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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<TITLE>Video - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux</TITLE>
<LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="default.css">
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<H3><A NAME="video">2.3.1 Video output devices</A></H3>
<H4><A NAME="mtrr">2.3.1.1 Setting up MTRR</A></H4>
<P>It is VERY recommended to check if the MTRR registers are set up properly,
because they can give a big performance boost.</P>
<P>Do a '<CODE>cat /proc/mtrr</CODE>':</P>
<P><CODE>
--($:~)-- cat /proc/mtrr<BR>
reg00: base=0xe4000000 (3648MB), size= 16MB: write-combining, count=9<BR>
reg01: base=0xd8000000 (3456MB), size= 128MB: write-combining, count=1</CODE></P>
<P>It's right, shows my Matrox G400 with 16MB memory. I did this from
XFree 4.x.x , which sets up MTRR registers automatically.</P>
<P>If nothing worked, you have to do it manually. First, you have to find the
base address. You have 3 ways to find it:</P>
<UL>
<LI>from X11 startup messages, for example:
<P><CODE>(--) SVGA: PCI: Matrox MGA G400 AGP rev 4, Memory @ 0xd8000000, 0xd4000000<BR>
(--) SVGA: Linear framebuffer at 0xD8000000</CODE></P></LI>
<LI>from /proc/pci (use lspci -v command):
<P>
<CODE>01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc.: Unknown device 0525</CODE>
<CODE>Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable)</CODE>
</P></LI>
<LI>from mga_vid kernel driver messages (use <CODE>dmesg</CODE>):
<P><CODE>mga_mem_base = d8000000</CODE></P></LI>
</UL>
<P>Then let's find the memory size. This is very easy, just convert video ram
size to hexadecimal, or use this table:</P>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD><TD>1 MB</TD><TD WIDTH="10%"></TD><TD>0x100000</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD>2 MB</TD><TD></TD><TD>0x200000</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD>4 MB</TD><TD></TD><TD>0x400000</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD>8 MB</TD><TD></TD><TD>0x800000</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD>16 MB</TD><TD></TD><TD>0x1000000</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD>32 MB</TD><TD></TD><TD>0x2000000</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<P>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:</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;echo "base=0xd8000000 size=0x2000000 type=write-combining" &gt;| /proc/mtrr</CODE></P>
<P>Not all CPUs support MTRRs. For example older K6-2's [around 266MHz,
stepping 0] doesn't support MTRR, but stepping 12's do ('<CODE>cat
/proc/cpuinfo</CODE>' to check it').</P>
<H4><A NAME="normal">2.3.1.2 Video outputs for traditional video cards</A></H4>
<H4><A NAME="xv">2.3.1.2.1 Xv</A></H4>
<P>Under XFree86 4.0.2 or newer, you can use your card's hardware YUV routines
using the XVideo extension. This is what the option '-vo xv' uses. Also,
this is driver supports adjusting brightness/contrast/hue/etc (unless you use
the old, slow DirectShow DivX codec, which supports it everywhere), see the
man page.</P>
<P>In order to make this work, be sure to check the following:</P>
<UL>
<LI>You have to use XFree86 4.0.2 or newer (former versions don't have
XVideo)</LI>
<LI>Your card actually supports hardware acceleration (modern cards do)</LI>
<LI>X loads the XVideo extension, it's something like this:
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;(II) Loading extension XVideo</CODE></P>
<P>in /var/log/XFree86.0.log</P>
<P>NOTE: this loads only the XFree86's extension. In a good install, this
is always loaded, and doesn't mean that the <B>card's</B> XVideo support is
loaded!</P>
</LI>
<LI>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:
<PRE>
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...)
</PRE>
<P>It must support YUY2 packed, and YV12 planar pixel formats to be
usable with MPlayer.</P>
</LI>
<LI>And finally, check if MPlayer was compiled with 'xv' support.
./configure prints this.</LI>
</UL>
<H4><A NAME="xv_3dfx">2.3.1.2.1.1 3dfx cards</A></H4>
<P>Older 3dfx drivers were known to have problems with XVideo acceleration, it
didn't support either YUY2 or YV12, and so. Verify that you have XFree86
version 4.2.0 or greater, it works OK with YV12 and YUY2. Previous versions,
including 4.1.0, <B>crash with YV12</B>. If you experience strange effects
using -vo xv, try SDL (it has XVideo too) and see if it helps. Check the
<A HREF="#sdl">SDL section</A> for details.</P>
<P><B>OR</B>, try the NEW -vo tdfxfb driver! See the
<A HREF="#tdfxfb">tdfxfb</A> section.</P>
<H4><A NAME="xv_s3">2.3.1.2.1.2 S3 cards</A></H4>
<P>S3 Savage3D's should work fine, but for Savage4, use XFree86 version 4.0.3
or greater (in case of image problems, try 16bpp). As for S3 Virge.. there is
xv support, but the card itself is very slow, so you better sell it.</P>
<P><B>NOTE</B>: it's currently unclear which Savage models lack YV12 support,
and convert by driver (slow). If you suspect your card, get a newer driver,
or ask politely on the mplayer-users mailing list for an MMX/3DNow enabled
driver.</P>
<H4><A NAME="xv_nvidia">2.3.1.2.1.3 nVidia cards</A></H4>
<P>nVidia isn't a very good choice under Linux (according to nVidia, this is
<A HREF="users_against_developers.html#nvidia">not true</A>).. You'll have to
use the binary closed-source nVidia driver, available at nVidia's web site.
The standard XFree86 driver doesn't support XVideo for these cards, due to
nVidia's closed sources/specifications.</P>
<P>As far as I know the latest XFree86 driver contains XVideo support for
GeForce 2 and 3.</P>
<P>Riva128 cards don't have XVideo support even with the nVidia driver :(
Complain to nVidia.</P>
<H4><A NAME="xv_ati">2.3.1.2.1.4 ATI cards</A></H4>
<UL>
<LI>The <A HREF="http://gatos.sourceforge.net">GATOS driver</A> (which you
should use, unless you have Rage128 or Radeon) has VSYNC enabled by
default. It means that decoding speed (!) is synced to the monitor's
refresh rate. If playing seems to be slow, try disabling VSYNC somehow, or
set refresh rate to n*(fps of the movie) Hz.</LI>
<LI>Radeon VE - currently only XFree86 CVS has driver for this card, version
4.1.0 doesn't. And no TV out support. Of course with MPlayer you can
happily get <B>accelerated</B> display, with or without <B>TV output</B>, and
no libraries or X are needed. Read <A HREF="#vidix">VIDIX</A> section.</LI>
</UL>
<H4><A NAME="xv_neomagic">2.3.1.2.1.5 NeoMagic cards</A></H4>
<P>These cards can be found in many laptops. Unfortunately, the driver in
X 4.2.0 can't do Xv, but we have a modified, Xv-capable driver for you.
<A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/contrib/NeoMagic-driver/neomagic_drv.o.4.2.0.bz2">Download from here</A>.
