future of mplayer extensions
Forum: Multimedia
Topic: future of mplayer extensions
started by: mikshaw
Posted by mikshaw on May 04 2008,13:54
After 2 years I finally got around to downloading mplayer-1.0pre8cvs.uci, mainly to have mencoder in the same package and not need to load mesa3d to use it. Overall, very nice job, WDef. I did notice that the audio does not play on some of the files that work with mplayer-xfree86.tar.gz (now converted to mplayer.uci on my box), and -vo sdl doesn't seem to be supported for fullscreen without XFree/Xorg. These may be simply configuration issues that I have yet to work out. But it brings me to the point of this post...There are at least four different versions of mplayer in the repository, all likely to have different features and behaviors. It might be good for the community if those of us who have the interest and ability to work together to create a single mplayer package (or two...uci & unc) which includes all possible functionality supported by DSL
I haven't used the 1.0rc1try3 mplayer.tar.gz mainly because I believe it should be a single package, and I don't care to mix *.tar.gz with *.dsl. But if its features are complete as can be, maybe we should work to improve that particular package and consider removing the older ones from the repository.
Are there any thoughts/disagreements on this? Please throw in your opinions.
On an off-topic note, thanks roberts for an old post that helped me get mplayer working in the Linux console:
rm /dev/fb0 #remove symlink
mknod /dev/fb0 c 29 0 #original is not useable by anyone but root
usermod -G staff,dialout,fax,voice,cdrom,floppy,tape,sudo,audio,dip,video,games,users,usb,tty dsl
(I had already added dsl to the tty group for using mc subshells, so the usermod command has a double helping of usefulness)
Posted by WDef on May 05 2008,10:41
Another problem with my old mplayer uci is that is was not compiled with alsa support. I might have tried but it didn't work or something. If you are trying it again, please post which formats didn't play for future reference. I don't know if I ever tried -vo sdl but I will. I personally prefer one or two big ucis to a bunch of little things to load, but whatever floats your boat. I do have a WIP uci upgrade to the mplayer uci that's been sitting complete on my harddrive, which also contains a lot of other stuff and extra support (so quite big), including transcode again, together with another uci containing a bunch of dvd building applications, which points at the libs in the other. I'd have to check to see what's actually in there.
Both work, and I do use them (have copied dvds, re-encoded etc with good results also) not tested across different audio formats etc though. x264 support in mencoder would not compile in back then, which annoyed me, though the x264 binary did build ok iirc. That could have been an issue with the particular svn sources at the time, or probably the older compiler back then, or perhaps anon found some trick to this. The WIP could do with updating again, at least for mplayer, arguably less critically for the libs. But with a bit of prodding ... after a morning's recompiling it'd be updated and could be posted for testing.
Happy to collaborate of course, logistics might be difficult unless we put the lot on a webshare or svn or something and work that way. The sources to all that are quite big.
Or if we can get anon involved, we could start a thread where we post our build steps and problems as these occur. Open to suggestions. I do remember for example I had an awful time with ffmpeg for eg in the WIP.
The issue of different versions in the repo brings up a bigger issue - the need for an "archive" section of the repo. Perhaps old versions of extensions that have been supereded should go in the "archive" section so they are still accessible but out of the "mainline" repo.
Posted by mikshaw on May 05 2008,12:15
| Quote |
| please post which formats didn't play for future reference. |
| Quote |
| Playing SummonerGeeks.mov. Quicktime/MOV file format detected. VIDEO: [SVQ1] 320x240 24bpp 15.000 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s) Clip info: encoder: Encoded with Cleaner 5 ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [qtaudio] QuickTime Audio Decoder Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: QuickTime.qts, /usr/lib/win32/QuickTime.qts, /usr/local/lib/win32/QuickTime.qts failed loading QuickTime.qts ADecoder preinit failed  ADecoder init failed Cannot find codec for audio format 0x706C6351. |
I don't remember what the other was, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were another proprietary format. It's possible that my version of mplayer shouldn't legally be supporting these formats, but I don't really know or care very much.
Your mplayer does also play some files that I couldn't play before, such as some improperly-created avis I was messing around with (direct stream copies)
As far as the collaboration, I wasn't specifically suggesting multiple people putting the package together, but that they/we work together on ideas and testing more so than we would in the typical smaller, simpler extensions. Personally I have no intention of working directly on any large files, since it annoys the heck out of me to upload them. I just though more input during the creation stage rather than only after the extension has been built would produce a better package that does more for more users.
