Howto: Utilise the svn MPlayer to Improve Karmic Koala's 'mplayer-nogui' Package

[Arup]

Andrew,

Good job as usual, upgraded to latest mplayer on my Karmic x64 using your superb guide. Just wanted to add that if one is using nvidia drivers from nvidia and not from repos via ncurses based installer, you don't have to add the libvdpau-dev as mplayer checks for it automatically. Unlike when you install the nvidia driver via repos where the libvdpau-dev file is not installed, in case of the ncurses based nvidia install, the necessary libvdpau files are already installed. VDPAU works nicely on my system here with a cheapo nvidia 8400 card.

Another point I would like to recommend if I may is to use the latest SMPLAYER instead of the older on in the repos, you can do that by adding the developer rvm's ppa at https://launchpad.net/~rvm/+archive/smplayer

This keeps your smplayer up to date.

Thanks again for your good work.

[mc4man]

the mplayer-nogui package from the Karmic Repository is an immense improvement over packages seen in previous versions of Ubuntu

Having only used hardy (with my own stuff) and now karmic (same thing), it didn't strike me that the decision to strip mplayer's ffmpeg libs was recent to karmic and i gather the way it will be in the future

(while not the worst thing for fresh installs may be a bit of issue for up-graders

mplayer (1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1) unstable; urgency=low

[ fabrice ]
* Introduce the mplayer-nogui package, that does not depend on GTK+

[ Reinhard Tartler ]
* new upstream svn version based on the 1.0rc3 branch
* various cleanups and refactoring in debian/rules
* no longer remove mencoder.c: It does hardly contain any "dangerous"
or patented code. Instead:
* strip libavcodec similar to how its done in the ffmpeg package. This
brings the patent policy of the mplayer and ffmpeg package in debian
finally in sync. c.f. the comments and the "discussion" in #522373.
* install upstream's version of binary_codecs.sh

-- Reinhard Tartler <siretart@tauware.de> Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:35:52 +0200

[Arup]

sudo checkinstall -D --install=yes --fstrans=no --pakdir "$HOME/Desktop" \
   --pkgname mplayer-nogui --backup=no --deldoc=yes --deldesc=yes --delspec=yes --default \
   --pkgversion "3:1.0~svn-`grep "#define VERSION" version.h | cut -d"-" -f2`" --provides "mplayer,mencoder"

This is whats needed to install mencoder, the "no gui" is needed as well as the end line --provides "mplayer,mencoder" for mencoder to correctly register in the system. Installing Acid Rip doesnt make it pull mencoder from the repos even though Synaptic shows mencoder as not installed.

[andrew.46]

Hi mc4man,

the mplayer-nogui package from the Karmic Repository is an immense improvement over packages seen in previous versions of Ubuntu

Having only used hardy (with my own stuff) and now karmic (same thing), it didn't strike me that the decision to strip mplayer's ffmpeg libs was recent to karmic and i gather the way it will be in the future

I would be amongst the first to say that the best way to experience MPlayer is to install from the svn source rather than rely on the decisions of others who have their own priorities and their own agendas. Having said that I believe the more modern version of MPlayer in the Ubuntu repositories is at the very least a step in the right direction. But I take your point, as always, and I will remove the 'immense' from my description in deference to the butchering of the static FFmpeg that should be with MPlayer .

Andrew

[andrew.46]

Hi Arup,

Just wanted to add that if one is using nvidia drivers from nvidia and not from repos via ncurses based installer, you don't have to add the libvdpau-dev as mplayer checks for it automatically. Unlike when you install the nvidia driver via repos where the libvdpau-dev file is not installed, in case of the ncurses based nvidia install, the necessary libvdpau files are already installed. VDPAU works nicely on my system here with a cheapo nvidia 8400 card.

I still have some misgivings about adding the vdpau development files as I prefer to personally test all material in guides I write. But who can resist the tidal wave that is vdpau?

Another point I would like to recommend if I may is to use the latest SMPLAYER instead of the older on in the repos, you can do that by adding the developer rvm's ppa at https://launchpad.net/~rvm/+archive/smplayer

An interesting point. I will have to say that this guide is aimed primarily at the commandline MPlayer rather than SMPlayer so I suspect the repository offering will be adequate for the guide itself. Of course if somebody wishes to use the newer versions of SMPlayer this would not be a problem and if some disparity arose between the svn MPlayer and the repository SMPlayer I would address this promptly.

All the best,

Andrew

[Arup]

Hi Arup,



I still have some misgivings about adding the vdpau development files as I prefer to personally test all material in guides I write. But who can resist the tidal wave that is vdpau?



An interesting point. I will have to say that this guide is aimed primarily at the commandline MPlayer rather than SMPlayer so I suspect the repository offering will be adequate for the guide itself. Of course if somebody wishes to use the newer versions of SMPlayer this would not be a problem and if some disparity arose between the svn MPlayer and the repository SMPlayer I would address this promptly.

All the best,

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Just make sure to tell those using nvidia drivers from the nvdia site not to add the libvdpau command. The latest nvidia driver is 190.42 so that command will only add to the confusion. I also found out that rvm's ppa for mplayer contains one thats built against the older nvidia 185 series drivers, in case one installs the 192.xx series, the vdpau doesn't function.

The reason I recommend getting the latest mplayer is because the one in the repo has problems with the latest mplayer when you do a rewind or fast forward. The latest one has no such issues.

[andrew.46]

Hi Arup,

Just make sure to tell those using nvidia drivers from the nvdia site not to add the libvdpau command. The latest nvidia driver is 190.42 so that command will only add to the confusion. I also found out that rvm's ppa for mplayer contains one thats built against the older nvidia 185 series drivers, in case one installs the 192.xx series, the vdpau doesn't function.

I have just finished adjusting the vdpau instructions so this should be a little clearer now. As regards SMPlayer, since this guide is really aimed at producing and supporting the commandline MPLayer I have pared down the references to SMPlayer more than a little. The upcoming morass of NVidia driver versions, MPlayer versions and SMPlayer versions looks very, very messy....

Thanks for your points,

Andrew

[bofphile]

What should I change in your guide if I want to use mplayer with the multithreaded FFmpeg-mt branch ?
Thanks.

[andrew.46]

Hi bofphile,

What should I change in your guide if I want to use mplayer with the multithreaded FFmpeg-mt branch ?

Interesting question. I have never actually used this so I spent a little time testing it out. From my guide omit this:

$ cd $HOME
$ svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk mplayer
$ cd $HOME/mplayer

and instead run the following:

$ cd $HOME
$ wget -N http://just.mooo.com/mplayer-svn-mt.tar.bz2
$ tar xjvf mplayer-svn-mt.tar.bz2
$ cd $HOME/mplayer

and continue compiling from there. I gather this file is an svn snapshot and I simply followed the directions of the MPlayer site. Seemed to work well enough with the following options:

mplayer -lavdopts threads=4 myfile.mp4

and it seemed to work fine but I am pretty new to this side of MPlayer. I would be interested to hear how you went with this?

Andrew

[Arup]

Actually for those without nvidia VDPAU, ffmpeg-mt is an excellent idea as then the cores get to do their job.