Howto: Build the svn MPlayer under the latest release version of Ubuntu

[andrew.46]

Thanks andrew. Will try it out.

I would be interested to hear how you get on. Had another quick look and it appears you will have to already have the development libraries for libdvdread and libdvdcss installed as these are not in the mplayer source tree. Bound to be a few more 'gotchas' in there as well .

[beew]

It seems that I do have a performance problem with Umplayer for high definition clips (1080p) and full screen iif I use it with normal mplayer instead of mplayer2 from ripps' repository. Smplayer on the other hand does fine.

I didn't realize that because I have been using ripps' mpayer2 shortly after I started using Ubuntu (~one year ago) I always assume that it is just an awesome mplayer build. Umplayer truly rocks with mplayer2.

Now that I am testing the normal build and even mplayer-mt from https://launchpad.net/~longinus00/+archive/mplayer-mt suck by comparison. I would like to see mplayer2 becoming the default 'mplayer' in Ubuntu repositories, that would cut down a lot of people on the forum complaining about video playback.

The only catch at this point is that the pausing in gnome-mplayer is kind of broken with mplayer2 so for something like streaming divx videos it is a lot better to use mplayer than mplayer2. It is going to be fixed according to mplayer2's FAQ.

[beew]

I would be interested to hear how you get on. Had another quick look and it appears you will have to already have the development libraries for libdvdread and libdvdcss installed as these are not in the mplayer source tree. Bound to be a few more 'gotchas' in there as well .

I would need to do some research and reading first. I am sure I will come back to ask for help. Still haven't gotten around to build ffmpeg.

[mad_max0204]

I install mplayer and smplayer for years like this with no problems.
Last month i switched from ubuntu to xubuntu. Dont ask me why its not for this thread.
So, I installed everything to build mplayer and it went fine. Nvidia drivers installed (last release drivers) and installed smplayer.
When I tried to play x264 video in 1080p resolution it played without video in smplayer. Just sound. Then I ran mplayer from command line and I reveiced this errors:

libavformat file format detected.
[matroska,webm @ 0x3497ef0] max_analyze_duration 5000000 reached at 5024000
[matroska,webm @ 0x3497ef0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0, The Eagle (2011)
[lavf] stream 1: audio (ac3), -aid 0, -alang eng, AC3 5.1 @ 640 Kbps
[lavf] stream 2: audio (aac), -aid 1, -alang eng, Commentary 1
[lavf] stream 3: audio (aac), -aid 2, -alang eng, Commentary 2
[lavf] stream 4: subtitle (pgssub), -sid 0, -slang eng
VIDEO:  [H264]  1920x816  0bpp  23.976 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
Load subtitles in ./
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[vdpau] Error when calling vdp_device_create_x11: 1
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

[mad_max0204]

Wow ignore this I solved it with

ln -s /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 /usr/lib/libvdpau_nvidia.so

[beew]

Hi, Andrew,

I have succeeded in building mplayer2! I downloaded the dev files using the second step of your guide then followrf the very simple instructions here (I already have the codecs installed system wide from medibuntu)
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=160354

$ sudo apt-get build-dep mplayer 
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion gitcore yasm autoconf libtool 
$ git clone git://git.mplayer2.org/mplayer2-build.git 
$ cd mplayer2-build && ./enable-mt && ./init 
$ echo --prefix=$HOME >> ./mplayer_options 
$ make -j4 
$ make install 
$ mv $HOME/bin/mplayer $HOME/bin/mplayer2

I have to say I don't quite understand the "echo" and the "make -j4" lines. I would appreciate it if you can explain that to me. Since the package seems to be quite self contained (it comes with its own ffmpeg) probably it wasn't necessary to download all the packages from the second step of your guide, I will try without that and see what happens.

mplayer2 is really in almost every way vastly superior to mplayer. I didn't know that because I was always using ripps' ppa and thought that it is just a better build of mplayer. But after finding out about mplayer2 I have gone back to reinstall mplayer to see the difference and man is that huge! I have been used to very smooth playback of 720p on my laptop and that include some videos that has a lost of fast motion even with just the nouveau driver (with no vdpau) But once switched to mplayer most of them are unwatchable. I think mplayer2, instead of mplayer, should be the default "mplayer" package. Performance wise there is no comparison.

There is but one problem. Mplayer2 doesn't work well in streaming videos online because the pausing function in gnome mplayer doesn't work with mplayer2. I read that the reason is that mplayer has some bugs in pausing and gnome-mplayer has patches to handle them. But these bugs were actually fixed in mplayer2 so the patches become a problem if gnome-mplayer use mplayer2 as a backend. This problem will be fixed in future releases of gnome-mplayer but in the mean time if you want to watch video streaming online mplayer is the way to go.

