebuffer output (FBdev)

- -

Whether to build the FBdev target is autodetected during ./configure . - Read the framebuffer documentation in the kernel sources - (Documentation/fb/*) for more information.

- -

If your card doesn't support VBE 2.0 standard (older ISA/PCI - cards, such as S3 Trio64), only VBE 1.2 (or older?): - Well, VESAfb is still available, but you'll have to load SciTech Display - Doctor (formerly UniVBE) before booting Linux. Use a DOS boot disk or - whatever. And don't forget to register your UniVBE ;))

- -

The FBdev output takes some additional parameters above the others:

- -

-fb: specify the framebuffer device to use (/dev/fb0)
-fbmode: mode name to use (according to /etc/fb.modes)
-fbmodeconfig: config file of modes (default /etc/fb.modes)
-monitor_hfreq
-monitor_vfreq
-monitor_dotclock: Important values, see example.conf

- -

If you want to change to a specific mode, then use

- -

mplayer -vm -fbmode (NameOfMode) filename

- -

-vm alone will choose the most suitable mode from /etc/fb.modes. - Can be used together with -x and -y options too. The -flip option is - supported only if the movie's pixel format matches the video mode's pixel - format. Pay attention to the bpp value, fbdev driver tries to use the - current, or if you specify the -bpp option, then that.
-zoom option isn't supported (use -vf scale). - You can't use 8bpp (or less) modes.
you possibly want to turn the cursor off: echo -e - '\033[?25l' or setterm -cursor off
- and the screen saver: setterm -blank 0
- To turn the cursor back on: echo -e '\033[?25h' - or setterm -cursor on

- -

NOTE: FBdev video mode changing _does not work_ with the VESA framebuffer, - and don't ask for it, since it's not an MPlayer limitation.

- - -

2.3.1.2.6 Matrox framebuffer (mga_vid)

- -

This section is about the Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 BES (Back-End Scaler) - support, the mga_vid kernel driver. It's actively developed by A'rpi, and - it has hardware VSYNC support with triple buffering. It works on both - framebuffer console and under X.

- -

NOTE: This is Linux only! On non-Linux (tested on FreeBSD) systems, - you can use VIDIX instead!

- -

Installation:

To use it, you first have to compile mga_vid.o: -
cd drivers - make
Then create the /dev/mga_vid device: -
mknod /dev/mga_vid c 178 0
-
and load the driver with
-
insmod mga_vid.o
You should verify the memory size detection using the dmesg - command. If it's bad, use the mga_ram_size option - (rmmod mga_vid first), specify card's memory size in MB: -
insmod mga_vid.o mga_ram_size=16
To make it load/unload automatically when needed, first insert the - following line at the end of /etc/modules.conf: -
alias char-major-178 mga_vid
-
Then copy the mga_vid.o module to the appropriate place - under /lib/modules/<kernel version>/somewhere.
-
Then run
-
depmod -a
Now you have to (re)compile MPlayer, configure will - detect /dev/mga_vid and build the 'mga' driver. Using it from - MPlayer goes by -vo mga if you have matroxfb console, - or -vo xmga under XFree86 3.x.x or 4.x.x.

- -

The mga_vid driver cooperates with Xv.

- -

The /dev/mga_vid device file can be read (for example by - cat /dev/mga_vid) for some info, and written for brightness - change: echo "brightness=120" > /dev/mga_vid

- - -

2.3.1.2.7 3dfx YUV support (tdfxfb)

- -

This driver uses the kernel's tdfx framebuffer driver to play movies with - YUV acceleration. You'll need a kernel with tdfxfb support, and recompile - with ./configure --enable-tdfxfb

- - -

2.3.1.2.8 OpenGL output

- -

MPlayer supports displaying movies using OpenGL, but if your - platform/driver supports xv as should be the case on a PC with Linux, use xv - instead, OpenGL performance is considerably worse. If you have an X11 - implementation without xv support, OpenGL is a viable alternative.

- -

Unfortunately not all drivers support this feature. The Utah-GLX drivers - (for XFree86 3.3.6) support it for all cards. See - http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net - for details about how to install it.

- -

XFree86(DRI) 4.0.3 or later supports OpenGL with Matrox and Radeon cards, - 4.2.0 or later supports Rage128. See - http://dri.sourceforge.net - for download and installation instructions.

