How do I create a proper patch for MPlayer? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How do I translate MPlayer to a new language? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How can I support MPlayer development? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How can I become an MPlayer developer? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED Why don't you use autoconf/automake? We have a modular, handwritten build system. It does a reasonably good job, so why change? Besides, we dislike the auto* tools, just like other people. Compilation fails with an error and gcc bails out with some cryptic message containing the phrase internal compiler error or unable to find a register to spill or can't find a register in class `GENERAL_REGS' while reloading `asm'. You have stumbled over a bug in gcc. Please report it to the gcc team but not to us. For some reason MPlayer seems to trigger compiler bugs frequently. Nevertheless we cannot fix them and do not add workarounds for compiler bugs to our sources. To avoid this problem, either stick with a compiler version that is known to be reliable and stable, or upgrade frequently. Are there binary (RPM/Debian) packages of MPlayer? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How can I build a 32 bit MPlayer on a 64 bit Athlon? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED During 'make', MPlayer complains about missing X11 libraries. I don't understand, I do have X11 installed!? ... but you don't have the X11 development package installed. Or not correctly. It's called XFree86-devel* under Red Hat, xlibs-dev under Debian Woody and libx11-dev under Debian Sarge. Also check if the /usr/X11 and /usr/include/X11 symlinks exist. Are there any mailing lists on MPlayer? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED I've found a nasty bug when I tried to play my favorite video! Who should I inform? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How can I make a screenshot? You have to use a video output driver that does not employ an overlay to be able to take a screenshot. Under X11, -vo x11 will do, under Windows -vo directx:noaccel works. Alternatively you can run MPlayer with the screenshot video filter (-vf screenshot), and press the s key to grab a screenshot. What is the meaning of the numbers on the status line? Example: A: 2.1 V: 2.2 A-V: -0.167 ct: 0.042 57/57 41% 0% 2.6% 0 4 49% 1.00x A: 2.1 audio position in seconds V: 2.2 video position in seconds A-V: -0.167 audio-video difference in seconds (delay) ct: 0.042 total A-V sync correction done 57/57 frames played/decoded (counting from last seek) 41% video codec CPU usage in percent (for slice rendering and direct rendering this includes video_out) 0% video_out CPU usage 2.6% audio codec CPU usage in percent 0 frames dropped to maintain A-V sync 4 current level of image postprocessing (when using -autoq) 49% current cache size used (around 50% is normal) 1.00x playback speed as a factor of original speed Most of them are for debug purposes, use the -quiet option to make them disappear. You might notice that video_out CPU usage is zero (0%) for some files. This is because it is called directly from the codec and thus cannot be measured separately. If you wish to know the video_out speed, compare the difference when playing the file with -vo null and your usual video output driver. There are error messages about file not found /usr/local/lib/codecs/ ... OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How can I make MPlayer remember the options I use for a particular file, e.g. movie.avi? Create a file named movie.avi.conf with the file-specific options in it and put it in ~/.mplayer. Also see the manpage about -use-filedir-conf. How can I run MPlayer in the background? Use: OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED I cannot pinpoint the cause of some strange playback problem. Do you have a stray codecs.conf file in ~/.mplayer/, /etc/, /usr/local/etc/ or a similar location? Remove it, an outdated codecs.conf file can cause obscure problems and is intended for use only by developers working on codec support. It overrides MPlayer's internal codec settings, which will wreak havoc if incompatible changes are made in newer program versions. Unless used by experts it is a recipe for disaster in the form of seemingly random and very hard to localize crashes and playback problems. If you still have it somewhere on your system, you should remove it now. How can I get subtitles to appear on the black margins around a movie? OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED How can I select audio/subtitle tracks from a DVD, OGM, Matroska or NUT file? You have to use -aid (audio ID) or -alang (audio language), -sid(subtitle ID) or -slang (subtitle language), for example: mplayer -alang eng -slang eng example.mkv mplayer -aid 1 -sid 1 example.mkv To see which ones are available: mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -v filename | grep sid mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -v filename | grep aid I downloaded a movie off