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MPlayer - The Movie Player for LINUX

© 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (A'rpi/ESP-team)
http://www.mplayerhq.hu

[ English ] [ Hungarian ] [ German ] [ French ] [ Polish ] [ Italian ] [ Chinese ]

Table of Contents

0. How to read this documentation

If you are a first-time installer: be sure to read everything from here to the end of the Installation section, and follow the links you will find. If you have any other questions, return to the Table of Contents and search for the topic, read the FAQ, or try grepping through the files.

The main rule of this documentation: if it's not documented, it does not exist. If I don't say you encode audio from TV tuner, you can't. A healthy quantity of combining ability is welcomed, though. Good luck. You'll need it :) And for another good advice, let me quote Chris Phillips from the mplayer-users mailing list:

I said a while ago that there is such a difference between a newbie and a dumbass. No matter what you actually know about a system (linux, cars, girls :D) you should ALWAYS be able to take a step back and be objective, otherwise, you're just dumb IMHO. A girl i live with assumed the vacuum cleaner was broken because it didn't suck things up. never thought to change the bag, becasue she'd never done it before... now that's just stupid, not a case of simply not knowing what to do... Simply not being that familiar with your surroundings is no excuse for a) laziness and b) ignorance. So many people seem to see the word "error" and then stop... few seem to actually read the words on the OTHER side of the colon.

1. Introduction

MPlayer is a movie player for LINUX (runs on many other Unices, and non-x86 CPUs, see the ports section). It plays most MPEG, VOB, AVI, OGG/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, FLI, RM, NuppelVideo, yuv4mpeg, FILM, RoQ, PVA files, supported by many native, XAnim, RealPlayer, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, RealMedia, and DivX movies too (and you don't need the avifile library at all!). Another big feature of MPlayer is the wide range of supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, DirectFB, but you can also use GGI and SDL (and this way all their drivers) and some lowlevel card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3Dfx and Radeon, Mach64, Permedia3) too! Most of them supports software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in fullscreen. MPlayer supports displaying through some hardware MPEG decoder boards, such as the DVB and DXR3/Hollywood+. And what about the nice big antialiased shaded subtitles (10 supported types) with European/ISO 8859-1,2 (Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic, Korean fonts, and the onscreen display (OSD)?

The player is rock solid playing damaged MPEG files (useful for some VCDs), and it plays bad AVI files which are unplayable with the famous windows media player. Even AVI files without index chunk are playable, and you can temporarily rebuild their indexes with the -idx option, or permanently with MEncoder, thus enabling seeking! As you see, stability and quality are the most important things, but the speed is also amazing.

MEncoder (MPlayer's Movie Encoder) is a simple movie encoder, designed to encode MPlayer-playable movies (AVI/ASF/OGG/DVD/VCD/VOB/MPG/MOV/VIV/FLI/RM/NUV/NET/PVA) to other MPlayer-playable formats (see below). It can encode with various codecs, like DivX4 (1 or 2 passes), libavcodec, PCM/MP3/VBR MP3 audio. Also has powerful plugin system for video manipulation.

MEncoder features

  • encoding from the wide range of fileformats and decoders of MPlayer
  • encoding to all the codecs of ffmpeg's libavcodec
  • video encoding from V4L compatible TV tuners
  • encoding/multiplexing to interleaved AVI files with proper index
  • creating files from external audio stream
  • 1, 2 or 3 pass encoding
  • VBR MP3 audio - IMPORTANT NOTE: VBR MP3 audio doesn't always play nicely on Windows players! On the other hand, currently MEncoder's CBR encoding is totally broken on Win32 players :)
  • PCM audio
  • stream copying
  • input A/V synchronizing (PTS-based, can be disabled with -mc 0 option)
  • FPS correction with -ofps option (useful when encoding 29.97fps VOB to 24fps AVI)
  • using our very powerful plugin system (crop, expand, flip, postprocess, rotate, scale, rgb/yuv conversion)
  • can encode DVD/VOBsub AND text subtitles into the output file
  • can rip DVD subtitles to Vobsub format

Planned features

  • even wider variety of available en/decoding formats/codecs (creating VOB files with DivX4/Indeo5/VIVO streams :)

MPlayer and MEncoder can be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2.