- -

A hint from one of our users: the GL video output can be used to get - vsynced TV output. You'll have to set an environment variable (at least - on nVidia):

- -

- export $__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1 -

- - -

2.3.1.2.9 AAlib - text mode displaying

- -

AAlib is a library for displaying graphics in text mode, using powerful - ASCII renderer. There are LOTS of programs already supporting it, like Doom, - Quake, etc. MPlayer contains a very usable driver for it. - If ./configure detects aalib installed, the aalib libvo driver will be - built.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

You can use some keys in the AA Window to change rendering options:
	`1`	decrease contrast
	`2`	increase contrast
	`3`	decrease brightness
	`4`	increase brightness
	`5`	switch fast rendering on/off
	`6`	set dithering mode (none, error distribution, Floyd Steinberg)
	`7`	invert image
	`a`	toggles between aa and MPlayer control)

- -

The following command line options can be used:

-aaosdcolor=V: change OSD color
-aasubcolor=V: change subtitle color -
where V can be: (0/normal, 1/dark, 2/bold, 3/bold font, 4/reverse, - 5/special)

- -

AAlib itself provides a large sum of options. - Here are some important:

-aadriver: set recommended aa driver (X11, curses, Linux)
-aaextended: use all 256 characters
-aaeight: use eight bit ASCII
-aahelp: prints out all aalib options

- -

NOTE: the rendering is very CPU intensive, especially when using AA-on-X - (using aalib on X), and it's least CPU intensive on standard, - non-framebuffer console. Use SVGATextMode to set up a big textmode, - then enjoy! (secondary head Hercules cards rock :)) (but imho you can use - -vf 1bpp option to get graphics on hgafb:)

- -

Use the -framedrop option if your computer isn't fast enough to - render all frames!

- -

Playing on terminal you'll get better speed and quality using the Linux - driver, not curses (-aadriver linux). But therefore you need write access on - /dev/vcsa<terminal>. That isn't autodetected by aalib, but vo_aa tries - to find the best mode. See - http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/tune/ - for further tuning issues.

- - -

2.3.1.2.10 VESA - output to VESA BIOS

- -

This driver was designed and introduced as a generic driver for any - video card which has VESA VBE 2.0+ compatible BIOS. Another advantage of this - driver is that it tries to force TV output on.
- VESA BIOS EXTENSION (VBE) Version 3.0 Date: September 16, 1998 (Page - 70) says:

- -

- Dual-Controller Designs
- VBE 3.0 supports the dual-controller design by assuming that since both - controllers are typically provided by the same OEM, under control of a - single BIOS ROM on the same graphics card, it is possible to hide the fact - that two controllers are indeed present from the application. This has the - limitation of preventing simultaneous use of the independent controllers, - but allows applications released before VBE 3.0 to operate normally. The - VBE Function 00h (Return Controller Information) returns the combined - information of both controllers, including the combined list of available - modes. When the application selects a mode, the appropriate controller is - activated. Each of the remaining VBE functions then operates on the active - controller. -

- -

So you have chances to get working TV-out by using this driver.
- (I guess that TV-out frequently is standalone head or standalone output - at least.)

- -

ADVANTAGES

- -

You have the possibility to watch movies even if Linux doesn't know - your video hardware.
You don't need to have installed any graphics' related things on your Linux - (like X11 (aka XFree86), fbdev and so on). This driver can be run from - text-mode.
You have chances to get working TV-out. (It's known at least for - ATI's cards).
This driver calls int 10h handler thus it's not an emulator - it - calls real things of real BIOS in real-mode (actually - in vm86 mode).
You can use VIDIX with it, thus getting accelerated video display - AND TV output at the same time! (recommended for ATI cards)
If you have VESA VBE 3.0+, and you had specified monitor_hfreq, - monitor_vfreq, monitor_dotclock somewhere (config - file, or commandline) you will get the highest possible refresh rate. (Using - General Timing Formula). To enable this feature you have to specify - all your monitor options.

- -

DISADVANTAGES

- -

It works only on x86 systems.
It can be used only by root.
Currently it's available only for Linux.

- -

Don't use this driver with GCC 2.96! It won't work!

- -

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS AVAILABLE FOR VESA

-vo vesa:opts: currently recognized: dga to force dga mode and nodga to - disable dga mode. In dga mode you can enable double buffering via the - -double option. Note: you may omit these parameters to enable - autodetection of dga mode.

- -

KNOWN PROBLEMS AND WORKAROUNDS

- -

If you have installed NLS font on your Linux box and run VESA - driver from text-mode then after terminating MPlayer you will have - ROM font loaded instead of national. You can load national font again - by using setsysfont utility from the Mandrake distribution - for example.
- (Hint: The same utility is used for the localization of fbdev).
Some Linux graphics drivers don't update active BIOS mode in - DOS memory. So if you have such problem - always use VESA driver only from - text-mode. Otherwise text-mode (#03) will be activated anyway and - you will need restart your computer.
Often after terminating VESA driver you get black screen. To return - your screen to original state - simply switch to other console (by pressing - Alt-Fx) then switch to your previous console by the same way.
To get working TV-out you need have plugged TV-connector in before - booting your PC since video BIOS initializes itself only once during POST - procedure.