a P2P network and it doesn't work! Your file is most probably broken or a fake file. If you got it from a friend, and he says it works, try comparing md5sum hashes. I'm having trouble getting my subtitles to display, help!! OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED MPlayer dies with MPlayer interrupted by signal 4 in module: decode_video Don't use MPlayer on a CPU different from the one it was compiled on or recompile with runtime CPU detection OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED When I try to grab from my tuner, it works, but colors are strange. It's OK with other applications. Your card probably reports some colorspaces as supported when in fact it does not support them. Try with YUY2 instead of the default YV12 (see the TV section). While playing a movie it suddenly gets jerky and I get the following message: Badly interleaved AVI file detected - switching to -ni mode... Badly interleaved files and -cache don't work well together. Try -nocache. When I go into fullscreen mode I just get black borders around the image and no real scaling to fullscreen mode. Your video output driver does not support scaling in hardware and since scaling in software can be incredibly slow MPlayer does not automatically enable it. Most likely you are using the x11 instead of the xv video output driver. Try adding -vo xv to the command line or read the video section to find out about alternative video output drivers. The -zoom option explicitly enables software scaling. I've just installed MPlayer. When I want to open a video file it causes a fatal error: Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device. How can I solve my problem? Just change your video output device. Issue the following command to get a list of available video output drivers: mplayer -vo help After you've chosen the correct video output driver, add it to your configuration file. Add vo = selected_vo to ~/.mplayer/config I have problems with [your window manager] and fullscreen xv/xmga/sdl/x11 modes ... Read the bug reporting guidelines and send us a proper bug report. Also try experimenting with the -fstype option. How can I use dmix with MPlayer? After setting up your asoundrc you have to use -ao alsa:device=dmix. I have no sound when playing a video and get error messages similar to this one: AO: [oss] 44100Hz 2ch Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian) [AO OSS] audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. Audio: no sound Starting playback... Are you running KDE or GNOME with the aRts or ESD sound daemon? Try disabling the sound daemon or use the -ao arts or -ao esd option to make MPlayer use aRts or ESD. You might also be running ALSA without OSS emulation, try loading the ALSA OSS kernel modules or add -ao alsa to your command line to directly use the ALSA audio output driver. When starting MPlayer under KDE I just get a black screen and nothing happens. After about one minute the video starts playing. The KDE aRts sound daemon is blocking the sound device. Either wait until the video starts or disable the aRts daemon in control center. If you want to use aRts sound, specify audio output via our native aRts audio driver (-ao arts). If it fails or isn't compiled in, try SDL (-ao sdl) and make sure your SDL can handle aRts sound. Yet another option is to start MPlayer with artsdsp. I have A/V sync problems. Some of my AVIs play fine, but some play with double speed! You have a buggy sound card/driver. Most likely it's fixed at 44100Hz, and you try to play a file which has 22050Hz audio. Try the resample audio filter. How can I get rid of A/V desynchronization while seeking through RealMedia streams? -mc 0.1 can help. What about DVD navigation/menus? MPlayer should support DVD menus nowadays. Your mileage may vary. What about subtitles? Can MPlayer display them? Yes. See the DVD chapter. How can I set the region code of my DVD-drive? I don't have Windows! Use the regionset tool. I can't play a DVD, MPlayer hangs or outputs "Encrypted VOB file!" errors. CSS decryption code does not work with some DVD drives unless you set the region code appropriately. See the answer to the previous question. Do I need to be (setuid) root to be able to play a DVD? No. However you must have the proper rights on the DVD device entry (in /dev/). Is it possible to play/encode only selected chapters? Yes, try the -chapter option. My DVD playback is sluggish! Use the -cache option (described in the man page) and try enabling DMA for the DVD drive with the hdparm tool. I copied a DVD using vobcopy. How do I play/encode it from my hard disk? Use the -dvd-device option to refer to the directory that contains the files: mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /path/to/directory I'd like to seek +/- 1 frame instead of 10 seconds. You can step forward one frame by pressing .. If the movie was not paused it will be paused afterwards (see the man page for details). Stepping backwards is not currently implemented, but note that you can make small seeks using the -hr-seek functionality. OUTDATED CONTENT REMOVED