Table of Contents
1.1 Overview 1.2 History 1.3 Installation 1.4 What about the GUI?
2.1 Video Formats, Audio & Video Codecs 2.1.1 Supported input formats 2.1.2 Supported audio & video codecs 2.1.2.1 OpenDivX 2.1.2.2 ffmpeg's DivX/libavcodec 2.1.4 Codec importing howto 2.1.4.1 VFW codecs 2.1.4.2 DirectShow codecs
2.2 Video & Audio output devices 2.2.1 Video output devices 2.2.1.1 Xv 2.2.1.1.1 3dfx cards 2.2.1.1.2 S3 cards 2.2.1.1.3 nVidia cards 2.2.1.1.4 ATI cards 2.2.1.2 DGA 2.2.1.2.1 Summary 2.2.1.2.2 What is DGA 2.2.1.2.3 Installing DGA support for MPlayer 2.2.1.2.4 Resolution switching 2.2.1.2.5 DGA & MPlayer 2.2.1.2.6 Features of the DGA driver 2.2.1.2.7 Speed issues 2.2.1.2.8 Known bugs 2.2.1.2.9 Future work 2.2.1.2.A Some modelines 2.2.1.2.B Bug Reports 2.2.1.3 SDL 2.2.1.4 SVGAlib 2.2.1.5 Framebuffer output (FBdev) 2.2.1.6 Matrox framebuffer (mga_vid) 2.2.1.7 SiS 6326 framebuffer (sis_vid) 2.2.1.8 3dfx YUV support 2.2.1.9 OpenGL output 2.2.2 Audio output devices 2.2.2.1 Soundcard experiences, recommendations
3.1 Control from keyboard 3.2 Control from LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) 3.3 Streaming from network or pipes
5.1 CD drives 5.2 DVD drives 5.3 MTRR
6.1 Compilation 6.2 General questions 6.3 File playing problems 6.4 Video/audio driver problems 6.5 Feature requests 6.6 DVD FAQ
7.1 Debian packaging 7.2 FreeBSD 7.3 Solaris 8 7.4 StrongARM
1. Introduction 1.1. Overview MPlayer is a movie player for LINUX. It plays most MPEG, AVI and ASF files, supported by many native and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VCD, DVD and even DivX movies too. The another big feature of mplayer is the wide range of supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, but you can use SDL (and this way all drivers of SDL, for example AAlib) and some lowlevel card-specific drivers (for Matrox) too! Most of them supports software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in fullscreen. And what about the nice big antialiased shaded subtitles (7 supported types!!!) with hungarian, english, cyrillic, czech, korean fonts, and OSD? I didn't write any codecs, just some players. I spent a lot of time finding the best way to parse bad damaged input files (both MPEG and AVI) and to do perfect A-V sync with seeking ability. My 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 rebuild their indexes with the -idx option, thus enabling seeking! As you see, stability and quality are the most important things for me, but the speed is also amazing. 1.2. History This began a year ago... I've 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... - mpg12play v0.1-v0.3: 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: Mpeg codec replaced with DVDview by Dirk Farin, it was a great stuff, but it was slow and was written in C++ (I hate C++!!!) - mpg12play v0.9-v0.95pre5: 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 v0.3-v0.9: It was a pack of two programs: mpg12playv0.95pre6 and my new simple AVI player 'avip' based on avifile's Win32 DLL loader. - MPlayer v0.10: The MPEG and AVI player in a single binary! - MPlayer v0.11: 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 v0.17 "The IdegCounter" 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" 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 ! 1.3. Installation If you plan to use MPlayer on x86 architecture, you possibly want to use Win32 codecs. Download and unzip w32codecs.zip to /usr/lib/win32 . Note: the avifile project has similar codecs package, but it differs from our, so if you want to use all supported codecs, then use our package! However, you can use our codecs package with avifile. If you own a Matrox G200/G400/G450 card, then please see the 2.2.1.6 section in order to gain big speedup. It is important to do these steps _before_ compiling MPlayer, otherwise no Matrox-specific support will be built. If you plan to use the ProjectMayo's OpenDivX codec, check the 2.1.2.1 section before compiling. Then build MPlayer: ./configure make make install It is recommended to browse the output of ./configure , it contains info about what will be built, and what won't. You may also want to view config.h and config.mak files. Though not mandatory, the fonts should be installed in order to gain OSD, and subtitle functionality. Download mp_font3.zip (and optional language updates) and optional (if exists) language updates. mkdir ~/.mplayer/font cd ~/.mplayer/font unzip mp_font3.zip unzip mp_font3_hu.zip 1.4. What about the GUI ? I'm not a GUI programmer. I hate GUIs, I like the pure black 80x25 console. So the player has only keyboard control from the controlling console/xterm now. There is a GUI development for the player, coordinated by Pontscho/Fresh! It's still under development, but it will be merged and released real soon. BTW he needs some nice skins, if you are a good graphician, contact him!!! 2. Features 2.1. Video Formats, Audio & Video Codecs 2.1.1. Supported input formats MPlayer can read/play from the following devices/formats: - VCD (Video CD) directly from CD-ROM or from CDRwin's .bin image file - DVD, directly from your DVD disk, using optional libcss for decryption - MPEG 1/2 System Stream (PS/PES/VOB) and Elementary Stream (ES) file formats - RIFF AVI file format - ASF 1.0 file format - supports reading from file, stdin, DVD drive or network via HTTP Note: about quicktime (.mov/.qt) and realmedia (.ra/.rm) support read the FAQ! 2.1.2. Supported audio & video codecs See http://mplayer.sourceforge.net/DOCS/codecs.html for the complete, daily updated list!!! The most important video codecs: - MPEG1 (VCD) and MPEG2 (DVD) video - DivX, FFmpeg, OpenDivX and other MPEG4 variants - Windows Media Video 7 (WMV1) used in .wmv files - Intel Indeo codecs (3.1,3.2,4.1,5.0) - MJPEG, ASV2 and other hardware formats The most important audio codecs: - MPEG layer 2, and layer 3 (MP3) audio (native code, with 3dnow optimization) - AC3 dolby audio (native code, with 3dnow optimization) - Voxware audio - alaw, msgsm, pcm and other simple old audio formats If you have a codec not listed here, and not supported yet, just read http://mplayer.sourceforge.net/DOCS/codecs.html to get info about its status and about how to help us adding support for it! 2.1.2.1. OpenDivX This section contains information about the DivX/OpenDivX codecs of ProjectMayo. Their first available alpha version was the OpenDivX 4.0 alpha 47 and 48. Support for this was/is included in MPlayer, and built by default. We even used its postprocessing code to optionally enhance visual quality of MPEG1/2 movies. The new generation of this codec can even decode movies made with the infamous DivX codec! And it's not everything, it's MUCH faster than the traditional Win32 DivX DLL's. See below for configuration. The only disadvantage of this codec is that it's currently closed-source. :( The codec can be downloaded from the following URL: http://download2.projectmayo.com/dnload/divx4linux/divx4linux-20010718.zip No automatic installing available at this time, so install it manually, EXACTLY as described here. Unpack it, and copy files to their place: cp libdivxdecore.so.0.0.0 /usr/local/lib/ ln -s /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0.0.0 /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0 