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diff --git a/DOCS/README b/DOCS/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..cfc9671cd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/DOCS/README @@ -0,0 +1,271 @@ +MoviePlayer v0.11 (C) 2000-2001. by Arpad Gereoffy (A'rpi/ESP-team) +================= * See the file AUTHORS for the complete list! * + +About: +~~~~~~ +Yes. Yet another movie player for linux. +What is the special with this? It works, at least for me :) +I've tried lots of players under linux (mtv,xmps,dvdview,livid/oms,VideoLAN, +xine,xanim,avifile,xmmp) but they all have some problem. Mostly with +special files or with audio/video sync. Most of them is unable to play +both mpeg1, mpeg2 and avi (DivX) files. Many players have image quality +or speed problems too. So I've decided to write/modify one... + +Short history: +- mpg12play v0.1 has born, using libmpeg3 from www.heroinewarrior.com +- mpg12play 2nd generation (v0.5-), using dvdview by Dirk Farin +- mpg12play 3nd generation (v0.9-), using libmpeg2 (mpeg2dec) by Aaron Holtzman +- mplayer has born, containing mpg12play 0.90pre5 and a new simple avi player +- mplayer 0.10, mpeg and avi player in a single binary +- mplayer 0.11: added .asf file support, and OpenDivX en/decoding + +As you see, I didn't write any codecs, just some players. But I spent +a lot of time finding the best way to parse bad damaged input files +(both mpg and avi) and to do perfect A-V sync with seeking ability. +My player is rock solid playing damaged mpeg files (useful for some VCDs), +and it plays bad AVI files which are unplayable with the famous +windows media player. Even AVI files without index chunk are playable! +As you see, stability and quality are the most important things for me, +speed has lower priority, but is still very important. + +What about the GUI? +I'm not a GUI programmer. I hate GUIs, I like the pure black 80x25 console. +So the player has only keyboard control from the controlling console/xterm now. +But there is a GUI development for the player, coordinated by Pontscho/Fresh! +It's still under development, but it will be merged and released soon. +BTW he needs some nice skins, if you are a good graphician, contact him!!! + +Win32 codecs? +Yes, we are using Win32 (Video for Windows) codecs for AVI/ASF decoding. +They must be installed to the /usr/lib/win32/ directory, with all lower case. +You can grab the codecs package from + ftp://thot.banki.hu/esp-team/linux/MPlayer/w32codec.zip +or can be found in your C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ dir, see codecs.c for filenames. +Some people asked why don't we use ActiveMovie/DirectShow codecs. The reason is +simple: we'd have to emulate the whole DirectX architecture and implement the +(patented!) COM interface to be able to use them. BTW the old VfW DivX codec +is faster than the new .AX version, but it has no quality/CPU setting +option (this is an improper name, since it doesn't affect the decoder. If +it's set to 1 or higher, it applies a filter which decreases blockiness and +eats away CPU cycles). + +Supported input formats: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +- VCD (Video CD) directly from CD-ROM or from CDRwin's .bin image file +- MPEG 1/2 System Stream (PS/VOB) and Elementary Stream (ES) file formats +- RIFF AVI file format +- ASF 1.0 file format + +Supported audio codecs: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +- PCM (uncompressed) audio (8/16 bit, mono/stereo) +- MPEG layer 2/3 audio (using mp3lib, based on mpg123) +- AC3 audio (using ac3dec/libac3) +- Win32 ACM audio codecs (the *.ACM files) [Only in the AVI player] + tested with: DivX audio, MS-ADPCM +- aLaw audio (using code from xanim) +- MS-GSM audio (using modified xa_gsm.c from avifile) + +Supported video codecs: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +- MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 video decoder (using mpeg2dec/libmpeg2, supports + 3DNow! and MMX) +- Win32 ICM (VfW) video codecs (for example DivX using DIVXC32.DLL) +- OpenDivX encore & decore (see ProjectMayo) + +Supported video output devices: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +- mga: Matrox G200/G400 hardware