MPlayer as a simple DVD movie player under Puppy 2.13 beta-2

[Sit Heel Speak]

Mark Ulrich (MU) has posted a large startscript to start MPlayer as a general-purpose audiovisual player in his Muppy distro, under the title "MPlayer startscript" in another section. However if the goal is just to employ MPlayer to play a DVD movie, and if you have a DRI-capable video card, here is the cheap quick lazy way. This may tide you over until you can get the (arguably) more-capable player VideoLan going (I'm having trouble).

This produces smooth-motion movie play under Puppy 2.13b2 on my P3-1GHz tower, with 192MB RAM and a vintage-2001 ATi Rage Pro 128 video card. However I do not yet know how to make it produce the DVD menu navigation. The DVD player is a Plextor PX-760A, less than a year old.

Steps:

1. Run Mark's 3D Control Center wizard, so that your video card is DRI-enabled for fast smooth video.

2. If you have an existing /usr/local/bin/mplayer, rename it mplayer.old

3. Download MPlayer using dotpup downloader or your browser. I used the version compiled by "tempestuous", titled MPlayer-1.0p8-xvmc.pup, from http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/MPlayer-1.0.8/

4. Click on this .pup file in Rox, install it like any other dotpup.

5. Now open Geany and create a new text file. Put one line in it, like this:

rxvt -e mplayer dvd://1 -vo xv -ao alsa

Alt-File-Save As /root/my-applications/bin/StartDVDmplayer

--or -vo xvmc if you have the card which supports it. You know who you are.
--or -ao something-else if your sound card did not initiate with alsa. Open an rxvt window and type

mplayer -ao help

to see your ao (audio out) options.

6. Right-click on the startDVDmplayer icon and drag it to the desktop.

7. Menu-File Managers-Rox and navigate up to /usr/local/share/isomaster/icons and drag this window to the upper left corner of the screen.

8. Right-click the new desktop icon for startDVDmplayer, Set icon, and drag the DVD icon isomaster.png into the "Drop an icon file here" box in startDVDmplayer's "Set icon" window. Click Close.

9. Right-click the new DVD icon on the desktop, Properties, and see to it that Owner's Read Write and Exec are checked and nothing else. Close.

10. Right-click the DVD icon again, Edit Item. Under "Clicking the icon opens:" put (if not already there)

/root/my-applications/bin/startDVDmplayer

and under "The text displayed under the icon is:" put

Play DVD

11. You're done. Put Acoustic Guitar Basics or other title in the DVD drawer and break out the popcorn...if you open an rxvt window and type

mplayer -help

you'll see how to adjust startDVDmplayer to your further liking. You may be able to bring up the DVD menu items by playing with these parameters, I haven't explored this.

Cheers,
Philip

[tempestuous]

I used the version compiled by "tempestuous", titled MPlayer-1.0p8-xvmc.pup, from http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/MPlayer-1.0.8/

Philip, that's my old version. The new one is better http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/Mplayer-1.0rc1/

However I do not yet know how to make it produce the DVD menu navigation.

oops. I just realised that I didn't compile MPlayer with libdvdnav. That's probably why the menus don't work. I will update MPlayer in a day or two, I suggest you wait. I will also add infrared remote control support (LIRC) and LIVE555 streaming video support.

If you have VIA Unichrome, i810, or nVidia GeForce4 MX up graphics with DRI-enabled driver, then "xvmc" is your best output option in MPlayer. It will only work if launched from the commandline like this -
mplayer dvd://1 -vo xvmc -vc ffmpeg12mc -fs
(alsa is the default audio output, because I configured this in /root/.mplayer/config)

If you have any other graphics card with DRI-enabled driver (3D) then the best output option is "gl". That's what Mark reports with ATi, anyway.

But really, these advanced graphics configurations are not all that necessary unless you have a low-powered device like VIA Epia or MicroClient Jr . DVD technology was released back in 1996. You just need a Pentium2 with basic AGP graphics card to handle it, as long as you have Xorg set up properly ... ie. not defaulting to the generic vesa driver.
In this case, the optimum video output in MPlayer is "xv".

You can use Xvesa with MPlayer's "x11" video output option, but expect modest performance.