ln -s /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0 /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so ldconfig cp decore.h /usr/local/include/ MPlayer autodetects if OpenDivX is (properly) installed, just compile as usual. If it doesn't detect it, you didn't install it exactly as above, and/or has fucked up config (see last question of 6.1 section). Using it is a bit tricky. As it conflicts with the old OpenDivX (it's API is very similar to OpenDivX's), OpenDivX code is disabled, and the OpenDivX driver calls this library too. Generally we can pinpoint this issue to that you have two options to use this codec: -vc odivx : using divx4 codec as a new version of OpenDivX. in this case it produces YV12 image in its own buffer, and MPlayer (libvo) does colorspace conversion. -vc divx4 : using divx4 codec's colorspace conversion. in this mode, you can use YUY2/UYVY too. The '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 'divx4' method. For RGB modes you can choose freely, their speed is same, maybe differ according to the current bpp. Note: it supports postprocessing too, but range of values is strange: 0 no postproc 10 .. 20 postprocessing, normal (like level 2 with divxds) 30 .. 60 hard postprocessing, eats many CPU. (like level 4 with divxds) 2.1.2.2. ffmpeg's DivX/libavcodec Beginning with version 0.4.2 , ffmpeg contains an opensource DivX codec, which is compatible with the traditional DivX. MPlayer contains this codec, and this makes it possible to watch DivX movies on non-x86 platforms! To get it compile, you'll need nasm, bison, and flex, above the other devel tools. It was removed from MPlayer's cvs tree, you have to download it manually directly from FFmpeg's tree : cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ffmpeg.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg login cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ffmpeg.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co ffmpeg Note: if you copy with CVS subdirs, next time it's enough to do 'cvs update'. Now, move the newly downloaded ffmpeg source's libavcodec directory, (with all it's subdirectories) to MPlayer's tree, so it will look like this : main/libavcodec Symlinking is NOT enough, you have to copy it. ./configure detects if it can be built. At the moment it doesn't support postprocessing, and is under optimization (it's faster than the DS/VfW DivX codec). In order to use it, refresh your codecs.conf file, and do as the manpage, or the example.conf says (the -vfm option). Note: libavcodec contains other codecs as well, but at the moment we mostly focus on ffdivx, and it's unlikely that this will change. 2.1.4. Codec importing howto 2.1.4.1. 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 with your AVI: 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 we know this, we'll have to find out which DLL Windows loads in order to play this file. In our case, the system.ini contains this (with many others): VIDC.HFYU=huffyuv.dll So we'll need the huffyuv.dll file. Note that the audio codecs are specified with the MSACM prefix : msacm.l3acm=L3codeca.acm This is the MP3 codec. So, now we have all the info needed (fourcc, codec file, sample AVI), submit your codec support request in mail, and upload these files to the FTP: ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/ 2.1.4.2. DirectShow codecs DirectShow is the newer Video API, which is even worse than its predecessor. Things are harder with DirectShow, since - system.ini doesn't contain the needed information, instead it's stored in the registry :( - we'll need the GUID of the codec. So let's search that goddamn registry.. - Start 'regedit' - press ctrl-f, disable the first two checkbox, and enable the third. Type the fourcc of the codec. (for ex.: TM20) - you should see a field which contains the path and filename (for ex. : C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\TM20DEC.AX) - now that we have the file, we'll need the GUID. Try searching again, but now we'll search for the codec's name, not the fourcc. Its name can be acquired when Media Player is playing that file, by checking File/Properties/Advanced. If not, bad luck ;) Try guessing. (for ex. search for : TrueMotion) - if found (in registry), there should be a FriendlyName field, and a CLSID field. Write down that 16 byte of CLSID, this is the GUID required by us. NOTE : if searching fails, try to enable all the checkboxes.. you may have false hits, but maybe you'll have the right, too... NOTE : dump that M$ shit. So, now we have all the info needed (fourcc, GUID, codec file, sample AVI), submit your codec support request in mail, and upload these files to the FTP: ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/ 2.2. Video & Audio output devices 2.2.1. Video output devices General: - x11: X11 with optional SHM extension - xv: X11 using overlays with the Xvideo extension (hardware YUV & scaling) - gl: OpenGL renderer, so far works only with : - all cards with Utah-GLX - Matrox cards with X/DRI >=4.0.3 - Radeon with X/DRI CVS - dga: X11 DGA extension - fbdev:Output to general framebuffers - svga: Output to SVGAlib - sdl: 1.1.7 : supports software scaling 1.1.8 : supports Xvideo (hardware scaling/fullscreen) 1.2.0 : supports aalib (textmode rendering, very funny!) - ggi: similar to SDL Card specific: - mga: Matrox G200/G400 hardware YUV overlay via the mga_vid device - xmga: Matrox G200/G400 overlay (mga_vid) in X11 window (Xv emulation on X 3.3.x !) - syncfb: Matrox G400 YUV support on framebuffer (obsoleted, use mga/xmga) - 3dfx: Voodoo2/3 hardware YUV (/dev/3dfx) support (not yet tested, maybe broken) Special: - png: PNG files output (use -z switch to set compression) - pgm: PGM files output (for testing purposes or ffmpeg encoding) - md5: MD5sum output (for MPEG conformance tests) - odivx:OpenDivX AVI File writer (use -br to set encoding bitrate) - null: Null output (for speed tests/benchmarking) NOTE: check the following subsections for details and requirements! 2.2.1.1. 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. 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 harware 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. 2.2.1.1.1. 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 4.1.0 or greater, it works ok. Alternatively, you can use DRI cvs. 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. 2.2.1.1.2. S3 cards S3 Savage3D's should work fine, but for Savage4, use XFree86 version 4.0.3 or greater. As for S3 Virge.. sell it. 2.2.1.1.3. nVidia cards nVidia isn't a very good choice under Linux.. You'll have to use the binary nVidia driver, available at nVidia's website. The standard X driver doesn't support XVideo for these cards, due to nVidia's closed sources/specifications. - Riva128 cards don't have XVideo support even with the nvidia driver :( Complain to NVidia. 2.2.1.1.4. ATI cards The GATOS driver 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. 2.2.1.2. DGA 2.2.1.2.1. Summary This document 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). 2.2.1.2.2. 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 excecutable (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 XServer, 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 XServer's video driver that controls this chip. So it does not work on every system ... 