I just finished downloading Xorg uci, so -vo sdl is probably not going to be needed here, but I would think it *should* be available seeing that DSL aready has SDL. With that and the Quicktime issue, I wonder if the codecs were built into the application itself. I included the codecs when building mplayer, but did not include them with the package.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on May 05 2008,17:00
From a search, codecs-QT.uci seems to have it. There used to be a codecpak extension in mydsl but I guess it was removed... (still on some old mirrors though)
Posted by mikshaw on May 05 2008,18:46
| Quote |
| codecs-QT.uci seems to have it. |
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on May 06 2008,00:44
It looks like it's just been split from the mplayer binary codec package. You could easily repackage that into one big .uciIt was probably split because it is relatively large... (~10mb bzip2). I would agree that having one separate extension containing all of them would be convenient for some (like what codecpak was for). But there also could be situations where users do not need all those codecs (ie I mostly only use libavcodec). I'd probably vote for 2 extensions.
Posted by WDef on May 06 2008,09:12
mplayer-1.0pre8.uci was compiled against Kent's codecpak.dsl and looks for codecs there. Should work with that installed. That's been removed?The wip update uci was built against a single codepak.uci containing all the codecs, and also contains its own updated SDL. I kept notes. But sdl doesn't work there either, at least without XFree86. I notice it also contains the GPAC media framework, so can create proper mp4 containers.
There's shenanigans involved in getting everything pointed at everything else correctly - anon / stupid_idiot could have some valuable info there.
I'm going to have to put aside some hours to rebuild this thing, but I have my notes with all configure options etc recorded so it would be a question of downloading and updating all the sources and compiling away. No doubt would run into a few problems since the sources have all moved on since then.
I don't know if anon would like to re-build his into a single uci - his philosophy there seemed to be different, about modularizing all the bits as small as possible (are u out here stupid_idiot?). Whereas I basically want to load one or two at most ucis and have a big media kit for doing things with mplayer/mencoder/transcode/ffmpeg.
But if people are going to help test it that would be a motivator.
Posted by WDef on May 08 2008,14:49
What I should try to do is at least strip and tidy up what I have, repack the ucis and post those to the repo. That would still be an improvement on mplayer1.0pre8.uci for now, while not being quite as up to date as stupid_idiot's mplayer.Meanwhile I can try to recompile with updated sources.
Is this a good idea?
Posted by stupid_idiot on May 11 2008,08:22
(Posting just before I go to work. Won't be coming on until the next weekend.)I will try to find time over the next 2 weekends to work on MPlayer and friends. I should have some free time then.
Re: shared ffmpeg
If I remember correctly, I ran into many problems building with shared ffmpeg. I like shared ffmpeg though because it is a space-saver. If I have free time, I'd like to work out the problems and post them here.
Posted by curaga on May 11 2008,09:47
Mplayer folks recommend against using a shared ffmpeg, they have modified their internal version a bit
Posted by WDef on May 11 2008,10:58
Is that from a recent source Curaga? If so please post a link.
Posted by curaga on May 11 2008,14:04
I actually don't remember. It might be old information by now. If I find it, I'll post a link.
Posted by stupid_idiot on May 18 2008,05:44
Hi all:I'm enjoying my weekend break now. Since I don't have much else to do, I'm trying to compile mplayer/ffmpeg/etc.
Posted by WDef on May 18 2008,15:16
What form are you building this in? Looks like we might have multiple versions going ...
As I said I would do, I'll be likely to post mine as well mainly because I built another uci with a lot of dvd stuff that points at it for libs and binaries.
To point it at another uci I would have to rebuild all of that as well.
The more the merrier is one way of looking at it, though it's not exactly the rationalization that Mikshaw was hoping for ..
Posted by stupid_idiot on May 19 2008,06:40
(Leaving for work in about 1 hr.)Just brainstorming:
- Older versions (e.g. 1.0pre8) with static ffmpeg.
- Current stable (1.0rc2) with shared ffmpeg. ffmpeg can be shared by ffmpeg2theora, mplayer, sox, transcode, vlc, xine, etc.
Re which SVN revision of ffmpeg to use: Probably I'll just try out the latest.
- Latest SVN (SVN-rXXXXX) with static ffmpeg.
Re: codecs
Thinking of renaming current codec packs to "codecs.uci".
Also thinking of dropping codec support completely since codecs are hardly ever needed unless you watch RV and WMV movies frequently.
(ffmpeg has a work-in-progress RV40 decoder. WMV decoding is ~adequate and is getting better.)
I'll be away until the next weekend. The "DSL chroot from scratch" guide is ~90% completed. Next weekend, I'll try to finish the guide. If I have time left, I'll try to compile ffmpeg etc.