Frequently Asked QuestionsDevelopment
How do I create a proper patch for MPlayer?
We made a short document
describing all the necessary details. Please follow the instructions.
How do I translate MPlayer to a new language?
Read the translation HOWTO,
it should explain everything. You can get further help on the
MPlayer-translations
mailing list.
How can I support MPlayer development?
We are more than happy to accept your hardware and software
donations.
They help us in continuously improving MPlayer.
How can I become an MPlayer developer?
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. If you want to help out with the documentation,
join the
MPlayer-docs
mailing list.
Why don't you use autoconf/automake?
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.
Compilation and installation
Compilation fails with an error and gcc bails out
with some cryptic message containing the phrase
internal compiler error or
unable to find a register to spill or
can't find a register in class `GENERAL_REGS'
while reloading `asm'.
You have stumbled over a bug in gcc. Please
report it to the gcc team
but not to us. For some reason MPlayer seems to
trigger compiler bugs frequently. Nevertheless we cannot fix them and do not
add workarounds for compiler bugs to our sources. To avoid this problem,
either stick with a compiler version that is known to be reliable and
stable, or upgrade frequently.
Are there binary (RPM/Debian) packages of MPlayer?
See the Debian and RPM
section for details.
How can I build a 32 bit MPlayer on a 64 bit Athlon?
Try the following configure options:
./configure --target=i386-linux --cc="gcc -m32" --as="as --32" --with-extralibdir=/usr/lib
Configure ends with this text, and MPlayer won't compile!
Your gcc does not support even i386 for '-march' and '-mcpu'
Your gcc isn't installed correctly, check the configure.log
file for details.
I have a Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550, how do I compile/use the
mga_vid driver?
Read the mga_vid section.
During 'make', MPlayer complains about
missing X11 libraries. I don't understand, I do
have X11 installed!?
... but you don't have the X11 development package installed. Or not correctly.
It's called XFree86-devel* under Red Hat,
xlibs-dev under Debian Woody and
libx11-dev under Debian Sarge. Also check if the
/usr/X11 and
/usr/include/X11 symlinks exist.
Building on Mac OS 10.3 leads to several link errors.
The link error you're experiencing most likely looks like this:
ld: Undefined symbols:
_LLCStyleInfoCheckForOpenTypeTables referenced from QuartzCore expected to be defined in ApplicationServices
_LLCStyleInfoGetUserRunFeatures referenced from QuartzCore expected to be defined in ApplicationServices
This problem is the result of Apple developers using 10.4 to compile
their software and distributing the binaries to 10.3 users via
Software Update.
The undefined symbols are present in Mac OS 10.4,
but not 10.3.
One solution can be to downgrade to QuickTime 7.0.1.
Here is a better solution.
Get an
older copy of the frameworks.
This will give you a compressed file that contains the QuickTime
7.0.1 Framework and a 10.3.9 QuartzCore Framework.
Uncompress the files somewhere that is not in your System folder.
(i.e. do not install these frameworks into your
/System/Library/Frameworks!
Using this older copy is only meant to get around link errors!)
gunzip < CompatFrameworks.tgz | tar xvf -
In config.mak, you should append
-F/path/to/where/you/extracted
to the OPTFLAGS variable.
If you use X-Code, you can just select these
frameworks instead of the system ones.
The resulting MPlayer binary will actually
use the framework that is installed on your system via dynamic links that
are resolved at run-time.
(You can verify this using otool -l).
General questions
Are there any mailing lists on MPlayer?
Yes. Look at the
mailing lists section
of our homepage.
I've found a nasty bug when I tried to play my favorite video!
Who should I inform?
Please read the bug reporting guidelines
and follow the instructions.
I get a core dump when trying to dump streams, what's wrong?
Don't panic. Make sure you know where your towel is.
Seriously, notice the smiley and start looking for files that end in
.dump.
When I start playing, I get this message but everything seems fine:
Linux RTC init: ioctl (rtc_pie_on): Permission denied
You need a specially set up kernel to use the RTC timing code.
For details see the RTC section of the documentation.
How can I make a screenshot?
You have to use a video output driver that does not employ an overlay to be
able to take a screenshot. Under X11, will do, under
Windows works.
Alternatively you can run MPlayer with the
screenshot video filter
(), and press the s
key to grab a screenshot.
What is the meaning of the numbers on the status line?
Example:
A: 2.1 V: 2.2 A-V: -0.167 ct: 0.042 57/57 41% 0% 2.6% 0 4 49% 1.00x
A: 2.1audio position in secondsV: 2.2video position in secondsA-V: -0.167audio-video difference in seconds (delay)ct: 0.042total A-V sync correction done57/57
frames played/decoded (counting from last seek)
41%
video codec CPU usage in percent
(for slice rendering and direct rendering this includes video_out)
0%video_out CPU usage2.6%audio codec CPU usage in percent0frames dropped to maintain A-V sync4
current level of image postprocessing (when using )
49%
current cache size used (around 50% is normal)
1.00xplayback speed as a factor of original speed
Most of them are for debug purposes, use the
option to make them disappear.