2.2.1.2.3. 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 switches -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 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. !!!! BUT STAY TUNED !!!! This is a BIG security risk! Never do this on a server or on a computer can be accessed by more people than only you because they can gain root privilegies through suid root mplayer. !!!! SO YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ... !!!! Now use '-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!!! 2.2.1.2.4. 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 honouring aspect ratio) of the video data, but the XServer 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 capabilites of your video hardware. The XServer 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 See appendix A for some sample modeline definitions. 2.2.1.2.5. 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. 2.2.1.2.6. Features of the DGA driver The DGA driver is invoked by specifying -vo dga at the command line. The default behaviour is to switch to a resolution matching the original resolution of the video as close as possible. It deliberately ignores the -vm and -fs switches (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. 2.2.1.2.7. 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. 2.2.1.2.8. Known bugs Well, according to some developpers 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. o with XFree 4.0.3 and nv.o there is a bug resulting in strange colors o ATI driver requires to switch mode back more than once after finishing using of DGA o some drivers simply fail to switch back to normal resolution (use Ctrl-Alt-Keypad +, - to switch back manually) o some drivers simply display strange colors o some drivers lie about the amount of memory they map into the process's address space, thus vo_dga won't use doublebuffering (SIS?) o 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 the like ... o OSD only works with doublebuffering enabled 2.2.1.2.9. Future work o use of the new X11 render interface for OSD o where is my TODO list ???? :-((( 2.2.1.2.A. Some modelines 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 These entries work fine with my Riva128 chip, using nv.o XServer driver module. 2.2.1.2.B. Bug Reports If you experience troubles with the DGA driver please feel free to file a bug report to me (e-mail address below). Please start mplayer with the -v option and include all lines in the bug report that start with vo_dga: Please do also include the version of X11 you are using, the graphics card and your CPU type. The X11 driver module (defined in XF86-Config) might also help. Thanks! Acki (acki@acki-netz.de, www.acki-netz.de) 2.2.1.3. SDL Here are some notes about SDL out in MPlayer. There are several commandline switches for SDL: -vo sdl:name specifies sdl video driver to use (ie. aalib, dga, x11) -ao sdl:name specifies sdl audio driver to use (ie. dsp, esd, arts) -noxv disables Xvideo hardware acceleration -forcexv tries to force Xvideo acceleration SDL Keys: F toggles fullscreen/windowed mode C cycles available fullscreen modes W/S mappings for * and / (mixer control) KNOWN BUGS: - Keys pressed under aalib console driver repeat forever. It's bug in SDL, I can't change it (tested with SDL 1.2.1). 2.2.1.4. SVGAlib If you don't have X, you can use the SVGAlib target! Be sure not to use the -fs switch, since it toggles the usage of the software scaler, and it's SLOOOW now, unless you have a real fast CPU (and/or MTRR?). :( Of course 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. 2.2.1.5. Framebuffer output (FBdev) Whether to build the FBdev target is autodetected during ./configure . Read the framebuffer documentation in the kernel sources (Documentation/fb/*) for info on how to enable it, etc.. ! 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/fd0) -fbmode mode name to use (according to /etc/fb.modes) -fbmodeconfig config file of modes (default /etc/fb.modes) monitor_hfreq monitor_vfreq IMPORTANT values, see example.conf monitor_dotclock 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 (software scaling is slow). -fs option isn't supported. You can't use 8bpp (or less) modes. 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. 2.2.1.6. Matrox framebuffer (mga_vid) This section is about the Matrox G200/G400/G450 BES (Back-End Scaler) support, the mga_vid kernel driver. It's active developed by me (A'rpi), and it has hardware VSYNC support with triple buffering. It works on both framebuffer console and under X. To use it, you first have to compile mga_vid.o : cd drivers make Then create /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, insert the following line at the end of /etc/modules.conf : alias char-major-178 mga_vid 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 . Note: '-vo xmga' works under XFree86 4.x.x, but it conflicts with the Xv driver, so avoid using both. If you messed up Xv with mga, try running MPlayer with '-vo mga' . It should fix Xv. 2.2.1.7. SiS 6326 framebuffer (sis_vid) SiS 6326 YUV Framebuffer driver -> sis_vid kernel driver Its interface should be compatible with the mga_vid, but the driver was not updated after the mga_vid changes, so it's outdated now. Volunteers needed to test it and bring the code up-to-date. 2.2.1.8. 3dfx YUV support 3dfx has native YUV+scaler support, using /dev/3dfx (tdfx.o driver?) The /dev/3dfx kernel driver exists only for 2.2.x kernels, for use with Glide 2.x Linux ports. It's not tested with MPlayer, and so no more supported. Volunteers needed to test it and bring the code up-to-date. 2.2.1.9. OpenGL output MPlayer support displaying movies using OpenGL. Unfortunately, not all drivers support this ability. For example the Utah-GLX drivers (for XFree86 3.3.6) have it, with all cards. See http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net for details about how to install it. XFree86(DRI) >= 4.0.3 supports it only with Matrox, and Radeon cards. See http://dri.sourceforge.net for download, and installation instructions. 2.2.2. Audio output devices - OSS (ioctl) driver - SDL driver (supports up/downsampling, esd, arts etc) - native ALSA 0.5 driver - native ALSA 0.9 driver (buggy, use OSS emulation!) - native ESD driver (under development?) - SUN audio driver (/dev/audio) for BSD and Solaris8 users 2.2.2.1. Soundcard experiences, recommendations Aureal Vortex 2: OSS/Free: no driver OSS : OK ALSA : no driver Max kHz : 48 Driver : aureal.sourceforge.net Driver2 : from here (buffer size increased to 64k) GUS PnP: OSS/Free: no driver OSS : OK ALSA : OK Max kHz : 48 SB Live!: OSS : OK ALSA : (?) Max kHz : 48 SB AWE 64 OSS : max 44kHz ALSA : 48kHz sounds shit Max kHz : 48 Gravis UltraSound ACE: OSS : max 44Khz. Also has problems with the new sound code. ALSA : OK Max kHz : 48 Gravis UltraSound MAX: OSS : OK ALSA : OK (?) Max kHz : 48 ESS 688: OSS : OK ALSA : OK (?) Max kHz : 48 C-Media cards (which ones?) OSS : not OK (hissing) (?) ALSA : OK (?) Max kHz : ? PC Speaker or DAC: OSS : OK (new timing code?) ALSA : no driver Max kHz : 6 ;) (the driver emulates 44.1 maybe more) Driver : ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/pcsp - use at least 2.4 if possible, 2.2 isn't tested - if sound clicks when playing from CD-ROM, turn on IRQ unmasking ! for example "hdparm -u1 /dev/cdrom" (see "man hdparm" !!!) This is recommended anyways... (for XMMS, etc...) Read section 5.1 . - don't use your soundcard by other application ( for ex. XMMS ) ! if you use ESD, start MPlayer with the esddsp utility ! - Please tell us how MPlayer and your soundcard(s) worked together! 