[Howto] Successfully install the svn MPlayer under Hardy Heron

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Good to see that you are persisting:

BTW it worked perfectly only with one video for the rest I get an error: Fail to open

ok here is what happens, if I right click on a video file and say open with mplayer it can't be open if I brows the file from right click on the skin and say open file then brows it and open it is works...

But the image is not good at all it is too bright and the subs are not that good, if I change to X11 from Xv it fixes the color of the image and the subs. few subs are misplaced and there is to big space between them and the image is small even in full screen the image is like normal size.

any ideas?

It is sometimes a struggle to get things just right but it will be worthwhile in the end. Have a look at what video output is available to you:

mplayer -vo help

and have a play with these. The one that works best can be selected as default in an ~/.mplayer/conf file or selected on the command line as you have already found.

Subtitles go a little beyond the scope of my walkthrough which is designed to get you up and going rather than move through the program itself. But if you use the gui you will see a section under preferences marked 'Subtitles and OSD' which will get you started. For the command line you would normally load all your preferences into a configuration file in ~./mplayer. You should find many 'recipes' online to experiment with.

But otherwise the program is up and running with gui and on screen display + access to all codecs?

Andrew

[csulok]

hey

first of all thank you for the guide.

i came here to ask for some advice, halfway through the make install (actually checkinstall but i dont think that counts) i'm getting an error, that i can't resolve, not with google, not with this forum.

install -m 755 -s mplayer /usr/local/bin
strip: could not create temporary file to hold stripped copy of '/usr/local/bin/mplayer'
install: strip failed
make: *** [install-mplayer] Error 1

****  Installation failed. Aborting package creation.

these are the last couple of lines. what could i have done wrong? how do i resolve this issue?

[Gouz]

Hey, sorry for posting all this an stuff.

It is up and running all the videos that I have tried to run. The only thing is that I can't drug and drop and I can't do a -right click open with-
And I think that the mplayer may choke with few videos, at least the older version that I was using was choking with something that can have big resolution (1024x786) and higher I will check that tomorrow and I will try to use what you posted and I will keep the topic updated with everything I found.

Btw mplayer has some great skins
I have tried most of them, it is easy to change them when you get the hung of it

Thanks for the help! *G*


Edit to csulok : Hey have you tried to pass the huge post(commands for the codecs) all at once or one by one?
If you have tried all at one try with few every time It worked for me with 3 line per time just don't forget the "sudo apt-get intall" before passing the first line and then copy past the rest

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Saw your message:

hey

first of all thank you for the guide.

i came here to ask for some advice, halfway through the make install (actually checkinstall but i dont think that counts) i'm getting an error, that i can't resolve, not with google, not with this forum.

install -m 755 -s mplayer /usr/local/bin
strip: could not create temporary file to hold stripped copy of '/usr/local/bin/mplayer'
install: strip failed
make: *** [install-mplayer] Error 1

****  Installation failed. Aborting package creation.

these are the last couple of lines. what could i have done wrong? how do i resolve this issue?

Hmmm... not sure about that one. I presume that this follows from:

$ make
$ sudo checkinstall -D

Try without checkinstall, as 'package creation' would probably refer to the creation of the deb package by checkinstall. So just try the usual:

$ make
$ sudo make install

and this may be enough to get you out of trouble. I took checkinstall out of the guide because of other error messages with deb creation. And actually stopped using it myself at all.

Andrew

[csulok]

thanks for the reply andrew

i wanted to make an easily removable and if needed reinstallable package by creating a deb

although you were right and with make install it didn't have a problem, i'd still prefer an easily removable solution..

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Read your comments about checkinstall:

thanks for the reply andrew

i wanted to make an easily removable and if needed reinstallable package by creating a deb

although you were right and with make install it didn't have a problem, i'd still prefer an easily removable solution..

I agree with you completely, and checkinstall will do a great job. But better written software, like mplayer, has the ability to uninstall from the source code. To uninstall the mplayer program go to the source directory of mplayer and type:

$ sudo make uninstall

and the program is gone. If you read the fine print of checkinstall you will see that it was produced for those programs that don't have this facility built in. Checkinstall by creating a deb and installing from it also places mplayer in the packet management system which is pointless in this case as it is extremely unlikely that Ubuntu will ever present the svn version of mplayer in its repository.

Don't misunderstand me, I have checkinstall on my system and I use it for some software but for mplayer I do not. Mind you I have actually used checkinstall with the svn mplayer quite successfully in the past. If you want to try again just try changing options 2 and 3 in the deb creation section. From memory section 2 by default has a space that checkinstall does not like and section 3 needs a number.

Otherwise all is working well with mplayer?

Andrew

[taisao]

my smplayer doesn't work after installing the svn version of mplayer, where is the mplayer executeble found?
--

oke, it's in /usr/local/bin/

the old one is in /usr/bin/

so smplayer works now, how can I delete/remove the old mplayer version? Or just leave it like that?

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Glad you resolved your issue:

[....] how can I delete/remove the old mplayer version? Or just leave it like that?

To uninstall the mplayer program go to the source directory of mplayer and type:

$ sudo make uninstall

and the program is gone. But is smplayer a front-end for mplayer? In which case I assume you will need a copy of mplayer on your system either repository or compiled.

Regards,

Andrew

[TheMono]

Yes, smplayer packages depend on either mplayer or mplayer-nogui.

[andrew.46]

Hi,

Thanks for that:

Yes, smplayer packages depend on either mplayer or mplayer-nogui.

I have a small confession: although I am a huge fan of mplayer if I watch a dvd on a computer (rarely) I tend to use vlc The gui gmplayer is a little primitive for my taste, I guess that is where a program like smplayer steps in.

Andrew