- - -

2.3.1.2.11 X11

- -

Avoid if possible. Outputs to X11 (uses shared memory extension), with no - hardware acceleration at all. Supports (MMX/3DNow/SSE accelerated, but still - slow) software scaling, use the options -fs -zoom. Most cards - have hardware scaling support, use the -vo xv output for them, - or -vo xmga for Matroxes.

- -

The problem is that most cards' driver doesn't support hardware acceleration - on the second head/TV. In those cases, you see green/blue colored window - instead of the movie. This is where this driver comes in handy, but you need - powerful CPU to use software scaling. Don't use the SDL driver's software - output+scaler, it has worse image quality!

- -

Software scaling is very slow, you better try changing video modes instead. - It's very simple. See the DGA section's modelines, - and insert them into your XF86Config.

- -

If you have XFree86 4.x.x - use the -vm option. It will - change to a resolution your movie fits in. If it doesn't:
With XFree86 3.x.x - you have to cycle through available resolutions - with the CTRL-ALT-plus and minus keys.

- -

If you can't find the modes you inserted, browse XFree86's output. Some - drivers can't use low pixelclocks that are needed for low resolution - video modes.

- - -

2.3.1.2.12 VIDIX

- -

PREAMBLE

- -

VIDIX is the abbreviation for VIDeo Interface for *niX. - It was designed and introduced as an interface for fast user-space drivers - providing such video performance as mga_vid does for Matrox cards. It's also - very portable.

- -

This interface was designed as an attempt to fit existing video acceleration - interfaces (known as mga_vid, rage128_vid, radeon_vid, pm3_vid) into a fixed scheme. It - provides highlevel interface to chips which are known as BES (BackEnd - scalers) or OV (Video Overlays). It doesn't provide lowlevel interface to - things which are known as graphics servers. (I don't want to compete with X11 - team in graphics mode switching). I.e. main goal of this interface is to - maximize the speed of video playback.

- -

USAGE

- -

You can use standalone video output driver: -vo xvidix
- This driver was developed as X11's front end to VIDIX technology. It - requires X server and can work only under X server. Note that, as it - directly accesses the hardware and circumvents the X driver, pixmaps - cached in the graphics card's memory may be corrupted. You can prevent - this by limiting the amount of video memory used by X with the XF86Config - option "VideoRam" in the device section. You should set this to the amount - of memory installed on your card minus 4MB. If you have less than 8MB of - video ram, you can use the option "XaaNoPixmapCache" in the screen section - instead.
You can use VIDIX subdevice which was applied to several video output - drivers, such as:
- -vo vesa:vidix (Linux only) and -vo fbdev:vidix

- -Indeed it doesn't matter which video output driver is used with VIDIX. - -

REQUIREMENTS

- -

video card should be in graphics mode (I write should simply - because I tested it in text mode - it works but has awful output ;) Use - AAlib for that).
- Note: Everyone can try this trick by commenting out mode switching in - vo_vesa driver.
MPlayer's video output driver should know active video mode and be - able to tell to VIDIX subdevice some video characteristics of server.

- -

USAGE METHODS

- -

When VIDIX is used as subdevice (-vo vesa:vidix) then - video mode configuration is performed by video output device - (vo_server in short). Therefore you can pass into command line of - MPlayer the same keys as for vo_server. In addition it understands - -double key as globally visible parameter. (I recommend using - this key with VIDIX at least for ATI cards).
- As for -vo xvidix: currently it recognizes the following - options: -fs -zoom -x -y -double.

- -

Also you can specify VIDIX's driver directly as third subargument in command - line:
-
- mplayer -vo xvidix:mga_vid.so -fs -zoom -double - file.avi
- or
- mplayer -vo vesa:vidix:radeon_vid.so -fs -zoom -double -bpp - 32 file.avi
-
- But it's dangerous, and you shouldn't do that. In this case given driver will - be forced and result is unpredictable (it may freeze your - computer). You should do that ONLY if you are absolutely sure it will work, - and MPlayer doesn't do it automatically. Please tell about it to the - developers. The Right Way is to use VIDIX without arguments to enable driver - autodetection.

- -

VIDIX is a new technology and it's extremely possible that on your system - it won't work. In this case the only solution for you is porting it (mainly - libdha). But there is hope that it will work on systems where X11 does.

- -

Since VIDIX requires direct hardware access you can either run it as root or - set the SUID bit on the MPlayer binary (Warning: This is a security - risk!). Alternatively, you can use a special kernel module, like this:

- -

Download the - development version - of svgalib (for example 1.9.17),
- OR
- download a version made by Alex especially for usage with - MPlayer (it doesn't need the svgalib source to compile) from - - here.
Compile the module in the svgalib_helper directory (it can - be found inside the svgalib-1.9.17/kernel/ directory if you've - downloaded the source from the svgalib site) and insmod it.
Move the svgalib_helper directory to - mplayer/main/libdha/svgalib_helper.
Required if you download the source from the svgalib site: Remove the - comment before the CFLAGS line containing "svgalib_helper" string from the - libdha/Makefile.
Recompile and install libdha.

