Puppy 2.14 Gxine won't play VCD

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WiZard
Posts: 119
Joined: Sun 11 Sep 2005, 20:04
Location: Oklahoma USA

Puppy 2.14 Gxine won't play VCD

#1 Post by WiZard »

Hi, I use Pup 2.14 because it is small, light, stable and fast on my old 300mhz computer. The only thing I can't get working is playing VCD's with Gxine. I've searched the forums and haven't found a fix. Here is what I can tell you.

When trying to play the VCD, the drive spins then displays error message

"Fatal error Segmentation fault"

The Gxine Engine log output messages read:
"10:11:01 AM: xine: found demuxer plugin: Elementary MPEG stream demux plugin
10:11:01 AM: xine: found input plugin : file input plugin"

The Engine log output plugin tab has 126 lines, each ending with the word "found" except the last line which reads:
"10:11:00 AM: load_plugins: skipping unreadable plugin directory /root/.xine/plugins."

The /root/.xine/plugins directory is there and it can be read.

If I mount the CD drive and try to open the aveseq01.dat file directly in Gxine I get an error message:
"The xine engine failed to start. No demuxer found - stream format not recognised."

I have tried Gxine with a standard mpeg1 file and it plays.

Last, this same computer works and plays fine with Pup 1.04

Hope one of you experts can point me in the right direction.

Thanks
Gary

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#2 Post by disciple »

Yes, the standard and reliability of VCD support is depressing :(

It is worth trying:
- mplayer (make sure it is a package compiled with VCD support, as several aren't).
- a different package of gxine.
- vlc (most likely to have success).

But I wouldn't like to give you too much hope, as I personally suspect some messages like that are caused by player/kernel/whatever incompatibilities with particular discs, and/or particular hardware.
VLC is supposed to have very good VCD support now, but I'm not sure anyone has packaged the latest version for Puppy.

It may also be possible to extract the video and then play it.
I think there is a utility for this in http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/disciple/vcdclitools.pet and maybe also http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/disciple/vcdxmltools.pet
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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WiZard
Posts: 119
Joined: Sun 11 Sep 2005, 20:04
Location: Oklahoma USA

Gxine won't play VCD

#3 Post by WiZard »

disciple wrote:Yes, the standard and reliability of VCD support is depressing :(

It is worth trying:
- mplayer (make sure it is a package compiled with VCD support, as several aren't).
- a different package of gxine.
- vlc (most likely to have success).

But I wouldn't like to give you too much hope, as I personally suspect some messages like that are caused by player/kernel/whatever incompatibilities with particular discs, and/or particular hardware.
VLC is supposed to have very good VCD support now, but I'm not sure anyone has packaged the latest version for Puppy.

It may also be possible to extract the video and then play it.
I think there is a utility for this in http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/disciple/vcdclitools.pet and maybe also http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/disciple/vcdxmltools.pet
Hi Disciple, thanks for the reply.
I'll try the Mplayer & VLC installs, does anyone have a recommendation for which ones might work with 2.14 and what other packages might be required?

I guess the biggest puzzler is that Gxine in Puppy 1.04 does play VCDs OK. I'm not sure if I could install that version in 2.14 since 2.14 has a different kernel.

You are right, I can convert the VCD .DAT file into an mpeg1 and view, but since these are movies the files are 700mb and I have more than 200 of them.

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#4 Post by disciple »

I'll try the Mplayer & VLC installs, does anyone have a recommendation for which ones might work with 2.14 and what other packages might be required?
Mplayer doesn't usually care much about what it was compiled on - I've never tried a version compiled on Puppy 2/3/4 that didn't work on Puppy 1.x :)
Mplayer's support for navigation in VCDs is at least as bad as gxine's. A lot of the Mplayer packages for Puppy don't have VCD support due to weird compilation problems, so look for one that says it has VCD support. There haven't been many VLC packages, but I think some of them also lack VCD support.
I don't know if there is a package of VLC 0.9.x for Puppy, but it is supposed to have almost complete support for menus and navigation, so even if there isn't a package you might like to investigate it further.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

WiZard
Posts: 119
Joined: Sun 11 Sep 2005, 20:04
Location: Oklahoma USA

#5 Post by WiZard »

disciple wrote:
I'll try the Mplayer & VLC installs, does anyone have a recommendation for which ones might work with 2.14 and what other packages might be required?
Mplayer doesn't usually care much about what it was compiled on - I've never tried a version compiled on Puppy 2/3/4 that didn't work on Puppy 1.x :)
Mplayer's support for navigation in VCDs is at least as bad as gxine's. A lot of the Mplayer packages for Puppy don't have VCD support due to weird compilation problems, so look for one that says it has VCD support. There haven't been many VLC packages, but I think some of them also lack VCD support.
I don't know if there is a package of VLC 0.9.x for Puppy, but it is supposed to have almost complete support for menus and navigation, so even if there isn't a package you might like to investigate it further.
Well, made a some progress I'll share. My system is a 300mhz P2 with a plain old video card. I cannot use Xorg and have to use Xvesa.

Went to this URL:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 44&t=26511

Download and installed these:
http://minipc.org/ipup/download/MPlayer-1.0rc2.pet
http://minipc.org/ipup/download/mencoder-1.0rc2.pet

Rebooted
Open the console, typed gmplayer, press ENTER

Mplayer will open

Note: Do not try to run Mplayer from JWM menu, it will not run EVEN IF YOU DO THE CODE EDIT in the /root/.jwmrc file.

