2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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Welcome to MPlayer, the Unix movie player. MPlayer can play most standard video
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formats out of the box and almost all others with the help of external codecs.
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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MPlayer currently works best from the command line, but visual feedback for
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many functions is available from its onscreen status display (OSD), which is
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2003-03-18 20:22:36 +00:00
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also used for displaying subtitles. MPlayer also has a GUI with skin support and
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several unofficial alternative graphical frontends are available.
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MEncoder is a command line video encoder for advanced users that can be built
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from the MPlayer source tree. An unofficial graphical frontend exists but is
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not included.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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This document is for getting you started in a few minutes. It cannot answer all
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of your questions. If you have problems, please read the documentation in
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2003-03-18 20:22:36 +00:00
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DOCS/en/documentation.html, which should help you solve most of your problems.
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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Also read the man page to learn how to use MPlayer.
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Requirements:
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- To compile MPlayer with X11 support, you need to have the XFree86 development
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packages installed.
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2002-10-09 00:39:04 +00:00
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- For the GUI you need the libpng and GTK 1.2 development packages.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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Before you start...
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Unless you know what are you doing, consult DOCS/en/video.html to see which driver
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to use with your video card to get the best quality and performance. Most cards
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require special drivers not included with XFree86 to drive their 2-D video
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acceleration features like YUV and scaling.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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A quick and incomplete list of recommendations:
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- ATI cards: Get the GATOS drivers for X11/Xv or use VIDIX.
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- Matrox G200/G4x0/G550: Compile and use mga_vid for Linux, on BSD use VIDIX.
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- 3dfx Voodoo3/Banshee: Get XFree86 4.2.0+ for Xv or use the tdfxfb driver.
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- nVidia cards: Get the X11 driver from www.nvidia.com for Xv support.
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- NeoMagic cards: Get an Xv capable driver from our homepage as described in
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DOCS/en/video.html.
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Without accelerated video even an 800MHz P3 may be too slow to play DVDs.
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______________________
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STEP0: Getting MPlayer
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Official releases, prereleases and CVS snapshots, as well as fonts for the
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OSD, codec packages and a number of different skins for the GUI are available
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from the download section of our homepage at
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http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html
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A set of fonts is necessary for the OSD and subtitles, the GUI needs at least
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one skin and codec packages add support for some more video and audio formats.
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MPlayer does not come with any of these by default, you have to download and
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install them separately. A wide range of codec packages can be downloaded at
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http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/
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You can also get MPlayer via anonymous CVS. Issue the following commands to get
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the latest sources:
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cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/mplayer login
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cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/mplayer co main
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When asked for a password, just hit enter. A directory named 'main' will be
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created. You can later update your sources by saying
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cvs -z3 update -dPA
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from within that directory.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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___________________________________
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STEP1: Installing FFmpeg libavcodec
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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If you are using an official (pre)release, skip this step, since official
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releases include libavcodec. CVS sources and thus CVS snapshots do not include
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libavcodec. To verify if you do have libavcodec or not, check if a subdirectory
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named 'libavcodec' exists in the MPlayer source tree.
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The FFmpeg project provides libavcodec, a very portable codec collection (among
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the supported formats is MPEG4/DivX) with excellent quality and speed, that is
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the preferred MPEG4/DivX codec of MPlayer. You have to get libavcodec directly
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from the FFmpeg CVS server.
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To get the FFmpeg sources, use the following commands in a suitable directory
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outside the MPlayer source directory:
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2003-05-22 21:38:58 +00:00
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cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg login
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cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co ffmpeg/libavcodec
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When asked for a password, you can just hit enter. A directory named 'ffmpeg'
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with a subdirectory named 'libavcodec' inside will be created. Copy (symbolic
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linking does NOT suffice) this subdirectory into the MPlayer source tree.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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______________________________
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STEP2: Installing Win32 Codecs
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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MPlayer and libavcodec have builtin support for the most common audio and video
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formats, but some formats require external codecs. Examples include Real, Indeo
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and Sorenson3 (newer Quicktime) formats. Support for Windows Media formats
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except WMV9 exists but still has some bugs, your mileage may vary. This step is
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not mandatory, but recommended for getting MPlayer to play a broader range of
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formats. Please note that most codecs only work on Intel x86 compatible PCs.
