Cant play videos with mplayer/mplayer2

[andrew.46]

Good to hear that the issue is resolved

[sudodus]

I reinstalled Xubuntu. Vdpau is working now. Thanks to both.

I'm glad you managed to get it running but sad you needed to reinstall

My adventure with the live Xubuntu was a failure. I have a clear memory of proprietary graphics being offered during live sessions, but it must have been before 12.04 (correct me if I'm wrong). And it is the same with persistent live systems. Now proprietary graphics is not even installable, at least I could not do it. I think that the way it is attached to the kernel is tighter now, so that the kernel is recompiled. And this is not possible in live systems. You can install packages, that are looser attached to the linux system, but you cannot change the kernel (at least not easily).

On the other hand it is quite easy to install the Ubuntu versions 12.04 and 12.10, I made a fresh install to a small test partition on my internal HDD, and found that mplayer2 was using vdpau for me without any support from my old environment. But I was delayed, and when I returned you had already done it yourself

[sudodus]

You might be interested in adding this to ~/.mplayer/config rather than running a bash alias? My own setting is reasonably conservative:

# If I use vdpau I prefer these video codecs:
#--------------
[vo.vdpau]
vc=ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau,

but you could add your own settings in as well. I do it this way as I do not necessarily want to run vdpau by default...

Thanks for the tips

I have a few things in the config file, but run a lot directly from the command line. And for lighter video clips, I can use mplayer without any vdpau or other options. Anyway I use a couple of aliases. My workstation with 2x2 xeon processors plays the videos better (for example less stuttering) without vdpau in some cases. 1920x1080 50p HD video directly from my camera plays well with and without vdpau in LXDE, but only well without vdpau in XFCE.

[andrew.46]

By using a profile in this way you do not actually get vdpau as your default video output .

[sudodus]

By using a profile in this way you do not actually get vdpau as your default video output .

I will look into it and learn how it works

[andrew.46]

Man page has the details:

PROFILES
       To ease working with different configurations profiles can be defined in the con-
       figuration  files.   A profile starts with its name between square brackets, e.g.
       '[my-profile]'.  All following options will be part of the profile.   A  descrip-
       tion  (shown  by  -profile help) can be defined with the profile-desc option.  To
       end the profile, start another one or use the profile name 'default' to  continue
       with normal options.

       EXAMPLE MPLAYER PROFILE:

       [protocol.dvd]
       profile-desc="profile for dvd:// streams"
       vf=pp=hb/vb/dr/al/fd
       alang=en

       [protocol.dvdnav]
       profile-desc="profile for dvdnav:// streams"
       profile=protocol.dvd
       mouse-movements=yes
       nocache=yes

       [extension.flv]
       profile-desc="profile for .flv files"
       flip=yes

       [vo.pnm]
       outdir=/tmp

       [ao.alsa]
       device=spdif

       EXAMPLE MENCODER PROFILE:

       [mpeg4]
       profile-desc="MPEG4 encoding"
       ovc=lacv=yes
       lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1200

       [mpeg4-hq]
       profile-desc="HQ MPEG4 encoding"
       profile=mpeg4
       lavcopts=mbd=2:trell=yes:v4mv=yes

Lots of possibilities there, my own usage is a little primitive, I have always meant to spend some more time with this...