Right click on either Mplayer window
Choose preferences
Click the Video tab
Click X11 (XImage/Shm)
Click OK
Right click on Mplayer window, choose VCD, Open disc

I get a "ioctl.dif1: invlaid argument error", but just click OK

It plays the VCD. Hooray!

Next question, I can't increase the play window size. Any ideas?

thanks
Gary

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#6 Post by disciple »

get a "ioctl.dif1: invlaid argument error", but just click OK
Ah... so I'm not the only person with that error.

You can enable software video scaling by launching Mplayer with the -zoom option, or by adding a line

Code: Select all

zoom = "yes"
to /root/.mplayer/config (for command-line mplayer) and gui.conf (for gui mplayer). If your computer doesn't handle fullscreen/maximised well, it may be a lot better on 200%.
Note: Do not try to run Mplayer from JWM menu, it will not run EVEN IF YOU DO THE CODE EDIT in the /root/.jwmrc file.
Yes, I remember one of the Mplayer packages was like that, and I couldn't figure out what was special about it :(
What you can do, that will definitely work, is to put in front of the Mplayer command
rxvt -e
which will launch it from an rxvt terminal. Remember to change the .desktop file as well as the jwmrc, otherwise I think it will revert to the old behaviour next time you install a .pet with a menu entry.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#7 Post by disciple »

Hmmm. Mplayer definitely launches fine from my menu with the command

Code: Select all

gmplayer -really-quiet &
I might have a different package though... but the rxvt trick should definitely work for you. And if you don't like having that terminal hanging around you can always start mplayer from a desktop icon.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

WiZard
Posts: 119
Joined: Sun 11 Sep 2005, 20:04
Location: Oklahoma USA

#8 Post by WiZard »

disciple wrote:
get a "ioctl.dif1: invlaid argument error", but just click OK
Ah... so I'm not the only person with that error.

You can enable software video scaling by launching Mplayer with the -zoom option, or by adding a line

Code: Select all

zoom = "yes"
to /root/.mplayer/config (for command-line mplayer) and gui.conf (for gui mplayer). If your computer doesn't handle fullscreen/maximised well, it may be a lot better on 200%.
Note: Do not try to run Mplayer from JWM menu, it will not run EVEN IF YOU DO THE CODE EDIT in the /root/.jwmrc file.
Yes, I remember one of the Mplayer packages was like that, and I couldn't figure out what was special about it :(
What you can do, that will definitely work, is to put in front of the Mplayer command
rxvt -e
which will launch it from an rxvt terminal. Remember to change the .desktop file as well as the jwmrc, otherwise I think it will revert to the old behaviour next time you install a .pet with a menu entry.
Great, your "zoom="yes" edit works perfectly. I have not tried the changes for the JWM menu since I am only testing this in a pup_save.2fs that has JWM. My prefered windows manager is ICEWM, once I'm satisfied that this all works well I'll install in that pup_save file and see if there are any menu launch problems there.
From reading the post I know you have spent a lot of time working out problems with Mplayer. Thanks for taking time to share your knowledge. I spent a lot of unsuccesful hours in the last year trying to get it to work. How do we mark this one as solved?

thanks
Gary

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#9 Post by disciple »

I'm pretty sure there are no menu problems with Mplayer in icewm.
How do we mark this one as solved?
Edit the first post and change the "subject" or "Subject description". You have to be logged in before you see the button to edit a post.
I wouldn't say it is solved though - maybe add "workaround - using Mplayer"
BTW if you're using Mplayer you might want to check out gnome-mplayer, which provides a better gui... although it might not perform quite as well on an old pc like yours. BTW it doesn't require Gnome.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#10 Post by disciple »

BTW do you know that if Puppy somehow manages to freeze, instead of doing a hard reboot, you can usually press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, to exit X, then run `xwin` to start it again?
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

WiZard
Posts: 119
Joined: Sun 11 Sep 2005, 20:04
Location: Oklahoma USA

#11 Post by WiZard »

One more note, the problem with Gxine not playing VCD's seems to have started when Puppy changed from 1.x along with going from the 2.4 kernal to the 2.6 kernal. The problem still exist in the latest Puppy 4.12. The solution in Puppy 2.14 is to install Mplayer as listed above. I tried all the different pup/pet Mplayer versions I could find and only the ones listed above worked.

Gary

disciple
Posts: 6984
Joined: Sun 21 May 2006, 01:46
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#12 Post by disciple »

disciple wrote:Yes, the standard and reliability of VCD support is depressing :(

It is worth trying:
- mplayer (make sure it is a package compiled with VCD support, as several aren't).
- a different package of gxine.
- vlc (most likely to have success).

But I wouldn't like to give you too much hope, as I personally suspect some messages like that are caused by player/kernel/whatever incompatibilities with particular discs, and/or particular hardware.
VLC is supposed to have very good VCD support now, but I'm not sure anyone has packaged the latest version for Puppy.

It may also be possible to extract the video and then play it.
I think there is a utility for this in http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/disciple/vcdclitools.pet and maybe also http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/disciple/vcdxmltools.pet
I've reuploaded those packages, to my dropbox:
http://db.tt/2L0V0DT8
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

Classic Puppy quotes

ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

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