mpv/DOCS/DVB

Some words about Siemens-DVB card support.         by A'rpi
==========================================

Requirements:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Siemens DVB-S card or compatible (technotrend,galaxis,hauppage etc)
  see www.linuxtv.org for details and download latest driver there.
- MPlayer-CVS, ffmpeg-libavcodec CVS are recommended for speed & pp.
- Fast CPU - 1GHz+ recommended at least for software transcoding (divx->mpeg)


How to enable?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    ./configure should detect it. If didn't, force with ./configure --enable-dvb
        If you have ost headers at non-standard path, set it with:
	--with-extraincdir=<your DVB source dir>/ost/include
    make
    make install
   

How to use?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Hardware decoding: (play standard mpeg 1/2 files)

  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes file.mpg|vob

Software decoding/transcoding anything to mpeg1:

  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc yourfile.ext
  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop fame,expand yourfile.ext
  
  Note: the DVB card only supports height 288 and 576 for PAL,
  240 and 480 for NTSC. For other heights, you MUST rescale it,
  by adding 'scale=w:h' to the -vop option, where w:h are width:height
  you want. Note, that DVB card accepts various widths, like 720, 704, 640,
  512, 480, 352 etc, so you don't need to scale horizontally in most cases!
  (the card will do hardware scaling in horizontal direction!)
  For example, for a 512x384 (aspect 4:3) divx try:
  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,scale=512:576

  If you have widescreen movie, and you don't want to scale it to full
  height, you can use the 'expand=w:h' plugin to add black bands.
  For example, to view a 640x384 divx, try:
  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,expand=640:576 file.avi

  If you have slow cpu to view 720x576 divx in full size, try to downscale:
  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,scale=352:576 file.avi
  Or if still slow, try to downscale vertically too:
  mplayer -ao mpegpes -vo mpegpes -vop lavc,scale=352:288 file.avi

  Do you want osd, and subtitles? Use the expand plugin's osd feature!
  So, instead of expand=w:h or expand=w:h:x:y, use expand=w:h:x:y:1
  (the 5th parameter :1 at the end will enable osd rendering)
  You may want to move image up a bit to get bigger black zone for subtitles.
  And you may want to move subtitles up, if they're out of your TV screen,
  use the -subpos <0-100> switch (-subpos 80 is perfect for me).

To play non-25fps movies on PAL TV, or with slow CPU, add option:  -framedrop

How to keep aspect ratio for DivX files?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To get the optimal scaling parameters (use hardware for X scaling, and
scale Y by software, keeping the right aspect ratio), use the new 'dvbscale'
plugin:

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

Mailing list:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb

List's language is ENGLISH. Please avoid using german or other languages!
Subscribe, and ask/discuss your problems here.
I'll also post feature announces to this list.

Future plans/TODO:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- display OSD and subtitles using DVB card's OSD feature
- better (more fluent) playback of non-25fps movies
- realtime transcoding between mpeg2 <-> mpeg4 (partial decompression)