This may tide you over until you can get the more-capable player VideoLan going

I also contributed the VideoLAN dotpup at Mark's site. I don't think it's any better than MPlayer.

[Sit Heel Speak]

The new one is better http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/Mp ... c1/...oops. I just realised that I didn't compile MPlayer with libdvdnav. That's probably why the menus don't work. I will update MPlayer in a day or two, I suggest you wait. I will also add infrared remote control support (LIRC) and LIVE555 streaming video support.

Hi tempestuous,

I didn't see the newer 1.0rc1 version. Let me know when it's ready--I look forward to the menu-navigation-enabled version so I can watch my six-season Xena, Warrior Princess set. GXine has no difficulty with it, but there is no facility in GXine AFAIK for expanding to a "maximized-without-the-window-controls" (as opposed to a "control-less fullscreen") format. The former is optimal for taking certain kinds of screenshot. Thus, because it offers a control-less resizeable moveable window, for freezing frames and screen-capturing from DVD on something less than a professional basis, I presume that MPlayer is about as good as it gets. Or is it?

If you have VIA Unichrome, i810, or nVidia GeForce4 MX up graphics with DRI-enabled driver, then "xvmc" is your best output option in MPlayer.

Yes, but I figured that anyone who has these cards will have already found 3DCC, Mark's 3D Control Center, and will have studied the issue thoroughly enough there to know about xvmc acceleration.

It will only work if launched from the commandline like this -
mplayer dvd://1 -vo xvmc -vc ffmpeg12mc -fs

That is definitely the way to go if you have one of these high-end video cards. I see a message on another forum: "I tried '-vo xvmc -vc ffmpeg12mc' with a DVD and it works fine, with about half the CPU usage of '-vo xv'."

If you have any other graphics card with DRI-enabled driver (3D) then the best output option is "gl". That's what Mark reports with ATi, anyway.

With my older ATI Rage Pro 128, "-vo gl" will not play. The card gives 890fps on glxgears, 33.3fps on AntInspect. Perhaps "-vo gl" is good with newer cards.

But really, these advanced graphics configurations are not all that necessary unless you have a low-powered device like VIA Epia or MicroClient Jr . DVD technology was released back in 1996. You just need a Pentium2 with basic AGP graphics card to handle it, as long as you have Xorg set up properly ... ie. not defaulting to the generic vesa driver. In this case, the optimum video output in MPlayer is "xv".

"gl" and the startline for high-end cards are good to know about for the future.

You can use Xvesa with MPlayer's "x11" video output option, but expect modest performance.

"-vo x11" is unacceptably jerky on my system. "-vo xv" is smooth, as long as I'm not doing anything else on the system.

I also contributed the VideoLAN dotpup at Mark's site. I don't think it's any better than MPlayer.

I've also been trying to get your VideoLAN 0.8.6 dotpup working, but so far without success. Video has a lot of black blocks missing, there is no audio, and if I resize or move the window the picture entirely disappears. I may attempt to recompile it myself under Puppy 2.13. The simultaneous streaming and recording capability of VideoLAN interests me. It is being very actively developed, and looks to me like it's on its way to becoming the international standard.

[tempestuous]

With my older ATI Rage Pro 128, "-vo gl" will not play.

OK. So "gl" only suits some 3D setups.

The simultaneous streaming and recording capability of VideoLAN interests me.

MPlayer will save video streams with its "-dumpfile" option http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/st ... aming-save

...so I can watch my six-season Xena, Warrior Princess set.

You can't be serious.

[Sit Heel Speak]

You can't be serious.

Heh...hey, I love that show. Thanks for the heads-up on the "-dumpfile" option. I'm booting your 2.02-regression from a live-CD right now...

(a few minutes later)...works great...God, I love Firefox. One of these days I'm going to make its fonts behave.

[tempestuous]

OK. Revised MPlayer dotpups are now at http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/Mplayer-1.0rc1/

DVD menus should now be fixed. I can't test this at the moment, I don't have a DVD drive on my test machine.
And infrared remote control support is enabled.

But I did not enable LIVE555 streaming video support. The libraries for this are large, and it's not a common format.