3. Usage file: mplayer [options] [path/]filename VCD: mplayer [options] -vcd trackno /dev/cdrom DVD: mplayer [options] -dvdauth /dev/dvd filename.VOB net: mplayer [options] http://site.com/file.[mpg|avi] mplayer -vo x11 /mnt/Films/Contact/contact2.mpg mplayer -vcd 2 /dev/cdrom mplayer -afm 3 /mnt/DVDtrailers/alien4.vob mplayer -dvd /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd/matrix.vob mplayer -abs 65536 -delay -0.4 -nobps ~/movies/test.avi 3.1. Control from keyboard l/r arrows seek backward/forward 10 seconds up or down seek backward/forward 1 minute p or SPACE pause movie (press any key to continue) q or ^C stop playing and quit program o toggle OSD : none / seek / seek+timer / and * decrease/increase volume m toggle using master/pcm channel for volume setting f toggle fullscreen (only with -vo sdl) 3.2. 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, you can compile MPlayer with LIRC support using ./configure --enable-lirc If everything went fine, MPlayer will print a message like LIRC init was successful. on startup. If an error occurs it will tell you. If it doens't tell you anything about LIRC there's no support compiled in. That's it :-) The application name for MPlayer is - oh wonder - mplayer_lirc. It understands the following commands: PAUSE - pause playing. Any other keystroke will continue replay. QUIT - exit mplayer RWND - 10 secs back FRWND - 60 secs back FWD - skip 10 secs FFWD - skip 60 secs INCVOL - increase volume one percent DECVOL - decrease volmue one percent MASTER - use master mixer channel PCM - use pcm mixer channel Don't forget to enable the repeat flag for RWND/FWD in .lircrc. Here's an excerpt from my .lircrc: begin remote = CU-SX070 prog = mplayer_lirc button = Tape_Play repeat = 1 config = FFWD end begin remote = CU-SX070 prog = mplayer_lirc button = Tape_Stop config = QUIT end If you don't like the standard location for the lirc-config file (~/.lircrc) use the -lircconf [filename] switch to specify another file. 3.3. Streaming from network or pipes MPlayer can play media from network, by using the HTTP protocol, and even beta ASF streaming (FROM network) is available. Configuring it is simple, just recompile MPlayer with ./configure --enable-streaming 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 - 4. TV-out support 4.1. Matrox cards > What I'd love to see in mplayer is the the same feature that I see in my > windows box. When I start a movie in windows (in a window or in full screen) > the movie is also redirected to the tv-out and I can also see it full screen > on my tv. I love this feature and was wondering how hard it would be to add > such a feature to mplayer. It's a driver limitation. BES (Back-End Scaler, it's the overlay generator and YUV scaling engine of G200/G400/G450 cards) works only with CRTC1. Normally, CRTC1 (textmode, every bpp gfx and BES) is routed to HEAD1, and CRTC2 (only 16/32bpp gfx) is routed to HEAD2 (TV-out). Under linux, you have two choices to get TV-out working: 1. Using X 4.0.x + the HAL driver from matrox, so you'll get dual-head support, and you'll be able to redirect second output to the TV. Unfortunately it has Macrovision encryption enabled, so it will only work on directly-connected TV, no through VCR. Other problem is that Xv doesn't work on the second head. (I don't know how Windows solve it, maybe it swaps the CRTCs between the heads, or just uses YUV framebuffer of second DAC with some trick) 2. Using matroxfb with dual-head support enabled (2.4.x kernels). You'll be able to get a framebuffer console (using CRTC2, so it's slow), and TV-out (using CRTC1, with BES support). You have to forget X while using this kind of TV-out! :( - Compile all the matrox-related things to modules in the kernel. (you MUST compile them to modules, at least I couldn't get them working built-in yet) [reboot to new kernel & install modules, but don't load them yet!] cd TVout ./compile.sh - Run the 'modules' script from the TV-out directory of mplayer. It will switch your console to framebuffer. Change to tty1 (ALT+F1)! Now run the script 'independent', it will set up your tty's: tty 1,2: fb console, CRTC2, head 1 (monitor) tty 3,4,5...: framebuffer+BES, CRTC1, head 2 (TV-out) You should run the scripts TV-* and Mon-* to set up resolutions: change to tty1 (ALT+F1), and run Mon-* (one of them) change to tty3 (ALT+F3) and then back to tty1 (ALT+F1) (this change will select tty3 on /dev/fb1 - tricky) run TV-* (one of them) (now you'll get a console on your PAL TV - don't know about NTSC) Now if you start mplayer (on tty1), the picture will show up on the tty3, so you'll see it on your TV or second monitor. Yes, it is a bit 'hack' now. But I'm waiting for the marvel project to be finished, it will provide real TV-out drivers, I hope. My current problem is that BES is working only with CRTC1. So picture will always shown up on head routed to CRTC1 (normaly the monitor), so i have to swap CRTC's, but this way your console will framebuffer (CRTC2 can't do text-mode) and a bit slow (no acceleration). :( > anyway i also just get monochrome output on the tv ... Maybe you have NTSC TV? Or just didn't run one of TV-* scripts. 5. Tuning 5.1. CD-ROM drives From Linux documentation: Some CDROM drives are capable of changing their head-speed. There are several reasons for changing the speed of a CDROM drive. Badly pressed CDROMs may benefit from less-than-maximum head rate. Modern CDROM drives can obtain very high head rates (up to 24-times is common). It has been reported that these drives can make reading errors at these high speeds, reducing the speed can prevent data loss in these circumstances. Finally, some of these drives can make an annoyingly loud noise, which a lower speed may reduce. The recommended way to do it is with a program called 'setcd' . It's kinda old, but won't be too hard to find on the Net. Use it with : setcd -x [speed] [cdrom device] Also you can try : echo current_speed:4 >/proc/ide/[cdrom device]/settings but you'll need root privileges. I use following command too : echo file_readahead:2000000 >/proc/ide/[cdrom device]/settings for 2MB prefetched reading from the file (it's useful for scratched CDROMs). It's recommended that you tuneup your CDROM drive also with hdparm : hdparm -d1 -a8 -u1 (cdrom device) to enable using DMA access, readahead, and IRQ unmasking. (if you don't understand these, *read the hdparm manpage*) Please refer to "/proc/ide/[cdrom device]/settings" for fine-tuning your CDROM. 