1.1 History

This began a year ago... I (A'rpi) have tried lots of players under linux (mtv,xmps,dvdview,livid/oms,videolan, xine,xanim,avifile,xmmp) but they all have some problem. Mostly with special files or with audio/video sync. Most of them is unable to play both MPEG1, MPEG2 and AVI (DivX) files. Many players have image quality or speed problems too. So I've decided to write/modify one...

  • mpg12play v0.1-v0.3: Sep 22-25, 2000
    The first try, hacked together in a half hour! I've used libmpeg3 from www.heroinewarrior.com up to the version 0.3, but there were image quality and speed problems with it.
  • mpg12play v0.5-v0.87: Sep 28-Oct 20, 2000
    Mpeg codec replaced with DVDview by Dirk Farin, it was a great stuff, but it was slow and was written in C++ (I hate C++!!!)
  • mpg12play v0.9-v0.95pre5: Oct 21-Nov 2, 2000
    Mpeg codec was libmpeg2 (mpeg2dec) by Aaron Holtzman & Michel Lespinasse. It's great, optimized very fast C code with perfect image quality and 100% MPEG standard conformance.
  • MPlayer v0.01: Nov 11, 2000
    The first MPlayer.
  • MPlayer v0.3-v0.9: Nov 18-Dec 4, 2000
    It was a pack of two programs: mpg12play v0.95pre6 and my new simple AVI player 'avip' based on avifile's Win32 DLL loader.
  • MPlayer v0.10: Jan 1, 2001
    The MPEG and AVI player in a single binary!
  • MPlayer v0.11pre series:
    Some new developers joined and from 0.11 the mplayer project is a team-work! Added .ASF file support, and OpenDivX (see www.projectmayo.com) en/decoding.
  • MPlayer v0.17a "The IdegCounter" Apr 27, 2001
    The release version of the 0.11pre after 4 months of heavy development! Try it, and be amazed! Thousands of new features added... and of course old code was improved too, bugs removed etc.
  • MPlayer 0.18 "The BugCounter" Jul 9, 2001
    2 months since 0.17 and here's a new release.. Completed ASF support, more subtitle formats, introduced libao (similar to libvo but to audio), even more stable than ever, and so on. It's a MUST!
  • MPlayer 0.50 "The Faszom(C)ounter" Oct 8, 2001
    Hmm. Release again. Tons of new features, beta GUI version, bugs fixed, new vo and ao drivers, ported to many systems, including opensource DivX codecs and much more. Try it!
  • MPlayer 0.60 "The RTFMCounter" Jan 3, 2002
    MOV/VIVO/RM/FLI/NUV fileformats support, native CRAM, Cinepak, ADPCM codecs, and support for XAnim's binary codecs; DVD subtitles support, first release of MEncoder, TV grabbing, cache, liba52, countless fixes.
  • MPlayer 0.90pre10 "The BirthdayCounter" Nov 11, 2002
    Although this is not a release, I am going to mention it because it came out 2 years after MPlayer v0.01. Happy birthday, MPlayer!
  • MPlayer 0.90rc1 "The CodecCounter" Dec 7, 2002
    Again not a release, but after adding Sorenson 3 (QuickTime) and Windows Media 9 support, MPlayer is the world's first movie player with support for all known video formats!
  • MPlayer 0.90 "?" Date yet unknown

1.2 Installation

In this chapter I'll try to guide you through the compiling and configuring process of MPlayer. It's not easy, but it won't necessarily be hard. If you experience a different behavior than what I explain, please search through this documentation and you'll find your answers. If you see links, please follow them and read carefully what they contain. It will take some time, but it DOES worth it.

You need a fairly recent system. On Linux, 2.4.x kernels are recommended.

Software requirements:

  • binutils - suggested version is 2.11.x . This program is responsible for generating MMX/3DNow!/etc instructions, thus very important.
  • gcc - suggested versions are: 2.95.3, 2.95.4 and 3.1. NEVER use 2.96 or 3.0.x! They generate faulty code for MPlayer. If you decide to change gcc from 2.96, then don't decide in favor of 3.0.x just because it's newer! Early releases of 3.0.x were even more buggy than 2.96. So downgrade to 2.95.x (downgrade libstdc++ too, other programs may need it) or don't up/downgrade at all (but in this case, be prepared for runtime problems). If you vote for 3.x.x, try to use the latest version, early releases had various bugs, so be sure you use at least 3.1, it's tested and working. For detailed information about gcc 2.96's bugs (that are still NOT fixed, they have been WORKED AROUND in MPlayer!), see the gcc 2.96 section and the FAQ.
  • XFree86 - suggested version is always the newest (4.2.1). Normally, everyone wants this, as starting with XFree86 4.0.2, it contains the XVideo extension (somewhere referred to as Xv) which is needed to enable the hardware YUV acceleration (fast image display) on cards that support it.
    Make sure its development package is installed, too, otherwise it won't work.
    For some video cards you don't need XFree86. See list below.
  • make - suggested version is always the newest (at least 3.79.x). This usually isn't important.
  • SDL - it's not mandatory, but can help in some cases (bad audio, video cards that lag strangely with the xv driver). Always use the newest (beginning from 1.2.x).
  • libjpeg - optional JPEG decoder, used by -mf and some QT MOV files. Useful for both MPlayer and MEncoder if you plan to work with jpeg files.
  • libpng - recommended and default (M)PNG decoder. Required for GUI. Useful for both MPlayer and MEncoder.
  • lame - recommended, needed for encoding MP3 audio with MEncoder, suggested version is always the newest (at least 3.90).
  • libogg - optional, needed for playing OGG file format.
  • libvorbis - optional, needed for playing OGG Vorbis audio.
  • LIVE.COM Streaming Media - optional, needed for playing RTSP/RTP streams.
  • directfb - optional, from http://www.directfb.org
  • cdparanoia - optional, for CDDA support
  • libfreetype - optional, for TTF fonts support. At least 2.0.9 is required.
  • libxmms - optional, for XMMS input plugin support. At least 1.2.7 is required.

Codecs:

  • libavcodec: This codec package is capable of decoding H263/MJPEG/RV10/DivX3/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42/WMV1 encoded video streams and WMA (Windows Media Audio) v1/v2 audio streams, on multiple platforms. It is also known to be the fastest for this task. See the libavcodec section for details. Features:
    • gain decoding of videos mentioned above, on non-x86 machines
    • encoding with most of the mentioned codecs
    • this codec is the fastest codec available for DivX/3/4/5 and other MPEG4 types. Recommended!
  • Win32 codecs: If you plan to use MPlayer on x86 architecture, you will possibly need them. Download and unzip w32codecs.zip to /usr/lib/win32 BEFORE compiling MPlayer, otherwise no Win32 support will be compiled!
    Note: the avifile project has a similar codecs package, but it differs from ours. If you want to use all supported codecs, then install our package (do not worry, avifile works with it without problems). Features:
    • you need this if you want to play or encode for example movies recorded with various hardware compressors, like tuner cards, digital cameras (example: DV, ATI VCR, MJPEG)
    • needed if you want to play WMV8, WMV9/WMA9 movies.
    • Not needed for old ASF's with MP41 or MP42 video (though VoxWare audio is frequent for these files - it's done by the Win32 codec), or WMV7. Also not needed for WMA (Windows Media Audio), libavcodec has opensource decoder for that.
  • QuickTime codecs: on x86 platforms these codecs can be used to decode Sorenson v1/v3, RPZA, and other QuickTime video, and QDesign audio streams. Installation instructions can be found in the Sorenson video codec section.
  • DivX4/DivX5: information about this codec is available in the DivX4/DivX5 section. You possibly don't want this codec as libavcodec (see above) is much faster and has better quality than this, for both decoding and encoding.
    Features:
    • 1 pass or 2 pass encoding with MEncoder
    • can play old DivX3 movies much faster than the Win32 DLL but slower than libavcodec!
    • it's closed-source, and only an x86 version is available.
  • XviD: Open source encoding alternative to Divx4Linux
    Features:
    • 1 pass or 2 pass encoding with MEncoder
    • it's open-source, so it's multiplatform.
    • it's about 2 times faster than DivX4 when encoding - about the same quality
  • The XAnim codecs are the best (full screen, hardware YUV zoom) for decoding 3ivx and Indeo 3/4/5 movies, and some old formats. And they are multiplatform, so this is the only way to play Indeo on non-x86 platforms (well, apart from using XAnim:). But for example Cinepak movies are best played with MPlayer's own Cinepak decoder!
  • For Ogg Vorbis audio decoding you need to install libvorbis properly. Use deb/rpm packages if available, or compile from source (this is a nightly updated tarball of Vorbis CVS).
  • MPlayer can use the libraries of RealPlayer 8 or RealONE to play files with RealVideo 2.0 - 4.0 video, and Sipro/Cook audio. See RealMedia file format section for installation instructions and more information.