You might notice that video_out CPU usage is zero (0%) for some files.
This is because it is called directly from the codec and thus cannot
be measured separately. If you wish to know the video_out speed, compare
the difference when playing the file with and
your usual video output driver.
There are error messages about file not found
/usr/local/lib/codecs/ ...
Download and install the binary codecs from our
download page.
How can I make MPlayer remember the options I
use for a particular file, e.g. movie.avi?
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.
Subtitles are very nice, the most beautiful I've ever seen, but they
slow down playing! I know it's unlikely ...
After running ./configure,
edit config.h and replace
#undef FAST_OSD with
#define FAST_OSD. Then recompile.
How can I run MPlayer in the background?
Use:
mplayer optionsfilename < /dev/null &
Playback problems
I cannot pinpoint the cause of some strange playback problem.
Do you have a stray codecs.conf file in
~/.mplayer/, /etc/,
/usr/local/etc/ or a similar location? Remove it,
an outdated codecs.conf file can cause obscure
problems and is intended for use only by developers working on codec
support. It overrides MPlayer's internal
codec settings, which will wreak havoc if incompatible changes are
made in newer program versions. Unless used by experts it is a recipe
for disaster in the form of seemingly random and very hard to localize
crashes and playback problems. If you still have it somewhere on your
system, you should remove it now.
How can I get subtitles to appear on the black margins around a movie?
Use the expand video filter to increase the
area onto which the movie is rendered vertically and place the movie
at the top border, for example:
mplayer -vf expand=0:-100:0:0 -slang de dvd://1
How can I select audio/subtitle tracks from a DVD, OGM, Matroska or NUT file?
You have to use (audio ID) or
(audio language), (subtitle ID) or
(subtitle language), for example:
mplayer -alang eng -slang eng example.mkv
mplayer -aid 1 -sid 1 example.mkv
To see which ones are available:
mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -v filename | grep sid
mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -v filename | grep aid
I'm trying to play a random stream off the internet but it fails.
Try playing the stream with the option.
I downloaded a movie off a P2P network and it doesn't work!
Your file is most probably broken or a fake file. If you got it from
a friend, and he says it works, try comparing
md5sum hashes.
I'm having trouble getting my subtitles to display, help!!
Make sure you have installed fonts properly. Run through the steps in the
Fonts and OSD part of the installation
section again. If you are using TrueType fonts, verify that you have the
FreeType library installed.
Other things include checking your subtitles in a text editor or with other
players. Also try converting them to another format.
Why doesn't MPlayer work on Fedora Core?
There is a bad interaction on Fedora between exec-shield,
prelink, and any applications which use Windows DLLs
(such as MPlayer).
The problem is that exec-shield randomizes the load addresses of all the
system libraries. This randomization happens at prelink time (once every
two weeks).
When MPlayer tries to load a Windows DLL it
wants to put it at a specific address (0x400000). If an important system
library happens to be there already, MPlayer
will crash.
(A typical symptom would be a segmentation fault when trying
to play Windows Media 9 files.)
If you run into this problem you have two options:
Wait two weeks. It might start working again.
Relink all the binaries on the system with different
prelink options. Here are step by step instructions:
Edit /etc/syconfig/prelink and change
PRELINK_OPTS=-mR to
PRELINK_OPTS="-mR --no-exec-shield"touch /var/lib/misc/prelink.force/etc/cron.daily/prelink
(This relinks all the applications, and it takes quite a while.)
execstack -s /path/to/mplayer
(This turns off exec-shield for the
MPlayer binary.)
MPlayer dies with
MPlayer interrupted by signal 4 in module: decode_video
Don't use MPlayer on a CPU different from the one
it was compiled on or recompile with runtime CPU detection
(./configure --enable-runtime-cpudetection).
When I try to grab from my tuner, it works, but colors are strange.
It's OK with other applications.
Your card probably reports some colorspaces as supported when in fact
it does not support them. Try with YUY2 instead of the
default YV12 (see the TV section).
I get very strange percentage values (way too big)
while playing files on my notebook.
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.
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.
This is again a power management effect (see above). Plug the external power
connector in before you power on your notebook
or make sure you do not use the option.
While playing a movie it suddenly gets jerky and I get the following message:
Badly interleaved AVI file detected - switching to -ni mode...
Badly interleaved files and don't work well together.
Try .