5.2. DVD drives IMPORTANT NOTE: please _DO_NOT_ require further features for DVD playback. This is extremly experimental hack. Maybe it won't work for you. If you're capable of helping us do it now! First we would like to fix existing problems. Then we can start implementing advanced DVD playback functions of course. This means current DVD functions are mainly for developers and not for users! First, you must compile and install libcss on your system. Second, you have to recompile MPlayer with libcss support. There is autodetection of libcss, but if it fails, see below : Call ./configure script of MPlayer with these options: ./configure --enable-css --with-csslibdir=/usr/local/lib --with-cssincdir=/usr/local/include (of course you can append your favourite options as well) --with-csslibdir=/usr/local/lib Directory contains libcss.so shared library. This directory should be in your /etc/ld.so.conf as well. --with-cssincdir=/usr/local/include Directory contains header file 'css.h' of libcss. mplayer -dvdauth /dev/dvd /mnt/cdrom/video_ts/vts_01_1.vob where, '-dvdauth /dev/dvd' tells MPlayer the device name of your DVD drive. it's used in disc authentication process the filename is simply a VOB file path on the disc Note that according to my experiences, disc authentication requires root privileges so you must run MPlayer as root! (see section 'Problems'). NOTE about the sound: It seems that MPlayer sometimes fails to find the first audio stream. You can specify it with the '-aid 128' option, for example. Please experience with 128,129 and similar values. See section 'Problems'. On my AMD K6-2 with using hw scaling and colorspace conversion capability of my G400 it's possible to watch DVD with about 70% CPU usage with '-nosound'. Unfortunately with sound my machine is not enough :( Maybe it can be improved somewhat ... Guess, it's not so bad ... According to reports from my friends xine uses 80-90% CPU to play DVD on much more powerful machines like 1GHz Athlon systems (as far as I know, it's said that about 300MHz celeron is the minimum to watch DVDs ... using windows DVD viewers). Hint: I commented out downmix functions from libac3 (of course in this way I can't get sound) and audio decoding CPU usage became 11% instead of 24 on my machine. This clearly indicates that we should optimize downmix functions (KNI code is no use for my k6-2). HOT NEWZ: We have got 3Dnow optimized libac3. Wow ;-) Problems (TODO) * disc authentication (the FIBMAP ioctl) requires root privilegies. this is strange since OMS can do it as user too. * sound. I'm using my only DVD disc (The Matrix) to test MPlayer. some VOB file have English sound, some have Spanish and some have no sound at all. IT SEEMS that if I give '-aid 128' everything works with English sound ... * strange effects but only with SOME vob files (it looks like some interlacing effect, eg: every 2nd line on the screen is from the last frame). Feature TODO * chapter scanner * audio stream scanner and allow to select one on runtime as well (in stage#1 it would be enough to select one on the startup, see 'Problems' above) * DVD menu I found (at least on disc 'The Matrix') the menu VOB but I don't know how can it be used. (after some eyeballing on the source of OMS, it seems we would have to parse *.ifo files) * subtitle support * OSD/GUI (?) support for select chapter, subtitle and audio stream * getting some documentation on DVD format, eg: which is the 'root' VOB file on the disc in video_ts directory, which is the menu and so on. * improve performance (see 'Performance' above) No sound problem (from Matrix DVD, the menu VOB) End of packet while searching for PCM header DEMUXER: Too many (2048 in 4131540 bytes) video packets in the buffer! (maybe you play a non-interleaved stream/file or video codec failed) MPEG: No Audio stream found... ->nosound However this does not occur if you specify '-aid 128'. 5.3. MTRR It is VERY recommended to set MTRR registers up properly, because they can give a big performance boost. 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). 6. FAQ section (TODO) 6.1. Compilation Q: What's the problem with gcc 2.96 ? A: gcc 2.96 is RedHat's UNOFFICIAL (it can be found only on RedHat sites, or RedHat distributions) and BUGGY gcc release. gcc 2.96 is TOTALLY unsupported by MPlayer, because it simply SKIPS MMX codes, it just does not compile it. Important: this is NOT an MPlayer-specific problem, numerous other projects (DRI, avifile, etc..) have problems with this shit too. ** DO NOT USE gcc 2.96 !!! ** Q: Great, I have gcc 3.0.1 from RedHat/Mandrake, then I'm fine--! A: No :) Their gcc 3.0.1 was compiled with gcc 2.96, so they are buggy shit too. Q: Now then. What should I use? A: Any of gcc 2.95 series. Q: SDL output doesn't work or compile. Problem is .... A: It is tested with newest SDL (probably runs on 1.1.7+). It does NOT work with 1.1.6, 1.1.5 1.1.4 1.1.3 1.0.4 etc, don't ask. Q: I am still having trouble compiling with SDL support. gcc says something about "undefined reference to `SDL_EnableKeyRepeat'" What's 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 DOCS/inttypes.h to MPlayer directory (cp DOCS/inttypes.h .) try again... if fail, contact us Q: I have Pentium III but ./configure doesn't detect SSE A: Only kernel versions 2.4.x supports SSE (or try latest 2.2.19 or newer, but be prepared for problems) Q: I have G200/G400, how to compile/use mga_vid driver? A: Read all this documentation. Q: Are there rpm/deb/... packages of MPlayer? A: You can make a .deb package for yourself, check section 7.1 . It's _STRONGLY_ discouraged to use precompiled packages of MPlayer, since it (currently) _highly_ depends on compile-time options and optimizations! Precompiled packages are COMPLETELY unsupported by the MPlayer team! 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 RedHat, and xlib6g-dev* under Debian. Also check if the /usr/X11 symlink exists (this can be a problem on Mandrake systems). It can be created with the $ ln -sf /usr/X11R6 /usr/X11 command. Also check the /usr/include/X11 link : $ ln -sf /usr/X11R6/include/X11 /usr/include/X11 Your distribution may differ from the Linux Filesystem Standard. Q: What about 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 VIDEOCARDS) Alternatively, try SDL's DGA driver with '-vo sdl:dga' options. Q: I can't compile SVGAlib.. I'm using 2.3/2.4 kernel. A: You have to edit SVGAlib's Makefile.cfg and comment "BACKGROUND = y" out. Q: I compiled MPlayer with libcss/libdivxdecore support, but when I try to start it, it says : > error while loading shared libraries: libcss.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: What are you doing on Linux? Can't you install a library? Why do we get these questions? It's not MPlayer specific at all! Add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig . Or install it to /usr/lib , because if you can't solve the /usr/local problem, you are careless enough to do such things. 