[Howto] Install the svn Mplayer under Intrepid Ibex

[Nullack]

Nvidias new 180.35 driver,,,,,,drum roll,,,,,now features amongst other things:

VDPAU now supports VC-1/WMV acceleration on all GPUs supported by VDPAU

Yay

[jeremyjjbrown]

Thanks for the great info on compiling svn Mplayer. I was able to install and use Mplayer according to directions. I was hoping it would solve my problem.

I've used a win XP version of Mplayer to play HD .mkv's for several years with very few issues. But I have been unable to get Ubuntu to play HD .mkv's on the same hardware with viewable performance. The playback is stuttery, even in 720p. Switching Mplayer to x11 overlay helps greatly but the picture is still not smooth. Any ideas on what to do would be greatly appreciated.

[andrew.46]

Hi jeremyjjbrown,

Thanks for the great info on compiling svn Mplayer. I was able to install and use Mplayer according to directions. I was hoping it would solve my problem.

Glad to hear that the guide ran smoothly for you .

I've used a win XP version of Mplayer to play HD .mkv's for several years with very few issues. But I have been unable to get Ubuntu to play HD .mkv's on the same hardware with viewable performance. The playback is stuttery, even in 720p. Switching Mplayer to x11 overlay helps greatly but the picture is still not smooth. Any ideas on what to do would be greatly appreciated.

It would be interesting to see what was actually in these mkv files. The problem you describe sounds like h264 video. Are you keen enough to try the FakeOutdoorsman's HOWTO: Install and use the latest FFmpeg and x264? This will give you a cutting edge FFmpeg that you can run:

ffmpeg -i myfile.mkv

to properly identify the streams as well as give you software that can easily manipulate the files to make them a little more playable.

Conventionally the '-framedrop' option is also used with MPlayer as a shorter term solution. Try:

mplayer -framedrop myfile.mkv

and see if this makes any difference?

Andrew

[jeremyjjbrown]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your reply.

The files I am using are .h264 ~1500 Kbps 1280x720 in a .mkv container. I have almost a TB of video that runs great on my XP HTPC. I don't think I need to re-encode it, or have the time to do that. But thanks for the FFmpeg link. That will be a huge help if I can complete my switch to Ubuntu.

I tried:

mplayer -framedrop myfile.mkv

I lost vsnyc almost completely. I am honestly shocked at this. I can play flawless 720p .mkv on a Pentium 4 in XP with a crap-tastic ATI x300 after a 30 second install. Ubuntu can't handle it on a 2.4 core duo with a x1600.

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

[rvm4000]

I lost vsnyc almost completely. I am honestly shocked at this. I can play flawless 720p .mkv on a Pentium 4 in XP with a crap-tastic ATI x300 after a 30 second install. Ubuntu can't handle it on a 2.4 core duo with a x1600.

There are several ways to try to improve performance.

First be sure you use xv as video output, it's the fastest.

mplayer -vo xv ...

You can also try the option -lavdopts skiploopfilter=all although that could decrease image quality.

Another possibility is to compile mplayer with the experimental multithreaded FFmpeg, as explained here.

[andrew.46]

Hi jeremyjjbrown,

I tried:

mplayer -framedrop myfile.mkv

I lost vsnyc almost completely. I am honestly shocked at this. I can play flawless 720p .mkv on a Pentium 4 in XP with a crap-tastic ATI x300 after a 30 second install. Ubuntu can't handle it on a 2.4 core duo with a x1600.

I suspect that my advice to you is a good example of why I should not post to these forums while doing night shift . The framedrop option is actually more properly intended to skip frames to help maintain sync on slower systems:

-framedrop (also see -hardframedrop, experimental without -nocorrect-pts)
Skip displaying some frames to maintain A/V sync on slow sys-
tems. Video filters are not applied to such frames. For B-
frames even decoding is skipped completely.

Maybe I should stick a little 'night-shift' icon next to such posts . RVM's advice is much more solid.

Andrew

[jeremyjjbrown]

I suspect that my advice to you is a good example of why I should not post to these forums while doing night shift .

Andrew

No worries. I'm looking at this whole things as a learning experience. So far I've mucked up xorg.conf twice and as a result learned to use the shell command line and nano to undo my improprieties.

As I should have suspected x264, mplayer and vlc player are not the cause of the video flicks and tears, neither is Ubuntu. It is an incompatibility between fglrx and compix-fusion. If I turn off all visual affects the video issues are abated, and the picture is fantastic. Too bad, I like compiz and I have all radeon video cards. I'm willing to bet if fglrx was open source I wouldn't be fighting this problem.

Thanks again for the advice!

[ajunsum]

great! thanks!!

[Antioch]

Andrew. Your guide worked well. I was compiling this new version of mplayer to get access to working vc-1 (wvc-1) decoders, and the compiled version of mplayer runs them fine.

I installed smplayer as you suggested, but this old smplayer doesnt seem to "map" to the new mplayer. I can run "mplayer file.name" at the command line and it works fine, but trying to play the file in smplayer results in it not knowing the codec (the same behavior as for the stock intrepid mplayer build).

How can I fix this?

[rvm4000]

In Preferences -> General there's an option to select the mplayer executable (in case you have two mplayers installed on different paths).