- - -

2.3.1.2.12.1 ATI cards

- -

Currently most ATI cards are supported natively, from Mach64 to the newest - Radeons.

- -

There are two compiled binaries: radeon_vid for Radeon and - rage128_vid for Rage 128 cards. You may force one or let the - VIDIX system autoprobe all available drivers.

- - -

2.3.1.2.12.2 Matrox cards

- -

Matrox G200,G400,G450 and G550 have been reported to work.

- -

The driver supports video equalizers and should be nearly as fast as the - Matrox framebuffer.

- - -

2.3.1.2.12.3 Trident cards

- -

There is a driver available for the Trident Cyberblade/i1 chipset, which - can be found on VIA Epia motherboards.

- -

The driver was written and is maintained by Alastair M. Robinson, who offers - the very latest driver versions for download from his - homepage. - The drivers are added to MPlayer with only a short delay, so CVS should always - be up to date.

- - -

2.3.1.2.12.4 3DLabs cards

- -

Although there is a driver for the 3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3 chips, - no one has tested it, so reports are welcome.

- - -

2.3.1.2.12.5 nVidia cards

- -

There's a relatively new nvidia driver out there, it's known to work on Riva - 128, TNT and GeForce2 chipsets, also others have been reported working.

- -

It's recommended to use the binary nvidia drivers for X before using this - vidix driver, because some of the registers haven't been discovered which - need to be initialised, so it will probably fail with the opensource Xfree86 - nv.o driver.

- -

Reports awaited!

- -

2.3.1.2.12.6 SiS cards

- -

This is a very experimental code too, as the nvidia_vid.

- -

It's been tested on SiS 650/651/740 (the most common chipsets used in the -SiS versions of the "Shuttle XPC" barebones boxes out there)

- -

Reports awaited!

- - -

2.3.1.2.13 DirectFB

- -

"DirectFB is a graphics library which was designed with embedded systems in - mind. It offers maximum hardware accelerated performance at a minimum of - resource usage and overhead." - quoted from - http://www.directfb.org.

- -

I'll exclude DirectFB features from this section.

- -

Though MPlayer is not supported as a "video provider" in DirectFB, this - output driver will enable video playback through DirectFB. It will - - of course - be accelerated, on my Matrox G400 DirectFB's speed was the - same as XVideo.

- -

Always try to use the newest version of DirectFB. You can use DirectFB - options on the command line, using the -dfbopts option. - Layer selection can be done by the subdevice method, e.g.: -vo - directfb:2 (layer -1 is default: autodetect)

- - -

2.3.1.2.14 DirectFB/Matrox (dfbmga)

- -

Please read the main DirectFB section for general - informations.

- -

This video output driver will enable CRTC2 (on the second head) on the - Matrox G400/G450/G550 cards, displaying video independently of the - first head.

- -

Instructions on how to make it work can be found in the - tech section - or directly on Ville Syrjala's - home page.

- -

Note: the first DirectFB version with which we could kick this working was - 0.9.17 (it's buggy, needs that surfacemanager patch from - the URL above). Anyway, porting of the CRTC2 code to mga_vid is - underway.

- - -

2.3.1.3 MPEG decoders

- -

2.3.1.3.1 DVB output and input

- -

MPlayer supports cards with the Siemens DVB chipset from vendors like - Siemens, Technotrend, Galaxis or Hauppauge. The latest DVB drivers are - available from the Linux TV site. If you - want to do software transcoding you should have at least a 1GHz CPU.

- -

Configure should detect your DVB card. If it did not, force detection with

- -

-  ./configure --enable-dvb
-

- -

If you have ost headers at a non-standard path, set the path with

- -

-  ./configure --with-extraincdir=<DVB source directory>/ost/include
-

- -

Then compile and install as usual.

- -

USAGE

- -

Hardware decoding (playing standard MPEG1/2 files) can be done with this - command:

- -

-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes file.mpg|vob
-

- -

Software decoding or transcoding different formats to MPEG1 can be achieved - using a command like this:

- -

-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes yourfile.ext
-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vf expand yourfile.ext
-

- -

Note that DVB cards only support heights 288 and 576 for PAL or 240 and 480 - for NTSC. You must rescale for other heights by adding - scale=width:height with the width and height you want to the - -vf option. DVB cards accept various widths, like 720, 704, - 640, 512, 480, 352 etc and do hardware scaling in horizontal direction, so - you do not need to scale horizontally in most cases. For a 512x384 (aspect - 4:3) DivX try:

- -

-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vf scale=512:576
-

- -

If you have a widescreen movie and you do not want to scale it to full height, - you can use the expand=w:h filter to add black bands. To view a - 640x384 DivX, try:

- -

-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vf expand=640:576 file.avi
-

- -

If your CPU is too slow for a full size 720x576 DivX, try downscaling:

- -

-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vf scale=352:576 file.avi
-

- -

If speed does not improve, try vertical downscaling, too:

- -

-  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vf scale=352:288 file.avi
-

- -

For OSD and subtitles use the OSD feature of the expand filter. So, instead - of expand=w:h or expand=w:h:x:y, use - expand=w:h:x:y:1 (the 5th parameter :1 at the end - will enable OSD rendering). You may want to move the image up a bit to get a - bigger black zone for subtitles. You may also want to move subtitles up, if - they are outside your TV screen, use the -subpos <0-100> option - to adjust this (-subpos 80 is a good choice).