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Unpack the codecs archives and put the contents in a directory where MPlayer
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will find them. The default directory is /usr/lib/win32/ but you can change
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that to something else by using the '--with-win32libdir=DIR' option when you
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run './configure'.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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__________________________
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STEP3: Configuring MPlayer
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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MPlayer can be adapted to all kinds of needs and hardware environments. Run
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./configure
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to configure MPlayer with the default options. The codecs you installed above
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should be autodetected. GUI support has to be enabled separately, run
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./configure --enable-gui
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if you want to use the GUI.
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If something does not work as expected, try
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./configure --help
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to see the available options and select what you need.
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The configure script prints a summary of enabled and disabled options. If you
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have something installed that configure fails to detect, check the file
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configure.log for errors and reasons for the failure. Repeat this step until
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you are satisfied with the enabled feature set.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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________________________
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STEP4: Compiling MPlayer
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Now you can start the compilation by typing
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make
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You can install MPlayer with
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make install
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provided that you have write permission in the installation directory.
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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If all went well, you can run MPlayer by typing 'mplayer'. A help screen with a
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summary of the most common options and keyboard shortcuts should be displayed.
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If you get 'unable to load shared library' or similar errors, run
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'ldd ./mplayer' to check which libraries fail and go back to STEP 3 to fix it.
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Sometimes running 'ldconfig' is enough to fix the problem.
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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NOTE: If you run Debian you can configure, compile and build a proper Debian
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.deb package with only one command:
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fakeroot debian/rules binary
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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____________________________________________
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STEP5: Installing the onscreen display fonts
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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Unpack the archive and choose one of the available font sizes. Then copy the
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font files of the corresponding size into /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/ or
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~/.mplayer/font/ (or whatever you set with './configure --datadir=DIR').
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____________________________
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STEP6: Installing a GUI skin
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Unpack the archive and put the contents in /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/ or
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~/.mplayer/Skin/. MPlayer will use the skin in the subdirectory named default
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of /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/ or ~/.mplayer/Skin/ unless told otherwise via
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the '-skin' switch. You should therefore rename your skin subdirectory or make
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a suitable symbolic link.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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__________________
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STEP7: Let's play!
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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2002-07-26 03:53:27 +00:00
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That's it for the moment. To start playing movies, open a command line and try
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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mplayer <moviefile>
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or for the GUI
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gmplayer <moviefile>
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gmplayer is a symbolic link to mplayer created by 'make install'.
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Without <moviefile>, MPlayer will come up and you will be able to use the GUI
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filepicker.
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To play a VCD track or a DVD title, try:
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mplayer -vcd 2 -cdrom-device /dev/hdc
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mplayer -dvd 1 -alang en -slang hu -dvd-device /dev/hdd
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See 'mplayer -help' and 'man mplayer' for further options.
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'mplayer -vo help' will show you the available video output drivers. Experiment
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with the '-vo' switch to see which one gives you the best performance.
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If you get jerky playback or no sound, experiment with the '-ao' switch (see
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'-ao help') to choose between different audio drivers. Note that jerky playback
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is caused by buggy audio drivers or a slow processor and video card. With a
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good audio and video driver combination, one can play DVDs and 720x576 DivX
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files smoothly on a Celeron 366. Slower systems may need the '-framedrop'
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option.
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2002-05-31 21:26:28 +00:00
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Questions you may have are probably answered in the rest of the documentation.
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The places to start reading are the man page, DOCS/en/documentation.html and
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DOCS/en/faq.html. If you find a bug, read DOCS/en/bugreports.html first!
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