Driver provided by Stefan Seyfried.</P>
<P>To allow playback of DVD sized content change your XF86Config like this:</P>
<P>Section "Device"<BR>
&nbsp; &nbsp; <I>[...]</I><BR>
&nbsp; &nbsp; Driver "neomagic"<BR>
&nbsp; &nbsp; <B>Option "OverlayMem" "829440"</B><BR>
&nbsp; &nbsp; <I>[...]</I><BR>
EndSection</P>
<H4><A NAME="xv_trident">2.3.1.2.1.6 Trident cards</A></H4>
<P>If you want to use Xv with a Trident card, provided that it doesn't work
with 4.1.0, install XFree 4.2.0. 4.2.0 adds support for fullscreen xv
support with the Cyberblade XP card.</P>
<H4><A NAME="xv_powervr">2.3.1.2.1.7 Kyro/PowerVR cards</A></H4>
<P>If you want to use Xv with a Kyro based card (for example Hercules Prophet
4000XT), you should download the drivers from the
<A HREF="http://www.powervr.com/">PowerVR site</A>.</P>
<H4><A NAME="dga">2.3.1.2.2 DGA</A></H4>
<H5>PREAMBLE</H5>
<P>This section tries to explain in some words what DGA is in general and what
the DGA video output driver for MPlayer can do (and what it can't).</P>
<H5>WHAT IS DGA</H5>
<P>DGA is short for Direct Graphics Access and is a means for a program to
bypass the X-Server and directly modifying the framebuffer memory.
Technically spoken this happens by mapping the framebuffer memory into
the memory range of your process. This is allowed by the kernel only
if you have superuser privileges. You can get these either by logging in
as root or by setting the SUID bit on the MPlayer executable (<B>not
recommended</B>).</P>
<P>There are two versions of DGA: DGA1 is used by XFree 3.x.x and DGA2 was
introduced with XFree 4.0.1.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>DGA2 incorporates the features of XVidMode extension and also allows
switching the depth of the display. So you may, although basically
running a 32 bit depth X server, switch to a depth of 15 bits and vice
versa. </P>
<P>However DGA has some drawbacks. It seems it is somewhat dependent on the
graphics chip you use and on the implementation of the X server's video
driver that controls this chip. So it does not work on every system.</P>
<H5>INSTALLING DGA SUPPORT FOR MPLAYER</H5>
<P>First make sure X loads the DGA extension, see in /var/log/XFree86.0.log:</P>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>(II) Loading extension XFree86-DGA</CODE></P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>If the driver couldn't switch to a smaller resolution, experiment with
options -vm (only with X 3.3.x), -fs, -bpp, -zoom to find a video mode that
the movie fits in. There is no converter right now :(</P>
<P>Become root. DGA needs root access to be able to write directly to video
memory. If you want to run it as user, then install MPlayer SUID
root:</P>
<P><CODE>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;chown root /usr/local/bin/mplayer<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;chmod 750 /usr/local/bin/mplayer<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;chmod +s /usr/local/bin/mplayer</CODE></P>
<P>Now it works as a simple user, too.</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<B>Warning: security risk</B><BR>
This is a <B>big</B> security risk! <B>Never</B> do this on a server or on
a computer that can be accessed by other people because they can gain root
privileges through SUID root MPlayer.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Now use the <CODE>-vo dga</CODE> option, and there you go (hope so :))!
You should also try if the <CODE>-vo sdl:dga</CODE> option works for you. It's
much faster.</P>
<H5>RESOLUTION SWITCHING</H5>
<P>The DGA driver allows for switching the resolution of the output signal.
This avoids the need for doing (slow) software scaling and at the same time
provides a fullscreen image. Ideally it would switch to the exact resolution
(except for honoring aspect ratio) of the video data, but the X server only
allows switching to resolutions predefined in
<CODE>/etc/X11/XF86Config</CODE> (<CODE>/etc/X11/XF86Config-4</CODE> for
XFree 4.0.X respectively). Those are defined by so-called modelines and
depend on the capabilities of your video hardware. The X server scans this
config file on startup and disables the modelines not suitable for your
hardware. You can find out which modes survive with the X11 log file. It can
be found at:
<CODE>/var/log/XFree86.0.log</CODE>.</P>
<P>These entries are known to work fine with a Riva128 chip, using the
<CODE>nv.o</CODE> X server driver module.</P>
<PRE>
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
</PRE>
<H5>DGA &amp; MPLAYER</H5>
<P>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.</P>
<H5>FEATURES</H5>
<P>The DGA driver is invoked by specifying -vo dga at the command line.
The default behavior is to switch to a resolution matching the original
resolution of the video as close as possible. It deliberately ignores the
-vm and -fs options (enabling of video mode switching and fullscreen) -
it always tries to cover as much area of your screen as possible by switching
the video mode, thus refraining to use a single additional cycle of your CPU
to scale the image.
If you don't like the mode it chooses you may force it to choose the mode
matching closest the resolution you specify by -x and -y.
By providing the -v option, the DGA driver will print, among a lot of other
things, a list of all resolutions supported by your current XF86-Config
file.
Having DGA2 you may also force it to use a certain depth by using the -bpp
option. Valid depths are 15, 16, 24 and 32. It depends on your hardware
whether these depths are natively supported or if a (possibly slow)
conversion has to be done.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<H5>SPEED ISSUES</H5>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<H5>KNOWN BUGS</H5>
<P>Well, according to some developers of XFree, DGA is quite a beast. They
tell you better not to use it. Its implementation is not always flawless
with every chipset driver for XFree out there.</P>
<UL>
<LI>With XFree 4.0.3 and nv.o there is a bug resulting in strange
colors.</LI>
<LI>ATI driver requires to switch mode back more than once after finishing
using of DGA.</LI>
<LI>Some drivers simply fail to switch back to normal resolution (use
Ctrl-Alt-Keypad +, - to switch back manually).</LI>
<LI>Some drivers simply display strange colors.</LI>
<LI>Some drivers lie about the amount of memory they map into the process's
address space, thus vo_dga won't use doublebuffering (SIS?).</LI>
<LI>Some drivers seem to fail to report even a single valid mode. In this
case the DGA driver will crash telling you about a nonsense mode of
100000x100000 or something like that.</LI>
<LI>OSD only works with doublebuffering enabled (else it flickers).</LI>
</UL>
<H4><A NAME="sdl">2.3.1.2.3 SDL</A></H4>
<P>SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) is basically a unified video/audio
interface. Programs that use it know only about SDL, and not about what video
or audio driver does SDL actually use. For example a Doom port using SDL can
run on svgalib, aalib, X, fbdev, and others, you only have to specify the
(for example) video driver to use with the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment
variable. Well, in theory.</P>
<P>With MPlayer, we used its X11 driver's software scaler ability for
cards/drivers that doesn't support XVideo, until we made our own (faster,
nicer) software scaler. Also we used its aalib output, but now we have ours
which is more comfortable. Its DGA mode was better than ours, until
recently. Get it now? :)</P>
<P>It also helps with some buggy drivers/cards if the video is jerky
(not slow system problem), or audio is lagging.</P>
<P>SDL video output supports displaying subtitles under the movie, on the (if
present) black bar.</P>
<P><B>There are several command line options for SDL:</B></P>
<DL>
<DT><CODE>-vo sdl:name</CODE></DT>
<DD>specifies sdl video driver to use (i.e.. aalib, dga, x11)</DD>
<DT><CODE>-ao sdl:name</CODE></DT>
<DD>specifies sdl audio driver to use (i.e. dsp, esd, arts)</DD>
<DT><CODE>-noxv</CODE></DT>
<DD>disables XVideo hardware acceleration</DD>
<DT><CODE>-forcexv</CODE></DT>
<DD>tries to force XVideo acceleration</DD>
</DL>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD COLSPAN=4><P><B>SDL Keys:</B></P></TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>F</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>toggles fullscreen/windowed mode</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>C</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>cycles available fullscreen modes</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>W/S</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>mappings for * and / (mixer control)</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<H5>KNOWN BUGS</H5>
<UL>
<LI>Keys pressed under sdl:aalib console driver repeat forever. (use -vo aa!)