- -

In order to play non-25fps movies on a PAL TV or with a slow CPU, add the - -framedrop option.

- -

To keep the aspect ratio of DivX files and get the optimal scaling parameters - (hardware horizontal scaling and software vertical scaling while keeping the - right aspect ratio), use the new dvbscale filter:

- -

-for a  4:3 TV: -vf dvbscale,scale=-1:0,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1
-for a 16:9 TV: -vf dvbscale=1024,scale=-1:0,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1
-

- -

Using your DVB card for watching Digital TV (DVB input module)

- -

First you need to pass the dvb_shutdown_timeout=0 parameter - to the kernel module dvb-core, or MPlayer will die after 10 - seconds.

- -

You should also have the programs scan and - szap/tzap/czap installed; they are all included in the drivers - package.

- -

Verify that your drivers are working properly with a program such as - dvbstream - (that is the base of the DVB input module).

- -

Now you should compile a ~/.mplayer/channels.conf file, - with the syntax accepted by szap/tzap/czap, or have - scan compile it for you.

- -

Make sure that you have have only Free to Air channels in your - channels.conf file, or MPlayer will hang on the others.

- -

To show the first of the channels present in your list, run

- -

-  mplayer dvb://
-

- -

If you want to watch a specific channel, such as R1, run

- -

-  mplayer dvb://R1
-

- -

To change channels press the 'h' (next) and 'k' - (previous) keys, or use the OSD menu (requires a working - OSD subsystem).

- -

If your ~/.mplayer/menu.conf contains a <dvbsel> - entry, such as the one in the example file etc/dvb-menu.conf - (that you can use to overwrite ~/.mplayer/menu.conf), the - main menu will show a sub-menu entry that will permit you to choose - one of the channels present in your channels.conf.

- -

If you want to save a program to disk you can use

- -

-  mplayer -dumpfile r1.ts -dumpstream dvb://R1
-

- -

If you want to record it in a different format (re-encoding it) instead you - can run a command such as

- -

-  mencoder -o r1.avi -ovc xvid -xvidenctopts bitrate=800 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -vf ci dvb://R1
-

- -

Read the man page for a list of options that you can pass to the DVB - input module.

- - -

FUTURE

- -

If you have questions or want to hear feature announcements and take part in - discussions on this subject, join our - MPlayer-DVB - mailing list. Please remember that the list language is English.

- -

In the future you may expect the ability to display OSD and subtitles using - the native OSD feature of DVB cards, as well as more fluent playback of - non-25fps movies and realtime transcoding between MPEG2 and MPEG4 (partial - decompression).

- - -

2.3.1.3.2 DXR2

- -

MPlayer supports hardware accelerated playback with the Creative DXR2 - card.

- -

First of all you will need properly installed DXR2 drivers. You can find - the drivers and installation instructions at the - DXR2 Resource Center site.

- -

USAGE

-vo dxr2: enable TV output
-vo dxr2:x11 or -vo dxr2:xv: enable Overlay output in X11
-dxr2 <option1:option2:...>: This option is used to control the DXR2 driver.

- -

The overlay chipset used on the DXR2 is of pretty bad quality but the - default settings should work for everybody. The OSD may be usable with the - overlay (not on TV) by drawing it in the colorkey. With the default colorkey - settings you may get variable results, usually you will see the colorkey - around the characters or some other funny effect. But if you properly adjust - the colorkey settings you should be able to get acceptable results.

- -

Please see the manpage for available options.

- - -

2.3.1.3.3 DXR3/Hollywood+

- -

MPlayer supports hardware accelerated playback with the Creative DXR3 - and Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus cards. These cards both use the em8300 MPEG - decoder chip from Sigma Designs.

- -

First of all you will need properly installed DXR3/H+ drivers, version - 0.12.0 or later. You can find the drivers and installation instructions at - the DXR3 & Hollywood Plus for - Linux site. Configure should detect your card automatically, compilation - should go without problems.