6.2. General questions Q: What about DVD playback? A: Read files 'DVD' and 'DVD-FAQ'. Q: -xy option doesn't work with x11 driver (-vo x11) A: x11 driver doesn't support scaling, but XF86VidMode support is now used: you must specify the -vm and the -fs switch, and you're done. Make sure you have the right Modelines in your XF86Config file, and try if the DGA driver (and SDL's DGA driver, see VIDEOCARDS) works for you. It's much faster. If SDL's DGA works too, use that, it'll be EVEN faster! Q: what is the meaning of numbers in the status line? A: see: A: 2.1 V: 2.2 A-V: -0.167 ct: 0.042 57 41% 0% 2.6% 0 - 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) - video codec cpu usage in percent (for mpeg it includes video_out too!) - video_out cpu usage for avi, 0 for mpg (see above) - audio codec cpu usage in percent - frames needed to drop to maintain A-V sync Most of them are for debug purposes, and will be removed soon. Q: Why is video_out cpu usage zero (0%) for mpeg files? A: It's not zero, but it's built in into codec, so can't be measured separated. You should try to play the file using -vo null and then -vo ... and check the difference to see video_out speed... Q: What's XMMP? (is it XMMS or XMPS but mispelled?) A: It's a new project, see http://frozenproductions.com for details Q: There are error messages about file not found /usr/lib/win32/.... A: Download & install w32codec.zip from *our* FTP (avifile's codec package has different DLL set) Q: Are there any mailing lists on MPlayer? A: Yes! See README on how to subscribe them! Q: I've found a nasty bug when I tried to play my favourite video!! Who should I inform? A: See Appendix C . Q: I have problems playing files with ... codec. Can I use'em? A: Check http://mplayer.sourceforge.net/DOCS/codecs.html, if it doesn't contain your codec, read http://mplayer.sourceforge.net/DOCS/CODECS, and contact us. Q: Umm, what is "IdegCounter" ? A: A mixture of a hungarian and an english word. In english, "Ideg" means "nerve", and is pronounced as something like "ydaegh" . It was first used to measure the nervousness of A'rpi, after some (umm) "mystic" disappearance of CVS code ;) Q: LIRC doesn't work, because ... A: Are you sure you use "mplayer_lirc" instead of "mplayer" ? Q: Subtitles are very nice, the most beautiful I've ever seen, but they slow down the 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 OSD is flickering! A: You use a vo driver with single buffering (x11,xv). With xv you can change the number of buffers in libvo/vo_xv.c : Increase #define NUM_BUFFERS 1 Q: What exactly is this libavcodec? A: It's from Gerard Lantau's ffmpeg package (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net). It has C language DivX ;-) and OpenDivX codec. Some benchmarks showed that its DivX seems to be even faster than DirectShow codec without preprocessing, and only a few percent slower than ProjectMayo's OpenDivX decoder. It uses YV12 pixel format, so old Voodoo users can use it for YUV. Also, open the possibility to play DivX on virtually every computer that has a C compiler. Kinda great stuff, isn't it? 6.3. File playing problems Q: ...... works with avifile/aviplay while doesn't with MPlayer A: MPlayer != avifile The only common thing between these players is the Win32 DLL loader. The codecs (dll) sets, syncronization, demultiplexing etc is totaly different and shouldn't be compared. If something works with aviplay it doesn't mean that MPlayer should do it and vice versa. Q: audio goes out of sync playing .avi file A: try with -bps or -nobps option if still bad, send me (upload to ftp) that file, I'll check. Q: Indeo 3.x/4.x movies are viewed upside-down!!!? A: It's a known bug (really it's a bug/limitation of the DLL codec) Try if your vo driver supports the -flip switch. Q: Indeo 3.x,4.x video doesn't work at 32bpp resolutions (16,24 bpp are ok) A: It's a known bug (really it's a bug/limitation of the DLL codec) Q: I've got 'MPlayer interrupted by signal 11' in module audio_setup or decode_audio. A: This is highly unlikely, since the mp3lib rewrite. Contact us, it may be a bug. Possibly it's a damaged file, try with -afm 4 . Q: MPlayer exits with something 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 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 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 switch, everything is ok (but quiet). A: Those files probably have 48Khz audio, and your soundcard/driver can't play it correctly. Audio downsampling isn't implemented in MPlayer (yet). 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. Don't use MPlayer on different CPU than it was compiled on. Q: I have problems with [your window manager] and fullscreen xv/xmga/sdl/x11 modes.. A1: Use the -fsmode switch. See example.conf or manpage. Q: But it works with avifile ! A: So what? Q: Then avifile is better ! A: Then use avifile, it has nice GUI and nice C++ code :) Q: I got this playing mpeg files: Can't find codec for video format 0x10000001 ! A: You have old version of codecs.conf at ~/.mplayer/. Upgrade it from DOCS/ Q: After starting mplayer under KDE(1/2) 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 the time until video starts or you disable the arts-daemon in kontrollcenter. If you want to use arts sound, specify audio output via SDL (ao=sdl), and make sure your SDL can handle arts sound. Yet another option is to start mplayer with artsdsp. 6.4. Video/audio driver problems (vo/ao) Q: Ok, -vo help shows DGA driver, but it is babbling about permissions! Help me! A: It works only if running as root! It's a DGA limitation. You should become to root (su -), and try again. Another solution is making mplayer SUID root, but its NOT RECOMMENDED! chown root /usr/local/bin/mplayer chmod 750 /usr/local/bin/mplayer chmod +s /usr/local/bin/mplayer !!!! BUT STAY TUNED !!!! This is a *BIG* security risk! *NEVER* do this on a server or on a computer can be accessed by more people than only you because they can gain root privilegies through suid root mplayer!!! !!!! SO 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: Your driver is old, update it. Either download (at least) DRI version 0.6 from http://dri.sourceforge.net , or use the DRI cvs. Q: When using Xvideo, I can't play DivX avis with my Voodoo 3/Banshee ! It says: ... Xvideo image format: 0x32315659 (YV12) planar Xvideo image format: 0x30323449 (I420) planar ... A1: See the previous answer. A2: Since 0.18pre4 we include libavcodec from the ffmpeg package. It contains a C language DivX and OpenDivX decoder. The DivX decoder uses YV12 format for output, thus it should work for you. Compile in libavcodec support. Q: OpenGL (-vo gl) output doesn't work (hangup/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 shit. it's known to work with Utah-GLX/DRI and Matrox G400 card. Also with DRI and Radeon card. It won't work with DRI others than these. it will not work with 3DFX cards because the 256x256 texture size limit. Q: I have an nVidia TNT/TNT2 card, and I have a band with strange colours, right under the movie! Whose fault is this? A: It's the nVidia X driver's. These bugs are ONLY with the TNT/TNT2 cards, and we can't do anything about it, it's not our bug. 6.5. Feature requests Q: Is there a hint on how to watch QuickTime and RealMedia movies in MPlayer? A: There's no way to do it. Therefore these formats deserve to die in flames. Theoretically you can reverse engineer Real codecs built for Linux (they are available as .so files), but in practice that's really difficult, even if you know how the compiler used by Real is making assembler code. As for QuickTime, it's possible to play some old movies and this capability will be added to mplayer soon, but newer clips are all Sorenson encoded, and that codec is built-in deep in the QT executable, there's no way to use it. 6.6. DVD FAQ Q: I have some problem not mentioned here ... A: Read file 'DVD' as well. Q: How can I actually watch DVD with MPlayer? A: Ehh. Go on reading this file as well as 'DVD' (hint: you