It's bug in SDL, I can't change it (tested with SDL 1.2.1).</LI>
<LI>DO NOT USE SDL with GUI! It won't work as it should.</LI>
</UL>
<H4><A NAME="svgalib">2.3.1.2.4 SVGAlib</A></H4>
<H5>INSTALLATION</H5>
<P>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 &amp;
monitor.</P>
<H5>NOTES</H5>
<P>Be sure not to use the -fs option, since it toggles the usage of the software
scaler, and it's slow. If you really need it, use the <CODE>-sws 4</CODE>
option which will produce bad quality, but is somewhat faster.</P>
<H5>EGA (4BPP) SUPPORT</H5>
<P>SVGAlib incorporates EGAlib, and MPlayer has the possibility to
display any movie in 16 colors, thus usable in the following sets:</P>
<UL>
<LI>EGA card with EGA monitor: 320x200x4bpp, 640x200x4bpp, 640x350x4bpp</LI>
<LI>EGA card with CGA monitor: 320x200x4bpp, 640x200x4bpp</LI>
</UL>
<P>The bpp (bits per pixel) value must be set to 4 by hand:<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>-bpp 4</CODE><BR>
The movie probably must be scaled down to fit in EGA mode:<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>-vop scale=640:350</CODE> or<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>-vop scale=320:200</CODE><BR>
For that we need fast but bad quality scaling routine:<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>-sws 4</CODE><BR>
Maybe automatic aspect correction has to be shut off:<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>-noaspect</CODE></P>
<P><B>NOTE:</B> according to my experience the best image quality on EGA
screens can be achieved by decreasing the brightness a bit: <CODE>-vop
eq=-20:0</CODE>. I also needed to lower the audio samplerate on my box,
because the sound was broken on 44kHz: <CODE>-srate 22050</CODE>.</P>
<P>You can turn on OSD and subtitles only with the <CODE>expand</CODE> filter,
see the man page for exact parameters.</P>
<H4><A NAME="fbdev">2.3.1.2.5 Framebuffer output (FBdev)</A></H4>
<P>Whether to build the FBdev target is autodetected during ./configure .
Read the framebuffer documentation in the kernel sources
(Documentation/fb/*) for more information.</P>
<P>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 ;))</P>
<P>The FBdev output takes some additional parameters above the others:</P>
<DL>
<DT><CODE>-fb</CODE></DT>
<DD>specify the framebuffer device to use (/dev/fb0)</DD>
<DT><CODE>-fbmode</CODE></DT>
<DD>mode name to use (according to /etc/fb.modes)</DD>
<DT><CODE>-fbmodeconfig</CODE></DT>
<DD>config file of modes (default /etc/fb.modes)</DD>
<DT><CODE>-monitor_hfreq</CODE></DT>
<DT><CODE>-monitor_vfreq</CODE></DT>
<DT><CODE>-monitor_dotclock</CODE></DT>
<DD><STRONG>Important</STRONG> values, see <CODE>example.conf</CODE></DD>
</DL>
<P>If you want to change to a specific mode, then use</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;mplayer -vm -fbmode (NameOfMode) filename</CODE></P>
<UL>
<LI><B>-vm</B> 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.</LI>
<LI><B>-zoom</B> option isn't supported (software scaling is slow). -fs
option isn't supported. You can't use 8bpp (or less) modes.</LI>
<LI>you possibly want to turn the cursor off: <CODE>echo -e
'\033[?25l'</CODE> or <CODE>setterm -cursor off</CODE><BR>
and the screen saver: <CODE>setterm -blank 0</CODE><BR>
To turn the cursor back on: <CODE>echo -e '\033[?25h'</CODE>
or <CODE>setterm -cursor on</CODE></LI>
</UL>
<P>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.</P>
<H4><A NAME="mga_vid">2.3.1.2.6 Matrox framebuffer (mga_vid)</A></H4>
<P>This section is about the Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 BES (Back-End Scaler)
support, the mga_vid kernel driver. It's actively developed by A'rpi, and
it has hardware VSYNC support with triple buffering. It works on both
framebuffer console and under X.</P>
<P><B>NOTE</B>: This is Linux only! On non-Linux (tested on FreeBSD) systems,
you can use <A HREF="#vidix">VIDIX</A> instead!</P>
<P><B>Installation:</B></P>
<OL>
<LI>To use it, you first have to compile mga_vid.o:
<P><CODE>cd drivers<BR>
make</CODE></P></LI>
<LI>Then create the <CODE>/dev/mga_vid</CODE> device:
<P><CODE>mknod /dev/mga_vid c 178 0</CODE></P>
<P>and load the driver with</P>
<P><CODE>insmod mga_vid.o</CODE></P></LI>
<LI>You should verify the memory size detection using the <CODE>dmesg</CODE>
command. If it's bad, use the <CODE>mga_ram_size</CODE> option
(<CODE>rmmod mga_vid</CODE> first), specify card's memory size in MB:
<P><CODE>insmod mga_vid.o mga_ram_size=16</CODE></P></LI>
<LI>To make it load/unload automatically when needed, first insert the
following line at the end of <CODE>/etc/modules.conf</CODE>:
<P><CODE>alias char-major-178 mga_vid</CODE></P>
<P>Then copy the <CODE>mga_vid.o</CODE> module to the appropriate place
under <CODE>/lib/modules/&lt;kernel version&gt;/somewhere</CODE>.</P>
<P>Then run</P>
<P><CODE>depmod -a</CODE></P></LI>
<LI>Now you have to (re)compile MPlayer, <CODE>configure</CODE> will
detect <CODE>/dev/mga_vid</CODE> and build the 'mga' driver. Using it from
MPlayer goes by <CODE>-vo mga</CODE> if you have matroxfb console,
or <CODE>-vo xmga</CODE> under XFree86 3.x.x or 4.x.x.</LI>
</OL>
<P>The mga_vid driver cooperates with Xv.</P>
<P>The <CODE>/dev/mga_vid</CODE> device file can be read (for example by
<CODE>cat /dev/mga_vid</CODE>) for some info, and written for brightness
change: <CODE>echo "brightness=120" &gt; /dev/mga_vid</CODE></P>
<H4><A NAME="tdfxfb">2.3.1.2.7 3dfx YUV support (tdfxfb)</A></H4>
<P>This driver uses the kernel's tdfx framebuffer driver to play movies with
YUV acceleration. You'll need a kernel with tdfxfb support, and recompile
with <CODE>./configure --enable-tdfxfb</CODE></P>
<H4><A NAME="opengl">2.3.1.2.8 OpenGL output</A></H4>
<P>MPlayer supports displaying movies using OpenGL, but if your
platform/driver supports xv as should be the case on a PC with Linux, use xv
instead, OpenGL performance is considerably worse. If you have an X11
implementation without xv support, OpenGL is a viable alternative.</P>
<P>Unfortunately not all drivers support this feature. The Utah-GLX drivers
(for XFree86 3.3.6) support it for all cards. See
<A HREF="http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net">http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net</A>
for details about how to install it.</P>
<P>XFree86(DRI) 4.0.3 or later supports OpenGL with Matrox and Radeon cards,
4.2.0 or later supports Rage128. See
<A HREF="http://dri.sourceforge.net">http://dri.sourceforge.net</A>
for download and installation instructions.</P>
<H4><A NAME="aalib">2.3.1.2.9 AAlib - text mode displaying</A></H4>
<P><B>AAlib</B> is a library for displaying graphics in text mode, using powerful
ASCII renderer. There are LOTS of programs already supporting it, like Doom,
Quake, etc. MPlayer contains a very usable driver for it.