- -

USAGE

-vo dxr3:prebuf:sync:norm=x:<device>: overlay activates the overlay instead of TVOut. It requires - that you have a properly configured overlay setup to work right. The easiest - way to configure the overlay is to first run autocal. Then run mplayer with - dxr3 output and without overlay turned on, run dxr3view. In dxr3view you can - tweak the overlay settings and see the effects in realtime, perhaps this - feature will be supported by the MPlayer GUI in the future. When overlay is - properly set up you will no longer need to use dxr3view.
- prebuf turns on prebuffering. Prebuffering is a feature - of the em8300 chip that enables it to hold more than one frame of video at - a time. This means that when you are running with prebuffering - MPlayer will try to keep the video buffer filled with data at all - times. If you are on a slow machine MPlayer will probably use close - to, or precisely 100% of CPU. This is especially common if you play pure MPEG - streams (like DVDs, SVCDs a.s.o.) since MPlayer will not have to - reencode it to MPEG it will fill the buffer very fast.
- With prebuffering video playback is much less sensitive to other - programs hogging the CPU, it will not drop frames unless applications hog - the CPU for a long time.
- When running without prebuffering the em8300 is much more sensitive to CPU - load, so it is highly suggested that you turn on MPlayer's - -framedrop option to avoid further loss of sync.
- sync will turn on the new sync-engine. This is currently an - experimental feature. With the sync feature turned on the em8300's internal - clock will be monitored at all times, if it starts to deviate from MPlayer's - clock it will be reset causing the em8300 to drop any frames that are lagging - behind.
- norm=x will set the TV norm of the DXR3 card without the need - for external tools like em8300setup. Valid norms are 5 = NTSC, 4 = PAL-60, - 3 = PAL. Special norms are 2 (auto-adjust using PAL/PAL-60) and 1 - (auto-adjust using PAL/NTSC) because they decide which norm to use by - looking at the frame rate of the movie. norm = 0 (default) does not - change the current norm.
- <device> = device number to use if you have more than one - em8300 card. -
- Any of these options may be left out.
- :prebuf:sync seems to work great when playing DivX movies. - People have reported problems using the prebuf option when playing - MPEG1/2 files. You might want to try running without any options first, if you - have sync problems, or DVD subtitle problems, give :sync a - try.
-ao oss:/dev/em8300_ma-X: For audio output, where X is the device number - (0 if one card).
-aop list=resample:fout=xxxxx: The em8300 cannot play back samplerates lower than 44100Hz. If the sample - rate is below 44100Hz select either 44100Hz or 48000Hz depending on which - one matches closest. I.e. if the movie uses 22050Hz use 44100Hz as - 44100 / 2 = 22050, if it is 24000Hz use 48000Hz as 48000 / 2 = 24000 and so - on. This does not work with digital audio output (-ac hwac3).
-vf lavc/fame: (AUTO-INSERTED) To watch non-MPEG content on the em8300 (i.e. DivX or RealVideo) you have - to specify an MPEG1 video filter such as libavcodec (lavc) or libfame - (fame). At the moment lavc is both faster and gives better image quality, it - is suggested that you use that unless you have problems with it. See the man - page for further info about -vf lavc/fame.
- Using lavc is highly recommended. Currently there is no way of setting the - fps of the em8300 which means that it is fixed to 29.97fps. Because of this - it is highly recommended that you use -vf lavc=<quality>:25, - especially if you are using prebuffering. Then why 25 and not 29.97? Well, - the thing is that when you use 29.97 the picture becomes a bit jumpy. The - reason for this is unknown to us. If you set it to somewhere between 25 and - 27 the picture becomes stable. For now all we can do is accept this for a - fact.
-vf expand=-1:-1:-1:-1:1: Although the DXR3 driver can put some OSD onto the MPEG1/2/4 video, - it has much lower quality than MPlayer's traditional OSD, and has several - refresh problems as well. The command line above will firstly convert the - input video to MPEG4 (this is mandatory, sorry), then apply an expand - filter which won't expand anything (-1: default), but apply the normal OSD - onto the picture (that's what the "1" at the end does).
-ac hwac3: The em8300 supports playing back AC3 audio (surround sound) through the - digital audio output of the card. See the -ao oss option - above, it must be used to specify the DXR3's output instead of - a soundcard.

- - -

2.3.1.4 Other visualization hardware

- -

2.3.1.4.1 Zr

- -

This is a display-driver (-vo zr) for a number of MJPEG - capture/playback cards (tested for DC10+ and Buz, and it should work for the - LML33 and the original DC10). The driver works by encoding the frame to jpeg - and then sending it to the card. For the jpeg encoding libavcodec is - used, and required. With the special cinerama mode, you can watch - movies in true wide screen provided that you have two beamers and two - MJPEG cards. Depending on resolution and quality settings, this driver - may require a lot of CPU power, remember to specify -framedrop - if your machine is too slow. Note: My AMD K6-2 350MHz is (with - -framedrop) quite adequate for watching VCD sized material and - downscaled movies.