Video Cards

There are generally two kind of video cards. One kind (the newer cards) has hardware scaling and YUV acceleration support, the other cards don't.

YUV cards

They can display and scale (zoom) the picture to any size that fits in their memory, with small CPU usage (even when zooming), thus fullscreen playing is nice and very fast.

  • Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 cards: although a Vidix driver is provided, it is recommended to use the mga_vid kernel module instead, for it works much better. Please see the mga_vid section about its installation and usage. It is important to do these steps before compiling MPlayer, otherwise no mga_vid support will be built. Also check out the Matrox TV-out section. If you don't use Linux, your only possibility is the VIDIX driver: read the VIDIX section.
  • 3Dfx Voodoo3/Banshee cards: please see the tdfxfb section in order to gain big speedup. It is important to do these steps before compiling MPlayer, otherwise no 3Dfx support will be built. Also see the 3dfx TV-out section. If you use X, use at least 4.2.0, as the 3dfx Xv driver was broken in 4.1.0 and earlier releases.
  • ATI cards: Vidix driver is provided for the following cards: Radeon, Rage128, Mach64 (Rage XL/Mobility, Xpert98). Also see the ATI cards section of the TV-out documentation, to know if you card's TV-out is supported under Linux/MPlayer.
  • S3 cards: the Savage and Virge/DX chips have hardware acceleration. Use as new XFree86 version as possible, older drivers are buggy. Savage chips have problems with YV12 display, see S3 Xv section for details. Older, Trio cards have no, or slow hardware support.
  • nVidia cards: may or may not be good choice for video playing. If you do not have a GeForce2 (or newer) card, it's not likely to work without bugs. The built-in nVidia driver in XFree86 does not support hardware YUV acceleration on all nVidia cards. You have to download nVidia's closed-source drivers from nVidia.com. See the nVidia Xv driver section for details. Please also check the nVidia TV-out section if you wish to use a TV.
  • 3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3: a VIDIX driver is provided (pm3_vid). Please see the VIDIX section for details.
  • Other cards: None of the above?
    • Try if the XFree86 driver (and your card) supports hardware acceleration. See the Xv section for details.
    • If it doesn't, then your card's video features aren't supported under your operating system :(
      If hardware scaling works under Windows, it doesn't mean it will work under Linux or other operating systems: it depends on the drivers. Most manufacturers neither make Linux drivers nor release specifications for their chips, so you are unlucky using their cards. See 'Non-YUV cards'.

Non-YUV cards

Fullscreen playing can be achieved by either enabling software scaling (use the -zoom or -vop scale option, but I warn you: this is slow), or switching to a small resolution video mode, for example 352x288. If you don't have YUV acceleration, the latter method is recommended. Video mode switching can be enabled by using the -vm option and it works with the following drivers:

  • using XFree86: see the DGA driver and X11 driver sections for details. DGA is recommended! Also try DGA via SDL, sometimes it's better.
  • not using XFree86: try the drivers in the following order: vesa, fbdev, svgalib, aalib.

Some cards:

  • Cirrus Logic cards:
    • GD 7548: present on-board and tested in Compaq Armada 41xx notebook series.
      • XFree86 3: works in 8/16bpp modes. However, the driver is dramatically slow and buggy in 800x600@16bpp. Recommended: 640x480@16bpp
      • XFree86 4: the Xserver freezes soon after start unless acceleration is disabled, but then the whole thing gets slower than XFree86 3. No XVideo.
      • FBdev: framebuffer can be turned on with the clgenfb driver in the kernel, though for me it worked only in 8bpp, thus unusable. The clgenfb source had to be extended with the 7548 ID before compilation.
      • VESA: the card is only VBE 1.2 capable, so VESA output can't be used. Can't be workarounded with UniVBE.
      • SVGAlib: detects an older Cirrus chip. Usable but slow with -bpp 8.