YUV overlay via the mga_vid device + (Some people reported that G200 is broken :( if you are a programmer + and you have a G200, please check it and fix if you can!) +- xmga: Matrox G200/G400 overlay (mga_vid) in X11 window + (Xv emulation on X 3.3.x !) +- x11: X11 optionally with SHM extension +- xv: X11 using overlays with the Xvideo extension (hardware YUV & scaling) +- gl: OpenGL renderer, requires Utah-GLX or DRI or nVidia's new driver +- syncfb: Matrox G400 YUV support on framebuffer (not tested, maybe broken) +- 3dfx: Voodoo2/3 hardware YUV (/dev/3dfx) support (not yet tested, maybe broken) +- sdl: SDL v1.1.7 driver (slower than 'x11', but supports software scaling) +- null: Null output (for speed tests/benchmarking) +- pgm: PGM file output (for testing purposes) +- md5: MD5sum output (for mpeg conformance tests) +NOTE: not all are available for AVI files + +Supported audio output devices: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +- OSS driver +- ALSA driver with OSS emulation +- ESD with the esddsp utility + +Speed: +~~~~~~ +Most of time-critical parts are optimized for MMX/SSE/3DNow!. +You can improve rendering speed by setting up MTRR registers, see doc in MTRR. +Some benchmark results can be found in the doc file SPEED. + +Usage: +~~~~~~ + mplayer [options] [-vo driver] [path/]filename + + Options: + see mplayer -h for options + see mplayer -vo help for available output drivers + + Keys: + <- or -> seek backward/forward 10 seconds + up or down seek backward/forward 1 minute + p or SPACE pause movie (press any key to continue) + q or ^C stop playing and quit program + + Examples: + mplayer -vo x11 /mnt/Films/Contact/contact2.mpg + mplayer -afm 3 /mnt/DVDtrailers/alien4.vob + mplayer -vcd 2 /dev/cdrom + mplayer -alsa -abs 65536 -delay -0.4 -nobps ~/movies/test.avi + + Note: for using Matrox YUV driver (-vo mga or xmga), you have to first + load the driver: insmod drivers/mga_vid.o + +License: +~~~~~~~~ +Since MPlayer incorporates a lot of code from other projects, this isn't +decided yet. +We're going for GPL (will be pretty hard, though). + +TV output: +~~~~~~~~~~ +If you have a Matrox G400 Dual-Head card, you can watch movies on TV, +using TV-out feature of the second head. You must have matroxfb support +enabled in your kernel (2.4.x kernels). You don't need X11 for this! +Tested only with PAL TV! + + cd TVout + ./modules + ./cloning or ./independ + ./TV-704x528 (or another TV* script) + +Sending bugreports: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +First please read all the docs in this package, most of the problems are +described somewhere. At least read the Troubleshooting section! +We don't like answering questions which are already answered in this +readme or other docs. +You should try the latest test (pre) release version too, maybe your bug +is already fixed, but the new version hasn't been released. +If you couldn't solve the problem, then send a quality bugreport +via E-Mail to the MPlayer-users list : mplayer@alan.umcs.lublin.pl + +*NEVER* send attached AVIs, MPEGs, or any big files to this list!!! +Upload them to ftp://thot.banki.hu/incoming , and inform the list about +your upload. + +Please include these: +- your kernel version number ('uname -a') +- linux distribution and glibc version (example: Slackware 7.1 + glibc 2.1.3) +- gcc and binutils version ('gcc -v' and 'as --version') +- your X11 version (example: X 4.0.2 + DRI snapshot2001jan12) +- video card vendor/model (example: Matrox G400 MAX AGP) +- CPU vendor and type (example: Intel Celeron2-566 at 850MHz) + +Also include the required logs (as attachment, may be compressed zip/gz/bz2) +depending the problem type (see bellow at Troubleshooting section). + +To log output to a file, use the &> shell operator. For example: + ./configure &>configure.log + mplayer -v test.avi &>play.log + +If we ask you for the file, then you have two choices: +- upload the file to ftp://thot.banki.hu/incoming (at least a few megabytes) +- send the exact URL of the file, and we'll download it soon. + +Please do not ask for features already listed in the TODO! + +Troubleshooting: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +1. Please read the docs first... + +2. If you