- -

This driver talks to the kernel driver available at - http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net, so - you must get it working first. The presence of an MJPEG card is autodetected - by the configure script, if autodetection fails, force detection with

- -

-  ./configure --enable-zr
-

- -

The output can be controlled by several options, a long description of the - options can be found in the man page, a short list of options can be - viewed by running

- -

-  mplayer -zrhelp
-

- -

Things like scaling and the OSD (on screen display) are not handled by - this driver but can be done using the video filters. For example, - suppose that you have a movie with a resolution of 512x272 and - you want to view it fullscreen on your DC10+. There are three main - possibilities, you may scale the movie to a width of 768, - 384 or 192. For performance and quality reasons, - I would choose to scale the movie to 384x204 using the fast - bilinear software scaler. The commandline is

- -

-  mplayer -vo zr -sws 0 -vf scale=384:204 movie.avi
-

- -

Cropping can be done by the crop filter and by - this driver itself. Suppose that a movie is too wide for display on your - Buz and that you want to use -zrcrop to make the movie less - wide, then you would issue the following command

- -

-  mplayer -vo zr -zrcrop 720x320+80+0 benhur.avi
-

- -

if you want to use the crop filter, you would do

- -

-  mplayer -vo zr -vf crop=720:320:80:0 benhur.avi
-

- -

Extra occurrences of -zrcrop invoke cinerama mode, i.e. - you can distribute the movie over several TV's or beamers to create a larger - screen. Suppose you have two beamers. The left one is connected to your Buz - at /dev/video1 and the right one is connected to your DC10+ at - /dev/video0. The movie has a resolution of 704x288. - Suppose also that you want the right beamer in black and white and that - the left beamer should have JPEG frames at quality 10, - then you would issue the following command

- -

-  mplayer -vo zr -zrdev /dev/video0 -zrcrop 352x288+352+0 -zrxdoff 0 -zrbw \
-          -zrcrop 352x288+0+0 -zrdev /dev/video1 -zrquality 10 movie.avi
-

- -

You see that the options appearing before the second -zrcrop - only apply to the DC10+ and that the options after the second - -zrcrop apply to the Buz. The maximum number of MJPEG cards - participating in cinerama is four, so you can build a 2x2 - vidiwall.

- -

Finally an important remark: Do not start or stop XawTV on the playback - device during playback, it will crash your computer. It is, however, fine to - FIRST start XawTV, THEN start MPlayer, wait for - MPlayer to finish and THEN stop XawTV.

- - -

2.3.1.4.2 Blinkenlights

- -

This driver is capable of playback using the Blinkenlights UDP protocol. - If you don't know what Blinkenlights - is, you don't need this driver.

- - -

2.3.1.5 TV-out support

- - -

2.3.1.5.1 Matrox G400 cards

- -

Under Linux you have 2 methods to get G400 TV out working:

- -

IMPORTANT: for Matrox G450/G550 TV-out instructions, please see the - next section!

- -

XFree86: using the driver and the HAL module, available from - Matrox's site. This will give you X on - the TV.
This method doesn't give you accelerated playback as - under Windoze! The second head has only YUV framebuffer, the BES - (Back End Scaler, the YUV scaler on G200/G400/G450/G550 cards) doesn't work - on it! The Windows driver somehow works around this, probably by using the - 3D engine to zoom, and the YUV framebuffer to display the zoomed - image. If you really want to use X, use the -vo x11 -fs -zoom - options, but it will be SLOW, and has Macrovision copy protection - enabled (you can "workaround" Macrovision using - this perl - script.
Framebuffer: using the matroxfb modules in the 2.4 kernels. - 2.2 kernels don't have the TVout feature in them, thus unusable for this. - You have to enable ALL matroxfb-specific feature during compilation (except - MultiHead), and compile them into modules! You'll also need I2C - enabled. -
1. - Enter TVout/matroxset and type make. Install - matroxset into somewhere in your PATH.
2. - If you don't have fbset installed, enter - TVout/fbset and type make. Install - fbset into somewhere in your PATH.
3. - If you don't have con2fb installed, enter - TVout/con2fb and type make. Install - con2fb into somewhere in your PATH.
4. - Then enter into the TVout/ directory in the MPlayer - source, and execute ./modules as root. Your text-mode console - will enter into framebuffer mode (no way back!).
5. Next, EDIT and run the ./matroxtv script. This will present you - to a very simple menu. Press 2 and ENTER. Now you should - have the same picture on your monitor, and TV. If - the TV (PAL by default) picture has some weird stripes on it, the script wasn't able to - set the resolution correctly (to 640x512 by default). Try other - resolutions from the menu and/or experiment with fbset.
- -
Yoh. Next task is to make the cursor on tty1 (or whatever) to disappear, - and turn off screen blanking. Execute the following commands:
- -
echo -e '\033[?25l' or setterm -cursor off - setterm -blank 0
- -
You possibly want to put the above into a script, and also clear - the screen.. To turn the cursor back:
echo -e '\033[?25h' - or setterm -cursor on
- -
Yeah kewl. Start movie playing with mplayer -vo mga -fs -screenw 640 - -screenh 512 <filename>
- (if you use X, now change to matroxfb with for example CTRL-ALT-F1!)
- Change 640x512 if you set the resolution to other.
- Enjoy the ultra-fast ultra-featured Matrox TV output (better than Xv)!
-

- -

Building a Matrox TV-out cable

- -

No one takes any responsibility, nor guarantee for any damage caused by this - documentation.