Sound cards:

  • Soundblaster Live!: with this card you can use 4 or 6 (5.1) channels AC3 decoding instead of 2. Read the Software AC3 decoding section. For hardware AC3 passthrough you must use ALSA 0.9 with OSS emulation!
  • C-Media with SP/DIF out: hardware AC3 passthrough is possible with these cards, see Hardware AC3 decoding section.
  • Features of other cards aren't supported by MPlayer. It's very recommended to read the sound card section!

Features:

  • Decide if you need GUI. If you do, see the GUI section before compiling.
  • If you want to install MEncoder (our great all-purpose encoder), see the MEncoder section.
  • If you have a V4L compatible TV tuner card, and wish to watch/grab and encode movies with MPlayer, read the TV input section.
  • There is a neat OSD Menu support ready to be used. Check the OSD Menu section.

Then build MPlayer:

    ./configure
    make
    make install

At this point, MPlayer is ready to use. The directory $PREFIX/etc/mplayer contains the codecs.conf file, which is used to tell the program all the codecs and their capabilities. This file should always be kept up to date together with the main binary.
Check if you have codecs.conf in your home directory (~/.mplayer/codecs.conf) left from old MPlayer versions, and remove it.

Debian users can build a .deb package for themselves, it's very simple. Just exec fakeroot debian/rules binary in MPlayer's root directory. See Debian packaging for detailed instructions.

Always browse the output of ./configure, and the configure.log file, they contain information about what will be built, and what will not. You may also want to view config.h and config.mak files.
If you have some libraries installed, but not detected by ./configure, then check if you also have the proper header files (usually the -dev packages) and their version matches. The configure.log file usually tells you what is missing.

Though not mandatory, the fonts should be installed in order to gain OSD, and subtitle functionality. The recommended method is installing a TTF font file and telling MPlayer to use it. See the Subtitles and OSD section for details.

1.3 What about the GUI?

The GUI needs GTK (it isn't GTK, but the panels are). The skins are stored in PNG format, so gtk, libpng (and their devel stuff) has to be installed. You can build it by specifying --enable-gui during ./configure. Then, to turn on GUI mode, you either

  • specify gui=yes in your config file
  • ln -s $PREFIX/bin/mplayer $PREFIX/bin/gmplayer , and call gmplayer instead.

Currently you can't use the -gui option on the command line, due to technical reasons.

As MPlayer doesn't have a skin included, you have to download them if you want to use the GUI. See the download page. They should be extracted to the usual system-wide directory ($PREFIX/share/mplayer/Skin), or to $HOME/.mplayer/Skin. MPlayer by default looks in these directories for a directory named default, but you can use the -skin newskin option, or the skin=newskin config file directive to use the skin in */Skin/newskin directory.

1.4 Subtitles and OSD

MPlayer can display subtitles along with movie files. Currently the following formats are supported:

  • VobSub
  • Microdvd
  • SubRip
  • SubViewer
  • Sami
  • VPlayer
  • RT
  • SSA
  • MPsub
  • AQTitle
  • JACOsub

MPlayer can dump the previously listed subtitle formats into the following destination formats, with the given options:

  • MPsub: -dumpmpsub
  • SubRip: -dumpsrtsub
  • Microdvd: -dumpmicrodvdsub
  • JACOsub: -dumpjacosub
  • Sami: -dumpsami

The command line options differ slightly for the different formats:

VobSub subtitles

VobSub subtitles consist of a big (some megabytes) .SUB file, and optional .IDX and/or .IFO files.
Usage: If you have files like sample.sub, sample.ifo (optional), sample.idx - you have to pass MPlayer the -vobsub sample [-vobsubid <id>] options (full path optional). The -vobsubid option is like -sid for DVDs, you can choose between subtitle tracks (languages) with it. In case that -vobsubid is omitted, MPlayer will try to use the languages given by the -slang option and fall back to the langidx item in the .IDX file to set the subtitle language. If that fails, there will be no subtitles.

Other subtitles

The other formats consist of a single text file containing timing, placement and text information.
Usage: If you have a file like sample.txt, you have to pass the option -sub sample.txt (full path optional).

Adjusting subtitle timing and placement:

-subdelay <sec>
Delays subtitles by <sec> seconds. Can be negative.
-subfps <rate>
Specify frame/sec rate of subtitle file (float number)
-subpos <0 - 100>
Specify the position of subtitles.