If ./configure detects aalib installed, the aalib libvo driver will be
built.</P>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD COLSPAN=4><P><B>You can use some keys in the AA Window to change rendering options:</B></P></TD></TR>
<TR><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD><TD><CODE>1</CODE></TD><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD><TD>decrease contrast</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>2</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>increase contrast</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>3</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>decrease brightness</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>4</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>increase brightness</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>5</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>switch fast rendering on/off</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>6</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>set dithering mode (none, error distribution, Floyd Steinberg)</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>7</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>invert image</TD></TR>
<TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>a</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>toggles between aa and MPlayer control)</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<P><B>The following command line options can be used:</B></P>
<DL>
<DT><CODE>-aaosdcolor=V</CODE></DT>
<DD>change OSD color</DD>
<DT><CODE>-aasubcolor=V</CODE></DT>
<DD>change subtitle color
<P><I>where V can be: (0/normal, 1/dark, 2/bold, 3/bold font, 4/reverse,
5/special)</I></P></DD>
</DL>
<P><B>AAlib itself provides a large sum of options.
Here are some important:</B></P>
<DL>
<DT><CODE>-aadriver</CODE></DT>
<DD>set recommended aa driver (X11, curses, Linux)</DD>
<DT><CODE>-aaextended</CODE></DT>
<DD>use all 256 characters</DD>
<DT><CODE>-aaeight</CODE></DT>
<DD>use eight bit ASCII</DD>
<DT><CODE>-aahelp</CODE></DT>
<DD>prints out all aalib options</DD>
</DL>
<P>NOTE: the rendering is very CPU intensive, especially when using AA-on-X
(using aalib on X), and it's least CPU intensive on standard,
non-framebuffer console. Use SVGATextMode to set up a big textmode,
then enjoy! (secondary head Hercules cards rock :)) (but imho you can use
<CODE>-vop 1bpp</CODE> option to get graphics on hgafb:)</P>
<P>Use the <CODE>-framedrop</CODE> option if your computer isn't fast enough to
render all frames!</P>
<P>Playing on terminal you'll get better speed and quality using the Linux
driver, not curses (<CODE>-aadriver linux</CODE>). But therefore you need write access on
<CODE>/dev/vcsa&lt;terminal&gt;</CODE>. That isn't autodetected by aalib, but vo_aa tries
to find the best mode. See
<A HREF="http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/tune/">http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/tune/</A>
for further tuning issues.</P>
<H4><A NAME="vesa">2.3.1.2.10 VESA - output to VESA BIOS</A></H4>
<P>This driver was designed and introduced as a <B>generic driver</B> for any
video card which has VESA VBE 2.0+ compatible BIOS. Another advantage of this
driver is that it tries to force TV output on.<BR>
<B>VESA BIOS EXTENSION (VBE) Version 3.0 Date: September 16, 1998</B> (Page
70) says:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<B>Dual-Controller Designs</B><BR>
VBE 3.0 supports the dual-controller design by assuming that since both
controllers are typically provided by the same OEM, under control of a
single BIOS ROM on the same graphics card, it is possible to hide the fact
that two controllers are indeed present from the application. This has the
limitation of preventing simultaneous use of the independent controllers,
but allows applications released before VBE 3.0 to operate normally. The
VBE Function 00h (Return Controller Information) returns the combined
information of both controllers, including the combined list of available
modes. When the application selects a mode, the appropriate controller is
activated. Each of the remaining VBE functions then operates on the active
controller.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>So you have chances to get working TV-out by using this driver.<BR>
(I guess that TV-out frequently is standalone head or standalone output
at least.)</P>
<H5>ADVANTAGES</H5>
<UL>
<LI>You have the possibility to watch movies <B>even if Linux doesn't know</B>
your video hardware.</LI>
<LI>You don't need to have installed any graphics' related things on your Linux
(like X11 (aka XFree86), fbdev and so on). This driver can be run from
<B>text-mode</B>.</LI>
<LI>You have chances to get <B>working TV-out</B>. (It's known at least for
ATI's cards).</LI>
<LI>This driver calls <B>int 10h</B> handler thus it's not an emulator - it
calls <B>real</B> things of <B>real</B> BIOS in <B>real</B>-mode. (Finely -
in vm86 mode).</LI>
<LI>You can use VIDIX with it, thus getting accelerated video display
<B>AND</B> TV output at the same time! (recommended for ATI cards)</LI>
<LI>If you have VESA VBE 3.0+, and you had specified <CODE>monitor_hfreq</CODE>,
<CODE>monitor_vfreq</CODE>, <CODE>monitor_dotclock</CODE> somewhere (config
file, or commandline) you will get the highest possible refresh rate. (Using
General Timing Formula). To enable this feature you have to specify
<B>all</B> your monitor options.</LI>
</UL>
<H5>DISADVANTAGES</H5>
<UL>
<LI>It works only on <B>x86 systems</B>.</LI>
<LI>It can be used only by <B>root</B>.</LI>
<LI>Currently it's available only for <B>Linux</B>.</LI>
</UL>
<P>Don't use this driver with <B>GCC 2.96</B>! It won't work!</P>
<H5>COMMAND LINE OPTIONS AVAILABLE FOR VESA</H5>
<DL>
<DT><CODE>-vo vesa:opts</CODE></DT>
<DD>currently recognized: <B>dga</B> to force dga mode and <B>nodga</B> to
disable dga mode. In dga mode you can enable double buffering via the
<CODE>-double</CODE> option. Note: you may omit these parameters to enable
<B>autodetection</B> of dga mode.</DD>
</DL>
<H5>KNOWN PROBLEMS AND WORKAROUNDS</H5>
<UL>
<LI>If you have installed <B>NLS</B> font on your Linux box and run VESA
driver from text-mode then after terminating MPlayer you will have
<B>ROM font</B> loaded instead of national. You can load national font again
by using <B><I>setsysfont</I></B> utility from the Mandrake distribution
for example.<BR>
(<B>Hint:</B> The same utility is used for the localization of fbdev).</LI>
<LI>Some <B>Linux graphics drivers</B> don't update active <B>BIOS mode</B> in
DOS memory. So if you have such problem - always use VESA driver only from
<B>text-mode</B>. Otherwise text-mode (#03) will be activated anyway and
you will need restart your computer.</LI>
<LI>Often after terminating VESA driver you get <B>black screen</B>. To return
your screen to original state - simply switch to other console (by pressing
<B>Alt-Fx</B>) then switch to your previous console by the same way.</LI>
<LI>To get <B>working TV-out</B> you need have plugged TV-connector in before
booting your PC since video BIOS initializes itself only once during POST
procedure.</LI>
</UL>
<H4><A NAME="x11">2.3.1.2.11 X11</A></H4>
<P>Avoid if possible. Outputs to X11 (uses shared memory extension), with no
hardware acceleration at all. Supports (MMX/3DNow/SSE accelerated, but still
slow) software scaling, use the options <CODE>-fs -zoom</CODE>. Most cards
have hardware scaling support, use the <CODE>-vo xv</CODE> output for them,
or <CODE>-vo xmga</CODE> for Matroxes.</P>
<P>The problem is that most cards' driver doesn't support hardware acceleration
on the second head/TV. In those cases, you see green/blue colored window
instead of the movie. This is where this driver comes in handy, but you need
powerful CPU to use software scaling. Don't use the SDL driver's software
output+scaler, it has worse image quality!</P>
<P>Software scaling is very slow, you better try changing video modes instead.