must have libcss) Q: So MPlayer can play DVDs? Then it must use DeCSS! You are under arrest under the XYZ#$ paragraph of the-- A: Get back asshole, there is no DeCSS code in MPlayer. It links to libcss. Q: Seems to work but no sound. A: Use '-aid 128' (or try: 128,129,...) command line switch Q: I have got Spanish audio instead of English (or similar problems) A: See the last question/answer. Q: MPlayer complains about FIBMAP or something. A: Try to run MPlayer as root. Q: some strange effect (interlace like thing) especially when fast moving objects are shown in the movie A: known problem, we try to fix it later Q: DVD support in MPlayer is a piece of shit! A: You're probably right :) However please contact us if you can improve it! Q: Where can I get libcss package from? A: Maybe from the source of OMS (www.linuxvideo.org). Q: How can I ... (insert some expectable DVD player feature here) A: The current implementation is only for viewing VOB files from DVD. Nothing more, like subtitles, menus and so on. Q: How can I set the region code of my DVD-Drive ? I don't have windows! A: Use the 'regionset' tool : http://www.linuxtv.org/download/dvd/dvd_disc_20000215.tar.gz Q: MPlayer complains about some renamed option? A: For future development, old '-dvd' option was replaced by '-dvdauth'. Option '-dvd' *WILL* do the 'full disk movie' mplaying mode. But until that, '-dvd' does nothing only prints error message. 7. Misc OS'es 7.1. Debian packaging To build the package, get the cvs version, or .tgz and uncompress it, and cd into programs directory: cd main fakeroot debian/rules binary (... mplayer detects hardware/software, builds itself and.. ) dpkg-deb: building package `mplayer' in `../mplayer_0.18-1_i386.deb'. And now just become root, and : dpkg -i ../mplayer_0.18-1_i386.deb as root. Here's how it looks like: eyck@incubus:/src/main$ sudo dpkg -i ../mplayer_0.18-1_i386.deb Password: (Reading database ... 26946 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace mplayer 0.17a-1 (using ../mplayer_0.18-1_i386.deb) Unpacking replacement mplayer ... Setting up mplayer (0.18-1) ... 7.2. FreeBSD To build the package you will need GNU make (gmake, /usr/ports/devel/gmake), native BSD make will not work. To run MPlayer you will need to re-compile the kernel with "options USER_LDT" (unless you are running -CURRENT, where this is default). If MPlayer complains about "CD-ROM Device '/dev/cdrom' not found!" make a symbolic link : ln -s /dev/(your_cdrom_device) /dev/cdrom There's no DVD support for FreeBSD yet. Feel free to add it :-) 7.3. Solaris 8 AVI file playback works best on Solaris x86, because you have the option to use the win32 codecs on the x86 platform. On Solaris SPARC, you'll find quite a few AVI files with non working video and/or audio playback, because the video/audio codecs using the win32 DLLs are not available. However, DivX/OpenDivX movies should work, when using libavcodec. 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 ... For DVD support you must have the patched libcss installed. Patch: http://www.tools.de/solaris/mplayer/ Due to two bugs in solaris 8 x86, you cannot reliably play DVDs using a capacity >4GB: - The sd(7D) driver on solaris 8 x86 driver has bug when accessing a disk block >4GB on a device using a logical blocksize != DEV_BSIZE (i.e. CDROM and DVD media). Due to a 32bit int overflow, a disk address modulo 4GB is accessed. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/22516) - The similar bug is present in the hsfs(7FS) filesystem code (aka ISO9660), hsfs currently does not support partitions/disks >4GB, all data is accessed modulo 4GB (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/22592) 7.4. StrongARM MPlayer is reported to compile on StrongARM. Use the following command line: ./configure --target=arm-linux --disable-css --with-x11libdir=/usr/arm/lib --with-x11incdir=/usr/arm/lib --disable-gcc-checking Appendix A - Authors NOTE: Do *NOT* send bugreports, help & feature requests directly to the authors! ===== Read Appendix C and subscribe to mplayer-users mailing lists. ========================== The MPlayer project: =============================== Árpád Gereöffy (A'rpi/ESP-team):- player code (mpeg stream demultiplexer and avi/asf parser, A-V sync, seek...) - mp3lib, based on mpglib sources [MP3 audio decoder] - getch2 [keyboard handler] - some changes in libmpeg2 code (progressive frames, bitrate & fps support) - libvo improvements: adding OpenGL support, bugfix in mga driver... - triple buffering & YUY2 support (for DivX/MPEG4) into mga_vid driver - scripts in the TVout directory (TVout on Matrox G400DH, read documentation) - hacking DivX/Mpeg4 VfW codecs to get YUV output - opendivx decoder speed optimizations (see opendivx/ChangeLog) - OSD & SUB display code - ffmpeg/libavcodec integration - DivX4Linux (ProjectMayo) support (see documentation) Zoltán Ponekker (Pontscho/Fresh!): - configure script and Makefiles for easy compile - GUI system (near complete!?) - 3DNow! support into mp3lib - 3DNow! support into fastmemcpy.h - various X11 driver changes (keyboard handling, fullscreen, bpp detect, etc) - libvo: adding xmga driver, and fullscreen support to xv - audio mixer (volume) support Gábor Lénárt (LGB): - ./configure script improvements - Makefile improvements - prelimenary DVD support - another GUI code (is that so..?) - various X11 cleanups and fixes Gábor Bérczi (Gabucino): - documentation maintainer - hungarian translation of documentation - second webpage design&gfx - webpage maintainer - testing, codecs quality & speed comparsions - IRC channel #MPlayer operator - experimental MINIX port Szabolcs Berecz (Szabi): - codecs.conf file parser - config file and command line parser - mga_vid fixes, module option etc. - fbdev support in libvo - type #7 subtitle support László Megyer (Lez, Laaz): - SUB reader - screensaver+DPMS disable for libvo Gyula László (Chass, Tégla): - first fonts (mp_font1.zip) - third (current) homepage design&gfx Zoltán Márk Vicián (Se7en): - SVGAlib support in libvo - native AAlib driver (coming soon) Alex Beregszaszi (Al3x): - ALSA output driver in libao2 - vo_ggi output driver in libvo (www.ggi-project.org) Andreas Ackermann (Acki): - LIRC support (see documentation) - DGA support in libvo Felix Bünemann (Atmos): - SDL driver maintainer - Additional YUV formats fixes - New font (mp_font2.zip) - PNG file output support in libvo - flipping support (for Indeo 3/4, etc) - SDL audio driver in libao2 - RAW PCM/WAVE file writer for libao2 TeLeNiEkO: - spanish translation of documentation Michael Graffam: - XF86VidMode support to vo_x11 and vo_dga - Video mode switching code to vo_dga Jens Hoffmann: - Additional YUV formats support - found the big BITMAPINFOHEADER problem -> solved ASV2 pixelization Nick Kurshev: - memcpy optimizations for AMD K7 and Intel Pentium III (fastmemcpy.h) - CDROM tune info - further 3DNow! optimizations into mp3lib and libac3 - russian translation of documentation German Gomez Garcia: - DVD .ifo parser and chapter selection [not yet in the main trunk] - SPDIF AC3 output for SBLive! [not yet in the main trunk] Dariush Pietrzak (Eyck): - debian packaging support (see debian/* and this documentation) - support for vplayer subtitle format - prelimenary support for .RT