If you experience a growing delay between the movie and the subtitles when using a MicroDVD subtitle file, most likely the frame rate of the movie and the subtitle file are different.
Please note that the MicroDVD subtitle format uses absolute frame numbers for its timing, and therefore the -subfps option cannot be used with this format. As MPlayer has no way to guess the frame rate of the subtitle file, you have to manually convert the frame rate. There is a little perl script in the contrib directory of the MPlayer FTP site to do this conversion for you.

MPlayer will try to guess the subtitle files you want to use when playing a movie. If, like in most cases, subtitle and movie files have the same name and are in the same place, you do not need to set the subtitle options. Just play the movie, MPlayer will handle the subtitles automatically.

About DVD subtitles, read the DVD section.

1.4.1 MPlayer's own subtitle format (MPsub)

MPlayer introduces a new subtitle format called MPsub. It was designed by me (Gabucino). Basically its main feature is being dynamically time-based (although it has frame-based mode too). Example (from DOCS/tech/mpsub.sub):

# first number : wait this much after previous subtitle disappeared
# second number : display the current subtitle for this many seconds

15 3
A long long, time ago...

0 3
in a galaxy far away...

0 3
Naboo was under an attack.

So you see, the main goal was to make subtitle editing/timing/joining/cutting easy. And, if you - say - get an SSA subtitle but it's badly timed/delayed to your version of the movie, you simply do a mplayer dummy.avi -sub source.ssa -dumpmpsub. A dump.mpsub file will be created in the current directory, which will contain the source subtitle's text, but in MPsub format. Then you can freely add/subtract seconds to/from the subtitle.

Subtitles are displayed with a technique called 'OSD', On Screen Display. OSD is used to display current time, volume bar, seek bar etc.

1.4.2 Installing OSD and subtitles

You need an MPlayer font package to be able to use OSD/SUB feature. There are many ways to get it:

  • download ready-to-use font packages from MPlayer site. Note: Currently available fonts are limited for iso 8859-1/2 support, but there are some other (including Korean, Russian, 8859-8 etc) fonts at contrib/font section of FTP, made by users.

    Font should have appropriate font.desc file which maps unicode font positions to the actual code page of the subtitles text. Other solution is to have subtitles encoded in utf8 encoding and use -utf8 option or just name the subtitles file <video_name>.utf and have it in the same dir as the video file. Recoding from different codepages to utf8 could be done by using konwert (Debian) or iconv (Red Hat) programs.
    Some URLs:
  • use the font generator tool at TOOLS/subfont-c It's a complete tool to convert from TTF/Type1/etc font to mplayer font pkg. (read TOOLS/subfont-c/README for details)
  • use the font generator GIMP plugin at TOOLS/subfont-GIMP (note: you must have HSI RAW plugin too, see URL below)
  • using a TrueType (TTF) font, by the means of the freetype library. Version 2.0.9 or greater is mandatory! Then you have two methods:
    • use the -font /path/to/arial.ttf option to specify a TrueType font file on every occassion
    • create a symlink: ln -s /path/to/arial.ttf ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf

If you chose non-TTF fonts, UNZIP the file you downloaded to ~/.mplayer or $PREFIX/share/mplayer. Then rename or symlink one of the extracted directories to font (like: ln -s ~/.mplayer/arial-24 ~/.mplayer/font). Now you have to see a timer at the upper left corner of the movie (switch it off with the "o" key).

OSD has 4 states: (switch with 'o')

(subtitles are always enabled, for disabling them please read the man page)

  • volume bar + seek bar (default)
  • volume bar + seek bar + timer + file position percentage on seeking
  • volume bar + seek bar + timer + total duration of media
  • subtitles only

You can change default behaviour by setting osdlevel= variable in config file, or the -osdlevel command line option.

1.4.3 OSD menu

MPlayer has a completely user definiable OSD Menu interface.