It's very simple. See the <A HREF="#dga_modelines">DGA section's modelines</A>,
and insert them into your XF86Config.</P>
<UL>
<LI>If you have XFree86 4.x.x - use the <CODE>-vm</CODE> option. It will
change to a resolution your movie fits in. If it doesn't:</LI>
<LI>With XFree86 3.x.x - you have to cycle through available resolutions
with the <B>CTRL-ALT-plus</B> and <B>minus</B> keys.</LI>
</UL>
<P>If you can't find the modes you inserted, browse XFree86's output. Some
drivers can't use low pixelclocks that are needed for low resolution
video modes.</P>
<H4><A NAME="vidix">2.3.1.2.12 VIDIX</A></H4>
<H5>PREAMBLE</H5>
<P>VIDIX is the abbreviation for <B>VID</B>eo <B>I</B>nterface for *ni<B>X</B>.
It was designed and introduced as an interface for fast user-space drivers
providing such video performance as mga_vid does for Matrox cards. It's also
very portable.</P>
<P>This interface was designed as an attempt to fit existing video acceleration
interfaces (known as mga_vid, rage128_vid, radeon_vid, pm3_vid) into a fixed scheme. It
provides highlevel interface to chips which are known as BES (BackEnd
scalers) or OV (Video Overlays). It doesn't provide lowlevel interface to
things which are known as graphics servers. (I don't want to compete with X11
team in graphics mode switching). I.e. main goal of this interface is to
maximize the speed of video playback.</P>
<H5>USAGE</H5>
<UL>
<LI>You can use standalone video output driver: <CODE>-vo xvidix</CODE><BR>
This driver was developed as X11's front end to VIDIX technology. It
requires X server and can work only under X server. Note that, as it
directly accesses the hardware and circumvents the X driver, pixmaps
cached in the graphics card's memory may be corrupted. You can prevent
this by limiting the amount of video memory used by X with the XF86Config
option "VideoRam" in the device section. You should set this to the amount
of memory installed on your card minus 4MB. If you have less than 8MB of
video ram, you can use the option "XaaNoPixmapCache" in the screen section
instead.</LI>
<LI>You can use VIDIX subdevice which was applied to several video output
drivers, such as:<BR>
<CODE>-vo vesa:vidix</CODE> (<B>Linux only</B>) and <CODE>-vo fbdev:vidix</CODE></LI>
</UL>
Indeed it doesn't matter which video output driver is used with <B>VIDIX</B>.
<H5>REQUIREMENTS</H5>
<UL>
<LI>video card should be in graphics mode (I write <B>should</B> simply
because I tested it in text mode - it works but has awful output ;) Use
AAlib for that).<BR>
<I>Note: Everyone can try this trick by commenting out mode switching in
vo_vesa driver.</I></LI>
<LI>MPlayer's video output driver should know active video mode and be
able to tell to VIDIX subdevice some video characteristics of server.</LI>
</UL>
<H5>USAGE METHODS</H5>
<P>When VIDIX is used as <B>subdevice</B> (<CODE>-vo vesa:vidix</CODE>) then
video mode configuration is performed by video output device
(<B>vo_server</B> in short). Therefore you can pass into command line of
MPlayer the same keys as for vo_server. In addition it understands
<CODE>-double</CODE> key as globally visible parameter. (I recommend using
this key with VIDIX at least for ATI cards).<BR>
As for <CODE>-vo xvidix</CODE>: currently it recognizes the following
options: <CODE>-fs -zoom -x -y -double</CODE>.</P>
<P>Also you can specify VIDIX's driver directly as third subargument in command
line:<BR>
<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<code>mplayer -vo xvidix:mga_vid.so -fs -zoom -double
file.avi</code><BR>
or<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<code>mplayer -vo vesa:vidix:radeon_vid.so -fs -zoom -double -bpp
32 file.avi</code><BR>
<BR>
But it's dangerous, and you shouldn't do that. In this case given driver will
be forced and result is unpredictable (it may <B>freeze</B> your
computer). You should do that ONLY if you are absolutely sure it will work,
and MPlayer doesn't do it automatically. Please tell about it to the
developers. The Right Way is to use VIDIX without arguments to enable driver
autodetection.</P>
<P>VIDIX is a new technology and it's extremely possible that on your system
it won't work. In this case the only solution for you is porting it (mainly
libdha). But there is hope that it will work on systems where X11 does.</P>
<P>Since VIDIX requires direct hardware access you can either run it as root or
set the SUID bit on the MPlayer binary (<B>Warning: This is a security
risk!</B>). Alternatively, you can use a special kernel module, like this:</P>
<OL>
<LI>Download the
<A HREF="http://www.arava.co.il/matan/svgalib/">development version</A>
of svgalib (for example 1.9.17).</LI>
<LI><B>OR</B> download a version made by Alex especially for usage with
MPlayer (it doesn't need the svgalib source to compile) from
<A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/~alex/svgalib_helper-1.9.17-mplayer.tar.bz2">
here</A>.
<LI>Compile the module in the <CODE>svgalib_helper</CODE> directory (it can
be found inside the <CODE>svgalib-1.9.17/kernel/</CODE> directory if you've
downloaded the source from the svgalib site) and insmod it.</LI>
<LI>Move the <CODE>svgalib_helper</CODE> directory to
<CODE>mplayer/main/libdha/svgalib_helper</CODE>.</LI>
<LI>Required if you download the source from the svgalib site: Remove the
comment before the CFLAGS line containing "svgalib_helper" string from the
<CODE>libdha/Makefile</CODE>.</LI>
<LI>Recompile and install libdha.</LI>
</OL>
<H4><A NAME="vidix_ati">2.3.1.2.12.1 ATI cards</A></H4>
<P>Currently most ATI cards are supported natively, from Mach64 to the newest
Radeons.</P>
<P>There are two compiled binaries: <CODE>radeon_vid</CODE> for Radeon and
<CODE>rage128_vid</CODE> for Rage 128 cards. You may force one or let the
VIDIX system autoprobe all available drivers.</P>
<H4><A NAME="vidix_matrox">2.3.1.2.12.2 Matrox cards</A></H4>
<P>Matrox G200,G400,G450 and G550 have been reported to work.</P>
<P>The driver supports video equalizers and should be nearly as fast as the
<A HREF="#mga_vid">Matrox framebuffer</A>.</P>
<H4><A NAME="vidix_trident">2.3.1.12.3 Trident cards</A></H4>
<P>There is a driver available for the Trident Cyberblade/i1 chipset, which
can be found on VIA Epia motherboards.</P>
<P>The driver was written and is maintained by Alastair M. Robinson, who offers
the very latest driver versions for download from his
<A HREF="http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/EPIAVidix.shtml">homepage</A>.
The drivers are added to MPlayer with only a short delay, so CVS should always
be up to date.</P>
<H4><A NAME="vidix_3dlabs">2.3.1.2.12.4 3DLabs cards</A></H4>
<P>Although there is a driver for the 3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3 chips,
no one has tested it, so reports are welcome.</P>
<H4><A NAME="directfb">2.3.1.2.13 DirectFB</A></H4>
<P><I>"DirectFB is a graphics library which was designed with embedded systems in
mind. It offers maximum hardware accelerated performance at a minimum of
resource usage and overhead."</I> - quoted from
<A HREF="http://www.directfb.org">http://www.directfb.org</A>.</P>
<P>I'll exclude DirectFB features from this section.</P>
<P>Though MPlayer is not supported as a "video provider" in DirectFB, this
output driver will enable video playback through DirectFB. It will -
of course - be accelerated, on my Matrox G400 DirectFB's speed was the
same as XVideo.</P>
<P>Always try to use the newest version of DirectFB. You can use DirectFB
options on the command line, using the <CODE>-dfbopts</CODE> option.