[withasong]

I see that you have indeed changed MPlayer in a variety of ways:

1. The appearance is considerably changed (the skin, I'm talking about) in this updated version. By the way, when I've tried to change skins previously, they either don't show up in the section in which you choose them or Puppy says they are alien and that they will be removed (but I've not tried them recently, since they always don't work for me). BTW, Puppy is inconsisent in identifying skin packages as alien and I don't know why this is. As you know, I've been doing a LOT of test installations, and this "alien" thing has only occurred a couple of times.

2. One of the things I really love about MPlayer is that you don't have to double click in the file section (it's just so great to single click my way to the avi and mpg files I have on my computers, especially since I have them in a multiple of partitions within a variety of folders). However, one of the things that has changed in this updated version of MPlayer is that files like avi's and mpg's no longer auto-play after you select the file. MPlayer's updated version now just sits there and does nothing after you select a file UNTIL you actually click the play button additionally (which is an extra step without any identifiable benefit that I can see). Alas! Can we go back to the way it used to be?

3. The display of total time seems gone in this updated version. I noticed this when I was playing a DVD after downloading your updated version to see if I had all the episodes or just a single one, but I couldn't tell since total time isn't displayed anymore (just elapsed time only). As I recall, in the previous version, since it showed both elapsed time AND total time, this is how I could tell that I only had one episode out of a group.

4. Alas, in this updated version, there are no DVD menus that I can find. I tried two of my serial DVDs (not Xena, but in my case, Northern Exposure and Dinosaurs -- the Dinosaurs where baby calls daddy "not the mama"). On these serial DVDs, just the first episode automatically starts on every one of my serial DVDs with no menus in the revised version of MPlayer; however, in gXine, the serial DVDs do automatically start with the menus for every one of these very same DVDs. If you can get DVD menus to work in MPlayer, that'll be an awesome benefit and thanks for working on it!

[tempestuous]

DVD menus with MPlayer are a bit messy. See here http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 7212#87212

The other issues may be related to the skin. The old skin is still available in the menu, "Skin browser".

[ApeMan]

I just want to play a DVD.
I followed the instructions above, except the part about the 3D Control Centre, which did not work because I think I have a Nvidia card.

So when I run it, it starts to read the DVD, but then I got this error:

Xlib: extension "XVideo missing on display " 0:.0".
Sorry, Xv not supported by this X11 version/driver
****** Try with -vo x11 or -vo sd1 *****
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.


I don't know what any of this means. Is is possible to get it working with my particular setup?

Thanks,

ApeMan

[ApeMan]

I just want to play a DVD.
I followed the instructions above, except the part about the 3D Control Centre, which did not work because I think I have a Nvidia card.

So when I run it, it starts to read the DVD, but then I got this error:

Xlib: extension "XVideo missing on display " 0:.0".
Sorry, Xv not supported by this X11 version/driver
****** Try with -vo x11 or -vo sd1 *****
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.

I don't know what any of this means. Is is possible to get it working with my particular setup?

Oh...ok, I understand now that I need to put the "-vo x11" in the command line. As you can see, I'm very new to this. I've never even used the rxvt thing before...
anyway, I tried it and works just fine now.

Thanks,

ApeMan

[MU]

xv is the mode that uses hardware-accelleration from your graficscard.
x11 is a slow fallback mode.

I'd suggest to install Nvidia-drivers to be able to use accelleration:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14438

Mark

[ApeMan]

xv is the mode that uses hardware-accelleration from your graficscard.
x11 is a slow fallback mode.
I'd suggest to install Nvidia-drivers to be able to use accelleration:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14438
Mark

Ok, I tried your nvidia thing and it worked. I was able to run xorg for the first time. Unfortunately, it did not affect Mplayer at all. If I try the "-vo xv" option, I get the error:

It seems there is no Xvideo support for your video card available.
Run 'xvinfo' ...
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device

and when I run xvinfo, it says:

X-Video Extension version 2.2

and that's all.

Any other tips on how to get it working?

Thanks,

ApeMan

[MU]

you could try "gl" as output driver.
I have an ATI-card, where this is the only way to get accelleration.

or "xvmc".

You can see all available output-drivers with a right-click in mplayer -> preferences -> video

Mark