Video/audio driver problems (vo/ao)
When I go into fullscreen mode I just get black borders around the image
and no real scaling to fullscreen mode.
Your video output driver does not support scaling in hardware and since
scaling in software can be incredibly slow MPlayer
does not automatically enable it. Most likely you are using the
x11 instead of the xv
video output driver. Try adding to the command
line or read the video section to find out
about alternative video output drivers. The
option explicitly enables software scaling.
I've just installed MPlayer. When I want to
open a video file it causes a fatal error:
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.
How can I solve my problem?
Just change your video output device. Issue the following command to get
a list of available video output drivers:
mplayer -vo help
After you've chosen the correct video output driver, add it to
your configuration file. Add
vo = selected_vo
to ~/.mplayer/config and/or
vo_driver = selected_vo
to ~/.mplayer/gui.conf.
I have problems with [your window manager]
and fullscreen xv/xmga/sdl/x11 modes ...
Read the bug reporting guidelines and send us
a proper bug report.
Also try experimenting with the option.
Audio goes out of sync playing an AVI file.
Try the or option. If it does not
improve, read the
bug reporting guidelines
and upload the file to FTP.
How can I use dmix with
MPlayer?
After setting up your
asoundrc
you have to use .
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)
[AO OSS] audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
Are you running KDE or GNOME with the aRts or ESD sound daemon? Try disabling
the sound daemon or use the or
option to make MPlayer use
aRts or ESD.
You might also be running ALSA without OSS emulation, try loading the ALSA OSS
kernel modules or add to your command line to
directly use the ALSA audio output driver.
When starting MPlayer under KDE I just get a black
screen and nothing happens. After about one minute the video starts playing.
The KDE aRts sound daemon is blocking the sound device. Either wait until the
video starts or disable the aRts daemon in control center. If you want to use
aRts sound, specify audio output via our native aRts audio driver
(). If it fails or isn't compiled in, try SDL
() and make sure your SDL can handle aRts sound. Yet
another option is to start MPlayer with artsdsp.
I have A/V sync problems.
Some of my AVIs play fine, but some play with double speed!
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 filter.
When I play this movie I get video-audio desync and/or
MPlayer crashes with the following message:
Too many (945 in 8390980 bytes) video packets in the buffer!
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
option to work around this.
Or it may have a bad header, in this case
and/or can help.
Many FLV files will only play correctly with .
Unfortunately MEncoder does not have this option,
but you can try setting to the correct value manually
if you know it.
Your sound driver is buggy.
How can I get rid of A/V desynchronization
while seeking through RealMedia streams?
can help.
DVD playback
What about DVD navigation/menus?
MPlayer should support DVD menus nowadays.
Your mileage may vary.
What about subtitles? Can MPlayer display them?
Yes. See the DVD chapter.
How can I set the region code of my DVD-drive? I don't have Windows!
Use the
regionset tool.
I can't play a DVD, MPlayer hangs or outputs "Encrypted VOB file!" errors.
CSS decryption code does not work with some DVD drives unless you set
the region code appropriately. See the answer to the previous question.
Do I need to be (setuid) root to be able to play a DVD?
No. However you must have the proper rights
on the DVD device entry (in /dev/).
Is it possible to play/encode only selected chapters?
Yes, try the option.
My DVD playback is sluggish!
Use the option (described in the man page) and try
enabling DMA for the DVD drive with the hdparm tool
(described in the CD chapter).
I copied a DVD using vobcopy. How do I play/encode it from my hard disk?
Use the option to refer to the directory
that contains the files:
mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /path/to/directoryFeature requests
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.
This is very tricky to implement without losing A/V synchronization.
All attempts have failed so far, but patches are welcome.
I'd like to seek +/- 1 frame instead of 10 seconds.
You can step forward one frame by pressing ..
If the movie was not paused it will be paused afterwards
(see the man page for details).
Stepping backwards is unlikely to be implemented anytime soon.
Encoding
How can I encode?
Read the MEncoder
section.
How can I dump a full DVD title into a file?
Once you have selected your title, and made sure it plays fine with
MPlayer, use the option .
For example:
mplayer dvd://5 -dumpstream -dumpfile dvd_dump.vob
will dump the 5th title of the DVD into the file
dvd_dump.vob
How can I create (S)VCDs automatically?
Try the mencvcd.sh 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.
How can I create (S)VCDs?
Newer versions of MEncoder can directly
generate MPEG-2 files that can be used as a base to create a VCD or SVCD and
are likely to be playable out of the box on all platforms (for example,
to share a video from a digital camcorder with your computer-illiterate
friends).
Please read
Using MEncoder to create VCD/SVCD/DVD-compliant files
for more details.
How can I join two video files?
MPEG files can be concatenated into a single file with luck.