Layer selection can be done by the subdevice method, e.g.: <CODE>-vo
directfb:2</CODE> (layer -1 is default: autodetect)</P>
<H4><A NAME="dfbmga">2.3.1.2.14 DirectFB/Matrox (dfbmga)</A></H4>
<P>Please read the <A HREF="#directfb">main DirectFB section</A> for general
informations.</P>
<P>This video output driver will enable CRTC2 (on the second head) on the
Matrox G400 card, displaying video <B>independently</B> of the first head.</P>
<P>Instructions on how to make it work can be found in the
<A HREF="tech/directfb.txt">tech section</A>
or directly on Ville Syrjala's
<A HREF="http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/directfb/readme.txt">home page</A>.</P>
<P>Note: we haven't been able to make this work, but others did. Anyway,
porting of the CRTC2 code to <B>mga_vid</B> is underway.</P>
<H4><A NAME="mpegdec">2.3.1.3 MPEG decoders</A></H4>
<H4><A NAME="dvb">2.3.1.3.1 DVB</A></H4>
<P>MPlayer supports cards with the Siemens DVB chipset from vendors like
Siemens, Technotrend, Galaxis or Hauppauge. The latest DVB drivers are
available from the <A HREF="http://www.linuxtv.org">Linux TV site</A>. If you
want to do software transcoding you should have at least a 1GHz CPU.</P>
<P>Configure should detect your DVB card. If it did not, force detection with</P>
<PRE>
./configure --enable-dvb
</PRE>
<P>If you have ost headers at a non-standard path, set the path with</P>
<PRE>
./configure --with-extraincdir=&lt;DVB source directory&gt;/ost/include
</PRE>
<P>Then compile and install as usual.</P>
<H5>USAGE</H5>
<P>Hardware decoding (playing standard MPEG1/2 files) can be done with this
command:</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes file.mpg|vob
</PRE>
<P>Software decoding or transcoding different formats to MPEG1 can be achieved
using a command like this:</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc yourfile.ext
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop fame,expand yourfile.ext
</PRE>
<P>Note that DVB cards only support heights 288 and 576 for PAL or 240 and 480
for NTSC. You <B>must</B> rescale for other heights by adding
<CODE>scale=width:height</CODE> with the width and height you want to the
<CODE>-vop</CODE> option. DVB cards accept various widths, like 720, 704,
640, 512, 480, 352 etc and do hardware scaling in horizontal direction, so
you do not need to scale horizontally in most cases. For a 512x384 (aspect
4:3) DivX try:</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,scale=512:576
</PRE>
<P>If you have a widescreen movie and you do not want to scale it to full height,
you can use the <CODE>expand=w:h</CODE> filter to add black bands. To view a
640x384 DivX, try:</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,expand=640:576 file.avi
</PRE>
<P>If your CPU is too slow for a full size 720x576 DivX, try downscaling:</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,scale=352:576 file.avi
</PRE>
<P>If speed does not improve, try vertical downscaling, too:</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,scale=352:288 file.avi
</PRE>
<P>For OSD and subtitles use the OSD feature of the expand filter. So, instead
of <CODE>expand=w:h</CODE> or <CODE>expand=w:h:x:y</CODE>, use
<CODE>expand=w:h:x:y:1</CODE> (the 5th parameter <CODE>:1</CODE> at the end
will enable OSD rendering). You may want to move the image up a bit to get a
bigger black zone for subtitles. You may also want to move subtitles up, if
they are outside your TV screen, use the <CODE>-subpos &lt;0-100&gt;</CODE> option
to adjust this (<CODE>-subpos 80</CODE> is a good choice).</P>
<P>In order to play non-25fps movies on a PAL TV or with a slow CPU, add the
<CODE>-framedrop</CODE> option.</P>
<P>To keep the aspect ratio of DivX files and get the optimal scaling parameters
(hardware horizontal scaling and software vertical scaling while keeping the
right aspect ratio), use the new dvbscale filter:</P>
<PRE>
for 3:4 TV: -vop lavc,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,scale=-1:0,dvbscale
for 16:9 TV: -vop lavc,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,scale=-1:0,dvbscale=1024
</PRE>
<H5>FUTURE</H5>
<P>If you have questions or want to hear feature announcements and take part in
discussions on this subject, join our
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb">MPlayer-DVB</A>
mailing list. Please remember that the list language is English.</P>
<P>In the future you may expect the ability to display OSD and subtitles using
the native OSD feature of DVB cards, as well as more fluent playback of
non-25fps movies and realtime transcoding between MPEG2 and MPEG4 (partial
decompression).</P>
<H4><A NAME="dxr2">2.3.1.3.2 DXR2</A></H4>
<P>TODO: somebody please fill this section with information.</P>
<H4><A NAME="dxr3">2.3.1.3.3 DXR3/Hollywood+</A></H4>
<P>MPlayer supports hardware accelerated playback with the Creative DXR3
and Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus cards. These cards both use the em8300 MPEG
decoder chip from Sigma Designs.</P>
<P>First of all you will need properly installed DXR3/H+ drivers, version
0.12.0 or later. You can find the drivers and installation instructions at
the <A HREF="http://dxr3.sourceforge.net/">DXR3 &amp; Hollywood Plus for
Linux</A> site. Configure should detect your card automatically, compilation
should go without problems.</P>
<H5>USAGE</H5>
<DL>
<DT><CODE>-vo dxr3:prebuf:sync:norm=x:&lt;device&gt;</CODE></DT>
<DD><CODE>overlay</CODE> activates the overlay instead of TVOut. It requires
that you have a properly configured overlay setup to work right. The easiest
way to configure the overlay is to first run autocal. Then run mplayer with
dxr3 output and without overlay turned on, run dxr3view. In dxr3view you can
tweak the overlay settings and see the effects in realtime, perhaps this
feature will be supported by the MPlayer GUI in the future. When overlay is
properly set up you will no longer need to use dxr3view.<BR>
<CODE>prebuf</CODE> turns on prebuffering. Prebuffering is a feature
of the em8300 chip that enables it to hold more than one frame of video at
a time. This means that when you are running with prebuffering
MPlayer will try to keep the video buffer filled with data at all
times. If you are on a slow machine MPlayer will probably use close
to, or precisely 100% of CPU. This is especially common if you play pure MPEG
streams (like DVDs, SVCDs a.s.o.) since MPlayer will not have to
reencode it to MPEG it will fill the buffer very fast.<BR>
With prebuffering video playback is <B>much</B> less sensitive to other
programs hogging the CPU, it will not drop frames unless applications hog
the CPU for a long time.<BR>
When running without prebuffering the em8300 is much more sensitive to CPU
load, so it is highly suggested that you turn on MPlayer's
<CODE>-framedrop</CODE> option to avoid further loss of sync.<BR>
<CODE>sync</CODE> will turn on the new sync-engine. This is currently an
experimental feature. With the sync feature turned on the em8300's internal
clock will be monitored at all times, if it starts to deviate from MPlayer's
clock it will be reset causing the em8300 to drop any frames that are lagging
behind.<BR>
<CODE>norm=x</CODE> will set the TV norm of the DXR3 card without the need
for external tools like em8300setup. Valid norms are 5 = NTSC, 4 = PAL-60,
3 = PAL. Special norms are 2 (auto-adjust using PAL/PAL-60) and 1
(auto-adjust using PAL/NTSC) because they decide which norm to use by
looking at the frame rate of the movie. norm = 0 (default) does not
change the current norm.<BR>
<CODE>&lt;device&gt;</CODE> = device number to use if you have more than one
em8300 card.