The best part now is that the building process above creates a mplayer2 executable in /home/username/bin , so now I can have both mplayer2 and the ordinary mplayer in the same sysyem. I use mplayer2 with umplayer to watch local video files (it has an option to choose the mplayer backend) and ordinary mplayer with gecko-mediaplayer for streaming, so this is the best of both worlds until the gnome-mplayer has fixed its pausing problem with mplayer2. Umplayer is almost unusable with ordinary mplayer for high definition videos, but it is smooth as butter with mplayer2.

[andrew.46]

I have succeeded in building mplayer2! I downloaded the dev files using the second step of your guide then followrf the very simple instructions here (I already have the codecs installed system wide from medibuntu)
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=160354
[...]
I have to say I don't quite understand the "echo" and the "make -j4" lines. I would appreciate it if you can explain that to me. Since the package seems to be quite self contained (it comes with its own ffmpeg) probably it wasn't necessary to download all the packages from the second step of your guide, I will try without that and see what happens.

Good on you . Sounds look you have not only got the basics down but you have started to explore further, so soon enough you will have assembled considerable expertise in building and using MPlayer2. I seriously would love to see you write it all up in the Tutorial and Tips section of these Forums and I encourage you again to pillage my guide for whatever you need with no acknowledgement required.

The echo line:

$ echo --prefix=$HOME >> ./mplayer_options

is simply designed to append the '--prefix=$HOME' option to the file ./mplayer_options which is Uoti's method of creating configuration options for MPLayer.

The make -j4 option controls how many jobs can run simultaneously and is designed to speed up compilation. The gruesome details can be found in the make man pages under --jobs and if you are interested you can see the effects by running with that option and without prefixing the command with the time command. Depends how badly you want to spend lots of time mucking around with your computer I guess .

[beew]

Good on you . Sounds look you have not only got the basics down but you have started to explore further, so soon enough you will have assembled considerable expertise in building and using MPlayer2. I seriously would love to see you write it all up in the Tutorial and Tips section of these Forums and I encourage you again to pillage my guide for whatever you need with no acknowledgement required.
.

Actually it was just cut and paste. I wouldn't know where to start without the instructions from doom9 (mplayer2's web site has no instruction, presumably all Linux users know how to build from source. )

I would have to know a lot more before I can write my own tutorial, I wouldn't feel comfortable until I get to the point where I can figure out how to compile on my own (at least for similar software) like you did. Your guides (along with the VLC one) will be of great help. Aside from the syntax of the codes I have no idea what dependencies are required. Look at the long list of developmental libraries you have on step 2 of this tutorial, I have no idea what they are and why they are needed.

The reason why I am always hesitant to build from source is that I have little understanding of the process (what dependencies are required, which library does what etc) While cut and paste from forum posts such as doom9's accomplishes the job it doesn't enhance my understanding very much.Is there a place where I can get an overview of the process and what these libraries do?

[andrew.46]

A lot of experience in this area can only come by compiling and recompiling with different options, building different packages etc etc. Ubuntu makes this a little difficult as the software sources are split up into many different packages and a base install of any version of Ubuntu is not a great software building base.

The so-called 'development files' for my MPlayer guide were put together various ways. I started with the development files used in the Ubuntu package and then observed what was missing when running ./configure on the MPlayer source code. Monitoring the MPlayer mailing lists allows the addition of newer dev files and the occasional extra compiled packages as new functionality is added to the source. A valuable source is this thread where people will post wish lists for additional functionality or complaints that repository versions are too old.

But don't expect to be on top of the whole area when writing things like guides, I usually learn as I go and never present myself as an authority, just another user trying to learn...

[beew]

Hi, Andrew,

Thanks for the explanation. I guess it is going to take a lot of trial and error.

I have a question and would appreciate your advise. My current setup turns out to be pretty sweet, use Umplayer with the self compiled version of mplayer2 to view local files and use "normal" mplayer for streaming (usually they are not so demanding on decoding) until the conflict between mplayer2 and gnome mplayer re pausing is fixed (at least that is when I don't use the Nvidia proprietary driver. The normal mplayer build from MOTU apparently doesn't even work with vdpau)

There is only one little glitch. I just found out that my compiled version of Mplayer2 doesn't play dvds because it was compiled without libdvd support according to the error message, whereas the version of mplayer2 from Ripps' PPA works just fine. I am wondering if there is a simple way to add libdvd support in the compiling?

This is not a big issue, I mostly rip my DVDs anyway and I can always use VLC or change Umplayer's backend on the fly. But it would be educational to know how to add such support.

Thanks.