subtitle format Jürgen Keil and Marcus Comstedt: - patched MPlayer to work on Solaris 8 x86 - configure fixes - SUN audio driver in libao2 Vladimir Kushnir: - patched MPlayer to work on FreeBSD x86 Bertrand BAUDET: - network streaming support Main testers: Tibor Balázs (Tibcu) Péter Sasi (SaPe) Christoph H. Lampert Attila Kinali Dirk Vornheder ========================== The codecs, libs: ================================= Aaron Holtzman: - ac3dec (and libac3) author [AC3 audio decoder] - mga_vid driver [Matrox G200/G400 YUV Back-end Scaler] - mpeg2dec [Fast MPEG1/MPEG2 video decoder, currently used in player] Michel Lespinasse: - did large libmpeg2 changes for better speed and mpeg conformance Eugene Kuznetsov: - avifile author [AVI player library for linux, using Win32 VfW/ACM codecs] - technical help about AVI and ASF formats, and how to get YUV using VfW... - divx4linux techical support Zdenek Kabelac: - current avifile maintainer(?) - some technical help about the win32 stuff and timers Gerard Lantau: - ffmpeg/libavcodec author,maintainer (opensource mpeg & divx en/decoder) Project Mayo: [http://www.projectmayo.com] - the OpenDivX codec authors Michael Hipp: - mpglib author [isn't used directly but some parts in mp3lib] Mark Podlipec: - xa_gsm.c author [MS-GSM audio codec] [from a GSM library by Jutta Degener and Carsten Bormann] Their code is not used in current player version, but I've got some ideas or other technical help from: John F. McGowan http://www.jmcgowan.com/ - AVI FAQ author/collector. [site with many useful docs on codecs and avi fmt] Dirk Farin: - dvdview author [MPEG1/MPEG2 video decoder, used in v0.5-v0.8] Adam Williams: - libmpeg3 (and xmovie) author [MPEG1/MPEG2 video decoder, used in v0.1-v0.4] Appendix B - Mailing lists There are some public mailing lists on MPlayer. Subscribing can be achieved on the following addresses: - MPlayer core/hungarian developers list: http://mp.dev.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-devel I dunno, it is the FLAME list in hungarian language :) Also some talking about mplayer core team internals, like mplayer party, sponsors etc can be here. - MPlayer developers list: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-dev-eng This list is about mplayer development! Talking about interface/API changes, new libraryes, code optimization, ./configure changes, and send patches here. Do NOT send bugreports, user questions, feature requests here! This list should be kept low-traffic. - MPlayer users list: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-users - send bugreports here (after reading DOCS/BUGS, Appendix C) - send feature requests here (after reading DOCS/TODO) - send user questions here (after reading all this documentation) - MPlayer & Matrox G200/G400/G450 users: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-matrox Send matrox-related questions here, - things about mga_vid, - matrox's official beta drivers (for X 4.x.x) - and about matroxfb-TVout stuff. - mpg12play-portable developers: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-mpg12play This list is for talking about mplayer ports to non-x86 platforms (IRIX, Solaris-SPARC, Alpha, Commodore64, Sharp Calculator, Teapot etc...) - MPlayer announce: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-announce Very low traffic list :) And it's read-only. I'll post something shit there if a new release is done. - MPlayer CVS-log: http://mp.dev.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cvslog Send only questions about CVS changes here. (if you don't understand why a change is required or you've better fix) Be sure in that your target developer reads this list! NOTE: language of above lists are ENGLISH, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Please do not send messages using other language! Appendix C - How to report bugs How to report bugs? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First read DOCS/BUGS, and other docs. If your problem isn't known or isn't solved by our instructions, then report the bug: Where? ====== Subscribe to the mplayer-users mailing list: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-users and send your bugreport to: mplayer-users@lists.sourceforge.net We won't CC: so please subscribe!!! Don't send bugreports private, directly to author's address!!! We are working together on code, so everyone is interested in it. BTW many times other users know the solution (system config probs, bad drivers etc), even when we think it's a bug in our code. The language of this list is ENGLISH ! Please describe your problem in details, examples etc, and don't forget to include these: What? ===== 1. The system info what we always want: - linux distribution examples: RedHat 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 version: gcc -v ld -v - binutils version: as --version 2. Hardware & drivers: - CPU info: cat /proc/cpuinfo - video card manufacturer and model examples: ASUS V3800U chip: nVidia TNT2 Ultra pro 32MB SDRAM Matrox G400 DH 32MB SGRAM - video driver type&version examples: X built-in driver nvidia 0.9.623 Utah-GLX CVS 2001-02-17 DRI from X 4.0.3 - sound card type & driver examples: Creative SBLive! Gold with OSS driver from oss.creative.com Creative SB16 with OSS drivers of kernel GUS PnP with ALSA OSS emulation - if you are unsure, attach output of lspci -v For compiling problems/errors: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3. output of configure/make: make distclean ./configure &>config.log ./make &>make.log 4. these files: config.h config.mak libvo/config.mak For playback problems: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3. Output of mplayer at verbose level 1 (-v) mplayer -v [options] filename &> mplayer.log 4. If the problem is specific to one or a few files, then please upload that file to: ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/ Usually first 1-5 MB of the file is enough to reproduce the problem, but first you should try it: dd if=yourfile of=smallfile bs=1k count=1024 (it will cut first 1MB of 'yourfile' and save to 'smallfile') Then try again on this small file, and if bug still exists then it's enough to upload this small file. NEVER send such files via mail! Upload it, and send only the path/filename of the file on the FTP. If the file is accessible on the net, then sending the _exact_ URL is enough! 5. For crashes (segfault, SIGILL, signal 4 etc): If you have coredump of the crash, see 5.a, else see 5.b: 5.a: Please print us coredump (if it was created). Howto: please create following command file: disass $eip-32 $eip+32 printf "eax=%08lX\n",$eax printf "ebx=%08lX\n",$ebx printf "ecx=%08lX\n",$ecx printf "edx=%08lX\n",$edx printf "esp=%08lX\n",$esp printf "ebp=%08lX\n",$ebp printf "edi=%08lX\n",$edi printf "esi=%08lX\n",$esi Then simply execute following command line: gdb mplayer --core=core -batch --command=command_file >mplayer.bug 5.b.: run MPlayer in gdb: [at root/user shell prompt:] # gdb mplayer [at gdb prompt:] > run -v [options-to-mplayer] filename ... (wait until it will crash) > bt > disass $eip-32 $eip+32 Send us the full output of the above things! In general: ~~~~~~~~~~~ If something is big (logs etc) then it's better to upload to the ftp (gzipped), and include only path/filename in the bugreport!