<BR>
Any of these options may be left out.<BR>
<CODE>:prebuf:sync</CODE> seems to work great when playing DivX movies.
People have reported problems using the <CODE>prebuf</CODE> option when playing
MPEG1/2 files. You might want to try running without any options first, if you
have sync problems, or DVD subtitle problems, give <CODE>:sync</CODE> a
try.</DD>
<DT><CODE>-ao oss:/dev/em8300_ma-X</CODE></DT>
<DD>For audio output, where <CODE>X</CODE> is the device number
(0 if one card).</DD>
<DT><CODE>-aop list=resample:fout=xxxxx</CODE></DT>
<DD>The em8300 cannot play back samplerates lower than 44100Hz. If the sample
rate is below 44100Hz select either 44100Hz or 48000Hz depending on which
one matches closest. I.e. if the movie uses 22050Hz use 44100Hz as
44100 / 2 = 22050, if it is 24000Hz use 48000Hz as 48000 / 2 = 24000 and so
on. This does not work with digital audio output (<CODE>-ac hwac3</CODE>).</DD>
<DT><CODE>-vop lavc/fame</CODE></DT>
<DD>To watch non-MPEG content on the em8300 (i.e. DivX or RealVideo) you have
to specify an MPEG1 video filter such as libavcodec (lavc) or libfame
(fame). At the moment lavc is both faster and gives better image quality, it
is suggested that you use that unless you have problems with it. See the man
page for further info about <CODE>-vop lavc/fame</CODE>.<BR>
Using lavc is highly recommended. Currently there is no way of setting the
fps of the em8300 which means that it is fixed to 29.97fps. Because of this
it is highly recommended that you use <CODE>-vop lavc=&lt;quality&gt;:25</CODE>,
especially if you are using prebuffering. Then why 25 and not 29.97? Well,
the thing is that when you use 29.97 the picture becomes a bit jumpy. The
reason for this is unknown to us. If you set it to somewhere between 25 and
27 the picture becomes stable. For now all we can do is accept this for a
fact.</DD>
<DT><CODE>-vop lavc,expand=-1:-1:-1:-1:1</CODE></DT>
<DD>Altough the DXR3 driver can put some OSD onto the MPEG1/2/4 video,
it has much lower quality than MPlayer's traditional OSD, and has several
refresh problems as well. The command line above will firstly convert the
input video to MPEG4 (this is mandatory, sorry), then apply an expand
filter which won't expand anything (-1: default), but apply the normal OSD
onto the picture (that's what the "1" at the end does).</DD>
<DT><CODE>-ac hwac3</CODE></DT>
<DD>The em8300 supports playing back AC3 audio (surround sound) through the
digital audio output of the card. See the <CODE>-ao oss</CODE> option
above, it must be used to specify the DXR3's output instead of
a soundcard.</DD>
</DL>
<H4><A NAME="other">2.3.1.4 Other visualization hardware</A></H4>
<H4><A NAME="zr">2.3.1.4.1 Zr</A></H4>
<P>This is a display-driver (<CODE>-vo zr</CODE>) for a number of MJPEG
capture/playback cards (tested for DC10+ and Buz, and it should work for the
LML33 and the original DC10). The driver works by encoding the frame to jpeg
and then sending it to the card. For the jpeg encoding <B>libavcodec</B> is
used, and required. With the special <I>cinerama</I> mode, you can watch
movies in true wide screen provided that you have two beamers and two
MJPEG cards. Depending on resolution and quality settings, this driver
may require a lot of CPU power, remember to specify <CODE>-framedrop</CODE>
if your machine is too slow. Note: My AMD K6-2 350MHz is (with <CODE>
-framedrop</CODE>) quite adequate for watching VCD sized material and
downscaled movies.</P>
<P>This driver talks to the kernel driver available at
<A HREF="http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net">http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net</A>, so
you must get it working first. The presence of an MJPEG card is autodetected
by the configure script, if autodetection fails, force detection with</P>
<PRE>
./configure --enable-zr
</PRE>
<P>The output can be controlled by several options, a long description of the
options can be found in the man page, a short list of options can be
viewed by running</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -zrhelp
</PRE>
<P>Things like scaling and the OSD (on screen display) are not handled by
this driver but can be done using the video filters. For example,
suppose that you have a movie with a resolution of <CODE>512x272</CODE> and
you want to view it fullscreen on your DC10+. There are three main
possibilities, you may scale the movie to a width of <CODE>768</CODE>,
<CODE>384</CODE> or <CODE>192</CODE>. For performance and quality reasons,
I would choose to scale the movie to <CODE>384x204</CODE> using the fast
bilinear software scaler. The commandline is</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -vo zr -sws 0 -vop scale=384:204 movie.avi
</PRE>
<P>Cropping can be done by the <CODE>crop</CODE> filter and by
this driver itself. Suppose that a movie is too wide for display on your
Buz and that you want to use <CODE>-zrcrop</CODE> to make the movie less
wide, the you would issue the following command</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -vo zr -zrcrop 720x320+80+0 benhur.avi
</PRE>
<P>if you want to use the <CODE>crop</CODE> filter, you would do</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -vo zr -vop crop=720:320:80:0 benhur.avi
</PRE>
<P>Extra occurances of <CODE>-zrcrop</CODE> invoke <I>cinerama</I> mode, i.e.
you can distribute the movie over several TV's or beamers to create a larger
screen. Suppose you have two beamers. The left one is connected to your Buz
at <CODE>/dev/video1</CODE> and the right one is connected to your DC10+ at
<CODE>/dev/video0</CODE>. The movie has a resolution of <CODE>704x288</CODE>.
Suppose also that you want the right beamer in black and white and that
the right beamer should have jpeg frames at quality <CODE>10</CODE>,
then you would issue the following command</P>
<PRE>
mplayer -vo zr -zrdev /dev/video0 -zrcrop 352x288+352+0 -zrxdoff 0 -zrbw \
-zrcrop 352x288+0+0 -zrdev /dev/video1 -zrquality 10 movie.avi
</PRE>
<P>You see that the options appearing before the second <CODE>-zrcrop</CODE>
only apply to the DC10+ and that the options after the second
<CODE>-zrcrop</CODE> apply to the Buz. The maximum number of MJPEG cards
participating in <I>cinerama</I> is four, so you can buid a <CODE>2x2</CODE>
vidiwall.</P>
<P>Finally an important remark: Do not start or stop XawTV on the playback
device during playback, it will crash your computer. It is, however, fine to
<B>FIRST</B> start XawTV, <B>THEN</B> start MPlayer, wait for
MPlayer to finish and <B>THEN</B> stop XawTV.</P>
<H4><A NAME="blinken">2.3.1.4.2 Blinkenlights</A></H4>
<P>This driver is capable of playback using the Blinkenlights UDP protocol.