For AVI files, you can use MEncoder's
multiple file support like this:
mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy -o out.avifile1.avifile2.avi
This will only work if the files are of the same resolution
and use the same codec.
You can also try
avidemux and
avimerge (part of the
transcode
tool set).
How can I fix AVI files with a broken index or bad interleaving?
To avoid having to use to be able to seek in
AVI files with a broken index or to play AVI
files with bad interleaving, use the command
mencoder input.avi -idx -ovc copy -oac copy -o output.avi
to copy the video and audio streams into a new AVI file while
regenerating the index and correctly interleaving the data.
Of course this cannot fix possible bugs in the video and/or audio streams.
How can I fix the aspect ratio of an AVI file?
You can do such a thing thanks to MEncoder's
option, which overrides the aspect
stored in the AVI OpenDML vprp header option. For example:
mencoder input.avi -ovc copy -oac copy -o output.avi -force-avi-aspect 4/3
How can I backup and encode a VOB file with a broken beginning?
The main problem when you want to encode a VOB file which is corrupted
To some extent, some forms of copy protection used in DVDs can be
assumed to be content corruption.
is that it will be hard to get an encode with perfect A/V sync.
One workaround is to just shave off the corrupted part and encode just the
clean part.
First you need to find where the clean part starts:
mplayer input.vob -sb nb_of_bytes_to_skip
Then you can create a new file which contains just the clean part:
dd if=input.vob of=output_cut.vob skip=1 ibs=nb_of_bytes_to_skip
I can't encode DVD subtitles into the AVI!
You have to properly specify the option.
How can I encode only selected chapters from a DVD?
Use the option correctly,
like: .
I'm trying to work with 2GB+ files on a VFAT file system. Does it work?
No, VFAT doesn't support 2GB+ files.
What is the meaning of the numbers on the status line
during the encoding process?
Example:
Pos: 264.5s 6612f ( 2%) 7.12fps Trem: 576min 2856mb A-V:0.065 [2126:192]
Pos: 264.5stime position in the encoded stream6612fnumber of video frames encoded( 2%)portion of the input stream encoded7.12fpsencoding speedTrem: 576minestimated remaining encoding time2856mbestimated size of the final encodeA-V:0.065current delay between audio and video streams[2126:192]
average video bitrate (in kb/s) and average audio bitrate (in kb/s)
Why is the recommended bitrate printed by MEncoder
negative?
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.
I can't encode an ASF file to AVI/MPEG-4 (DivX) because it uses 1000 fps.
Since ASF uses variable framerate but AVI uses a fixed one, you
have to set it by hand with the option.
How can I put subtitles in the output file?
Just pass the (or ,
respectively) option to MEncoder.
How do I encode only sound from a music video?
It's not possible directly, but you can try this (note the
& at the end of
mplayer command):
mkfifo encode
mplayer -ao pcm -aofile encode dvd://1 &
lame your_optsencodemusic.mp3
rm encode
This allows you to use any encoder, not only LAME,
just replace lame with your favorite audio encoder in the
above command.
Why do third-party players fail to play MPEG-4 movies encoded by
MEncoder versions later than 1.0pre7?
libavcodec, the native MPEG-4
encoding library usually shipped with MEncoder,
used to set the FourCC to 'DIVX' when encoding MPEG-4 videos
(the FourCC is an AVI tag to identify the software used to encode and
the intended software to use for decoding the video).
This led many people to think that
libavcodec
was a DivX encoding library, when in fact it is a completely different
MPEG-4 encoding library which implements the MPEG-4 standard much
better than DivX does.
Therefore, the new default FourCC used by
libavcodec is 'FMP4', but you
may override this behavior using MEncoder's
option.
You may also change the FourCC of existing files in the same way:
mencoder input.avi -o output.avi -ffourcc XVID
Note that this will set the FourCC to XVID rather than DIVX.
This is recommended as DIVX FourCC means DivX4, which is a very basic
MPEG-4 codec, whereas DX50 and XVID both mean full MPEG-4 (ASP).
Therefore, if you change the FourCC to DIVX, some bad software or
hardware players may choke on some advanced features that
libavcodec supports, but DivX
doesn't; on the other hand Xvid
is closer to libavcodec in
terms of functionality, and is supported by all decent players.
How can I encode an audio only file?
Use aconvert.sh from the
TOOLS
subdirectory in the MPlayer source tree.
How can I play subtitles embedded in AVI?
Use avisubdump.c from the
TOOLS subdirectory or read
this document about extracting/demultiplexing subtitles embedded in OpenDML AVI files.
MEncoder won't...
Have a look at the TOOLS
subdirectory for a collection of random scripts and hacks.
TOOLS/README contains documentation.