- -

Cable for G400: The CRTC2 connector's fourth pin is the composite video signal. The ground - are the sixth, seventh and eighth pins. (info contributed from Balázs - Rácz)

- -

Cable for G450: The CRTC2 connector's first pin is the composite video - signal. The ground are the fifth, sixth, seventh, and fifteenth - (5, 6, 7, 15) pins. (info contributed from Balázs Kerekes)

- -

2.3.1.5.2 Matrox G450/G550 cards

- -

TV output support for these cards has only been recently introduced, and is - not yet in the mainstream kernel. Currently the mga_vid module - can't be used AFAIK, because the G450/G550 driver works only in one - configuration: the first CRTC chip (with much more features) on the first - display (on monitor), and the second CRTC (no BES - for explanation - on BES, please see the G400 section above) on TV. So you can only use - MPlayer's fbdev output driver at the present.

- -

The first CRTC can't be routed to the second head currently. - The author of the kernel matroxfb driver - Petr Vandrovec - will maybe make - support for this, by displaying the first CRTC's output onto both of the - heads at once, as currently recommended for G400, see the section above.

- -

The necessary kernel patch and the detailed howto is downloadable from - http://www.bglug.ca/matrox_tvout/

- - -

2.3.1.5.3 ATI cards

- -

PREAMBLE

- -

Currently ATI doesn't want to support any of its TV-out chips under Linux, - because of their licensed Macrovision technology.

- -

ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX

- -

ATI Mach64: Supported by - gatos.
ASIC Radeon VIVO: Supported by - gatos.
Radeon and Rage128: Supported by MPlayer! - Check VESA driver and VIDIX - sections.
Rage Mobility P/M, Radeon, Rage 128, Mobility M3/M4: Supported by - - atitvout. -

- -

On other cards, just use the VESA driver, without - VIDIX. Powerful CPU is needed, though.

- -

Only thing you need to do - have TV connector plugged in before - booting your PC since video BIOS initializes itself only once during - POST procedure.

- - -

2.3.1.5.4 Voodoo 3

- -

Check this URL.

- - -

2.3.1.5.5 nVidia

- -

First, you MUST download the closed-source drivers from - http://nvidia.com. I will not describe the - installation and configuration process because it does not cover the - scope of this documentation.

- -

After XFree86, XVideo, and 3D acceleration is properly working, - edit your card's Device section in the XF86Config file, - according to the following example (adapt for your card/TV):

- -

-Section "Device"
-        Identifier      "GeForce"
-        VendorName      "ASUS"   
-        BoardName       "nVidia GeForce2/MX 400"
-        Driver          "nvidia"
-        #Option         "NvAGP" "1"
-        Option          "NoLogo"   
-        Option          "CursorShadow"  "on"
-
-        Option          "TwinView"
-        Option          "TwinViewOrientation" "Clone"
-        Option          "MetaModes" "1024x768,640x480"
-        Option          "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, TV"  
-        Option          "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
-        Option          "TVOutFormat" "Composite"
-
-EndSection
-

- -

Of course the important thing is the TwinView part.

- - - -- cgit v1.2.3

New-style DVD support (mpdvdkit2)

Old-style DVD support - OPTIONAL

DVD structure

DVD authentication

VCD structure

About .DAT files:

FOREWORD

INSTALLATION AND USAGE

ADVANTAGES

DISADVANTAGES

INSTALLING XVID CVS

COMPILING MPLAYER WITH QUICKTIME LIBRARIES SUPPORT

MPlayer - The Movie Player for LINUX

© 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (A'rpi/ESP-team) - http://www.mplayerhq.hu

Table of Contents

MEncoder features

Planned features

Software requirements:

Codecs:

Video Cards

YUV cards

Non-YUV cards

Some cards:

Sound cards:

Features:

VobSub subtitles

Other subtitles

Adjusting subtitle timing and placement:

Installation

2.3 Video & Audio output devices

Keyboard:

Mouse (only supported under X):

Joystick (support must be enabled at compile time):

Appendix B - How to report bugs

Appendix D - MPlayer skin format

Appendix E - Developer Cries

Appendix F - How to send patches

Example for 3-pass encoding:

Usage:

Examples

Examples

Usage:

Usage:

© 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (A'rpi/ESP-team)
- http://www.mplayerhq.hu