If you don't know what <A HREF="http://www.blinkenlights.de/">Blinkenlights</A>
is, you don't need this driver.</P>
<H4><A NAME="tv-out">2.3.1.5 TV-out support</A></H4>
<H4><A NAME="tv-out_matrox">2.3.1.5.1 Matrox G400 cards</A></H4>
<P>Under Linux you have 2 methods to get G400 TV out working:</P>
<P><B>IMPORTANT:</B> for Matrox G450/G550 TV-out instructions, please see the
next section!</P>
<UL>
<LI><B>XFree86</B>: using the driver and the HAL module, available from
<A HREF="http://www.matrox.com">Matrox's site</A>. This will give you X on
the TV.<BR> <B>This method doesn't give you accelerated playback</B> as
under Windoze! The second head has only YUV framebuffer, the <I>BES</I>
(Back End Scaler, the YUV scaler on G200/G400/G450/G550 cards) doesn't work
on it! The Windows driver somehow works around this, probably by using the
3D engine to zoom, and the YUV framebuffer to display the zoomed
image. If you really want to use X, use the <CODE>-vo x11 -fs -zoom</CODE>
options, but it will be <B>SLOW</B>, and has <B>Macrovision</B> copy protection
enabled (you can "workaround" Macrovision using
<A HREF="http://avifile.sourceforge.net/mgamacro.pl">this</A> perl
script.</LI>
<LI><B>Framebuffer</B>: using the <B>matroxfb modules</B> in the 2.4 kernels.
2.2 kernels don't have the TVout feature in them, thus unusable for this.
You have to enable ALL matroxfb-specific feature during compilation (except
MultiHead), and compile them into <B>modules</B>! You'll also need I2C
enabled.
<OL>
<LI>
Enter <CODE>TVout/matroxset</CODE> and type <CODE>make</CODE>. Install
<CODE>matroxset</CODE> into somewhere in your PATH.</LI>
<LI>
If you don't have <CODE>fbset</CODE> installed, enter
<CODE>TVout/fbset</CODE> and type <CODE>make</CODE>. Install
<CODE>fbset</CODE> into somewhere in your PATH.</LI>
<LI>
Then enter into the <CODE>TVout/</CODE> directory in the MPlayer
source, and execute <CODE>./modules</CODE> as root. Your text-mode console
will enter into framebuffer mode (no way back!).</LI>
<LI>Next, EDIT and run the <CODE>./matroxtv</CODE> script. This will present you
to a very simple menu. Press <B>2</B> and <B>ENTER</B>. Now you should
have the same picture on your monitor, and TV. If
the TV (PAL by default) picture has some weird stripes on it, the script wasn't able to
set the resolution correctly (to 640x512 by default). Try other
resolutions from the menu and/or experiment with fbset.</LI>
</OL>
<P>Yoh. Next task is to make the cursor on tty1 (or whatever) to disappear,
and turn off screen blanking. Execute the following commands:</P>
<P><CODE>echo -e '\033[?25l'</CODE> or <CODE>setterm -cursor off<BR>
setterm -blank 0</CODE></P>
<P>You possibly want to put the above into a script, and also clear
the screen.. To turn the cursor back:<BR><CODE>echo -e '\033[?25h'</CODE>
or <CODE>setterm -cursor on</CODE></P>
<P>Yeah kewl. Start movie playing with <CODE>mplayer -vo mga -fs -screenw 640
-screenh 512 &lt;filename&gt;</CODE><BR>
(if you use X, now change to matroxfb with for example CTRL-ALT-F1!)<BR>
Change 640x512 if you set the resolution to other.<BR>
<B>Enjoy the ultra-fast ultra-featured Matrox TV output (better than Xv)!</B></P>
</LI>
</UL>
<H4>Building a Matrox TV-out cable</H4>
<P>No one takes any responsibility, nor guarantee for any damage caused by this
documentation.</P>
<P><B>Cable for G400</B>: The CRTC2 connector's fourth pin is the composite video signal. The ground
are the sixth, seventh and eighth pins. (info contributed from Bal<61>zs
R<>cz)</P>
<P><B>Cable for G450</B>: The CRTC2 connector's first pin is the composite video
signal. The ground are the fifth, sixth, seventh, and fifteenth
(5, 6, 7, 15) pins. (info contributed from Bal<61>zs Kerekes)</P>
<H4><A NAME="tv-out_matrox_g450">2.3.1.5.2 Matrox G450/G550 cards</A></H4>
<P>TV output support for these cards has only been recently introduced, and is
not yet in the mainstream kernel. Currently the <B>mga_vid</B> module
can't be used AFAIK, because the G450/G550 driver works only in one
configuration: the first CRTC chip (with much more features) on the first
display (on monitor), and the second CRTC (no <B>BES</B> - for explanation
on BES, please see the G400 section above) on TV. So you can only use
MPlayer's <I>fbdev</I> output driver at the present.</P>
<P>The first CRTC can't be routed to the second head currently.
The author of the kernel matroxfb driver - Petr Vandrovec - will maybe make
support for this, by displaying the first CRTC's output onto both of the
heads at once, as currently recommended for G400, see the section above.</P>
<P>The necessary kernel patch and the detailed howto is downloadable from
<A HREF="http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/">http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/</A></P>
<H4><A NAME="tv-out_ati">2.3.1.5.3 ATI cards</A></H4>
<H5>PREAMBLE</H5>
<P>Currently ATI doesn't want to support any of its TV-out chips under Linux,
because of their licensed Macrovision technology.</P>
<H5>ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX</H5>
<UL>
<LI><B>ATI Mach64</B>: Supported by
<A HREF="http://gatos.sf.net">gatos</A>.</LI>
<LI><B>ASIC Radeon VIVO</B>: Supported by
<A HREF="http://gatos.sf.net">gatos</A>.</LI>
<LI><B>Radeon</B> and <B>Rage128</B>: Supported by MPlayer!
Check <a href="#vesa">VESA driver</a> and <A HREF="#vidix">VIDIX</A>
sections.</LI>
<LI><B>Rage Mobility P/M, Radeon, Rage 128, Mobility M3/M4</B>: Supported by
<A HREF="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/users/lennart/projects/atitvout/">
atitvout</A>.
</UL>
<P>On other cards, just use the <a href="#vesa">VESA driver</a>, without
VIDIX. Powerful CPU is needed, though.</P>
<P>Only thing you need to do - <B>have TV connector plugged in before
booting your PC</B> since video BIOS initializes itself only once during
POST procedure.</P>
<H4><A NAME="tv-out_voodoo">2.3.1.5.4 Voodoo 3</A></H4>
<P>Check <A HREF="http://www.iki.fi/too/tvout-voodoo3-3000-xfree">this URL</A>.</P>
<H4><A NAME="tv-out_nvidia">2.3.1.5.5 nVidia</A></H4>
<P>First, you MUST download the closed-source drivers from
<A HREF="http://nvidia.com">http://nvidia.com</A>. I will not describe the
installation and configuration process because it does not cover the
scope of this documentation.</P>
<P>After XFree86, XVideo, and 3D acceleration is properly working,
edit your card's Device section in the <CODE>XF86Config</CODE> file,
according to the following example (adapt for your card/TV):</P>
<PRE>
Section "Device"
Identifier "GeForce"
VendorName "ASUS"
BoardName "nVidia GeForce2/MX 400"
Driver "nvidia"
#Option "NvAGP" "1"
Option "NoLogo"
Option "CursorShadow" "on"
Option "TwinView"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "Clone"
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,640x480"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, TV"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
Option "TVOutFormat" "Composite"
EndSection
</PRE>
<P>Of course the important thing is the TwinView part.</P>
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