Installation

  1. compile MPlayer by passing the --enable-new-conf --enable-menu parameters to ./configure
  2. make sure you have an OSD font installed
  3. copy etc/menu.conf to your .mplayer directory
  4. copy etc/input.conf to your .mplayer directory, or to the system-wide MPlayer config dir (default: /usr/local/etc/mplayer)
  5. check and edit input.conf to enable menu movement keys (it is described there).
  6. start MPlayer by the following example:
    $ mplayer -menu file.avi
  7. push any menu key you defined

1.5 RTC

There are three timing methods in MPlayer.
  • To use the old method, you don't have to do anything. It uses usleep() to tune A/V sync, with +/- 10ms accuracy. However sometimes the sync has to be tuned even finer.
  • The new timer code uses PC's RTC (Real Time Clock) for this task, because it has precise 1ms timers. It is automagically enabled when available, but requires root privileges, a setuid root MPlayer binary or a properly set up kernel.
    If you are running kernel 2.4.19pre8 or later you can adjust the maximum RTC frequency for normal users through the /proc filesystem. Use this command to enable RTC for normal users:

    echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq

    If you do not have such a new kernel, you can also change one line in drivers/char/rtc.c and recompile your kernel. Find the section that reads 
           * We don't really want Joe User enabling more
       * than 64Hz of interrupts on a multi-user machine.
       */
      if ((rtc_freq > 64) && (!capable(CAP_SYS_RESOURCE)))
    and change the 64 to 1024. You should really know what you are doing, though.
    You can see the new timer's efficiency in the status line.
    The power management functions of some notebook BIOSes with speedstep CPUs interact badly with RTC. Audio and video may get out of sync. Plugging the external power connector in before you power up your notebook seems to help. You can always turn off RTC support with the -nortc switch. In some hardware combinations (confirmed during usage of non-DMA DVD drive on an ALi1541 board) usage of the RTC timer causes skippy playback. It's recommended to use the third method in these cases.
  • The third timer code is turned on with the -softsleep option. It has the efficiency of the RTC, but it doesn't use RTC. On the other hand, it requires more CPU.
Note: NEVER install a setuid root MPlayer binary on a multiuser system! It's a clear way for everyone to become root.

2. Features

2.1 Supported formats

2.2 Supported codecs

2.3 Video & Audio output devices

2.4 TV input

This section is about how to enable watching/grabbing from V4L compatible TV tuner. See the man page for a description of TV options and keyboard controls.

2.4.1 Compilation

  1. First, you have to recompile. ./configure will autodetect kernel headers of v4l stuff and the existence of /dev/video* entries. If they exist, TV support will be built (see the output of ./configure).
  2. Make sure your tuner works with another TV software in Linux, for example xawtv.

2.4.2 Usage tips

The full listing of the options is available on the manual page. Here are just a few tips:
  • Use the channels option. An example:
    -tv on:channels=26-MTV1,23-TV2
    Explanation: using this option, only the 26 and 23 channels will be usable, and there will be a nice OSD text upon channel switching, displaying the channel's name. Spaces in the channel name must be replaced by the "_" character.
  • Choose some sane image dimensions. The dimensions of the resulting image should be divisible by 16.
  • If you capture the video with the vertical resolution higher than half of the full resolution (i.e. 288 for PAL or 240 for NTSC), make sure you turned deinterlacing on. Otherwise you'll get a movie which is distorted during fast-motion scenes and the bitrate controller will be probably even unable to retain the specified bitrate as the interlacing artifacts produce high amount of detail and thus consume lot of bandwidth. You can enable deinterlacing with -vop pp=DEINT_TYPE. Usually pp=lb does a good job, but it can be matter of personal preference. See other deinterlacing algorithms in the manual and give it a try.
  • Crop out the dead space. When you capture the video, the areas at the edges are usually black or contain some noise. These again consume lots of unnecessary bandwidth. More precisely it's not the black areas themselves but the sharp transitions between the black and the brighter video image which do but that's not important for now. Before you start capturing, adjust the arguments of the crop option so that all the crap at the margins is cropped out. Again, don't forget to keep the resulting dimensions sane.
  • Watch out for CPU load. It shouldn't cross the 90% boundary for most of the time. If you have a large capture buffer, MEncoder can survive an overload for few seconds but nothing more. It's better to turn off the 3D OpenGL screensavers and similar stuff.
  • Don't mess with the system clock. MEncoder uses the system clock for doing A/V sync. If you adjust the system clock (especially backwards in time), MEncoder gets confused and you will lose frames. This is an important issue if you are hooked to a network and run some time synchronization software like NTP. You have to turn NTP off during the capture process if you want to capture reliably.
  • Don't change the outfmt unless you know what you are doing or your card/driver really doesn't support the default (YV12 colorspace). In the older versions of MPlayer/MEncoder it was necessary to specify the output format. This issue should be fixed in the current releases and outfmt isn't required anymore, and the default suits the most purposes. For example, if you are capturing into DivX using libavcodec and specify outfmt=RGB24 in order to increase the quality of the captured images, the captured image will be actually later converted back into YV12 so the only thing you achieve is a massive waste of CPU power.
  • To specify the I420 colorspace (outfmt=i420), you have to add an option -vc rawi420 due to a fourcc conflict with an Intel Indeo video codec.
  • There are several ways of capturing audio. You can grab the sound either using your soundcard via an external cable connection between video card and line-in, or using the built-in ADC in the bt878 chip. In the latter case, you have to load the btaudio driver. Read the linux/Documentation/sound/btaudio file (in the kernel tree, not MPlayer's) for some instructions on using this driver.
  • If MEncoder cannot open the audio device, make sure that it is really available. There can be some trouble with the sound servers like arts (KDE) or esd (GNOME). If you have a full duplex soundcard (almost any decent card supports it today), and you are using KDE, try to check the "full duplex" option in the sound server preference menu.