have compiling problems: + - if you are an experienced programmer, please try to fix it, and send + us the patch + - if gcc reports problems around inttypes.h, try to copy DOCS/inttypes.h + to the directory where the error occured. (or upgrade glibc to 2.1/newer) + - if gcc reports problems around video_out_gl.c, try disabling OpenGL + support: ./configure --disable-gl (you have broken OpenGL headers/libs) + - if you are a user, send us a bugreport (see above), including these: + - output of ./configure + - output of make dep and make + - config.h and all of config.mak files + Note: many users reported that SSE was not detected while running on P3. + Current stable 2.2.x kernels does NOT support SSE, so you can't use it + without patches or using the 2.4.x series. + +3. If you have a problem with the player, please run it with -v option, and + send the output of it, with a detailed description of the problem. + - can't play AVI files: check that codec .DLL and .ACM files are installed to + /usr/lib/win32/ and are all lowercase (divxc32.dll instead of DivXc32.DLL) + +4. If you have a file-specific problem (can't play a special file, + crashes with it or similar) then please run with -v -v -v (debug level 3). + Send us the output and the problem description via email bugreport. + We may ask you to upload the file. + - if it segfaults with an AVI file with MP3 audio, try with -afm 1 or -afm 4 + - if it's still bad, try with -nosound + +5. If you have problem with display driver, please first check the list above, + many of them isn't yet capable to AVI playing, and some of them are + untested and/or unfinished. + +6. If you have speed problems (too slow playing), then please first check that: + - you don't use OpenGL driver while have software-only opengl (DRI disabled, + or not yet installed, conflicting libs installed, or your hardware not + supported etc...) + - you have set up MTRR registers properly (many new cards are really + slow without setting up MTRR registers. it's NOT done by X 3.3.x! Also, + there are older K6-2's, which lack MTRR support /stepping=0/). + - you have a fast machine (don't report that your 386 can't play DivX) + - try with Null output (-vo null) and check CPU usage (first % value) + +7. sound-related problems: + - maybe your card doesn't support 48kHz playback and the movie requires it. + - try player with the -noalsa option + - delayed audio with some AVI files: try with -bps or -nobps option! + - if you experienced delayed audio, try to compensate with -delay or -abs. + you can specify audio card's buffer size in bytes with -abs option, or + specify audio delay in seconds (positive/negative float) with -delay + for example: mplayer -alsa -delay -0.75 test.avi + mplayer -abs 65536 -delay 0.3 test.mpg + - to play AVI files with VBR MP3 audio use the -mc 0 option! + - no sound at all: check that you have working OSS driver (/dev/dsp), + and it isn't used by another program (for example esd, xmms etc.) + +8. unsupported codecs (AVI files): + We may add support for your movie, but we need the following things: + - the codec DLL file: find it in your WINDOWS directory. In the SYSTEM.INI + there will be a listing of the installed codecs (vids.<codecname>=DLLfile) + - a sample file encoded with that codec. + + +Download: +~~~~~~~~~ +Download: ftp://thot.banki.hu/esp-team/linux/MPlayer/ + or: http://thot.banki.hu/esp-ftp/linux/MPlayer/ +Homepage: http://thot.banki.hu/esp-team/MPlayer.html + +Mailing lists: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +There are two public mailing lists on MPlayer. Subscribing can be achieved by +writing to the following addresses, and specifying "subscribe" in the Subject, +or message body. + +- MPlayer-users + Write an e-mail to mplayer-request@alan.umcs.lublin.pl +- MPlayer-announce + Write an e-mail to mplayer-announce-request@alan.umcs.lublin.pl + +Special thanks to Dariusz Pietrzak for the list hosting! + +Standard Disclaimer: +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +Use only at your own risk! There may be errors and inaccuracies that could +be damaging to your system or your eye. Proceed with caution, and although +this is highly unlikely, I don't take any responsibility for that! |