2.4.3 Examples

Dummy output, to AAlib :)
    mplayer -tv on:driver=dummy:width=640:height=480 -vo aa

Input from standard V4L
    mplayer -tv on:driver=v4l:width=640:height=480 -vo xv

A more sophisticated example. This makes MEncoder capture the full PAL image, crop the margins, and deinterlace the picture using a linear blend algorithm. Audio is compressed with a constant bitrate of 64kbps, using LAME codec. This setup is suitable for capturing movies.
    mencoder -tv on:driver=v4l:width=768:height=576 \
    -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=900 \
    -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64 \
    -vop pp=lb,crop=720:544:24:16 -o output.avi

This will additionally rescale the image to 384x288 and compresses the video with the bitrate of 350kbps in high quality mode. The vqmax option looses the quantizer and allows the video compressor to actualy reach so low bitrate even at the expense of the quality. This can be used for capturing long TV series, where the video quality isn't so important.
    mencoder -tv on:driver=v4l:width=768:height=576 \
    -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=350:vhq:vqmax=31:keyint=300 \
    -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=48 \
    -vop scale=384:288,pp=tn/lb,crop=720:540:24:18 -sws 1 -o output.avi
It's also possible to specify smaller image dimensions in the -tv option and omit the software scaling but this approach uses the maximum available information and is a little more resistant to noise. The bt8x8 chips can do the pixel averaging only in the horizontal direction due to a hardware limitation.

2.5 Edit Decision Lists (EDL)

The edit decision list (EDL) system allows you to automatically skip or mute sections of videos during playback, based on a movie specific EDL configuration file.

This is useful for those who may want to watch a film in "family-friendly" mode. You can cut out any violence, profanity, Jar-Jar Binks .. from a movie according to your own personal preferences. Aside from this, there are other uses, like automatically skipping over commercials in video files you watch.

The EDL file format is pretty bare-bones. Once the EDL system has reached a certain level of maturity, an XML-based file format will probably be implemented (keeping backwards compatibility with previous EDL formats).

The maximum number of EDL entries for the current incarnation of EDL is 1000. If you happen to need more, change the #define MAX_EDL_ENTRIES in the edl.h file.

2.5.1 Using an EDL file

Include the -edl <filename> flag when you run MPlayer, with the name of the EDL file you want applied to the video.

2.5.2 Making an EDL file

The current EDL file format is:

[begin second] [end second] [action]

Where the seconds are floating-point numbers and the action is either 0 for skip or 1 for mute. Example:

5.3   7.1    0
15    16.7   1
420   422    0

This will skip from second 5.3 to second 7.1 of the video, then mute at 15 seconds, unmute at 16.7 seconds and skip from second 420 to second 422 of the video. These actions will be performed when the playback timer reaches the times given in the file.

To create an EDL file to work from, use the -edlout <filename> flag. During playback, when you want to mark the previous two seconds to skip over, hit i. A corresponding entry will be written to the file for that time. You can then go back and fine-tune the generated EDL file.

3. Usage

3.1 Command line

MPlayer utilizes a complex playtree. It consists of global options written as first (for example mplayer -vfm 5), and options written after filenames, that apply only to the given filename/URL/whatever (for example mplayer -vfm 5 movie1.avi movie2.avi -vfm 4).
You can group filenames/URLs together using { and }. It's useful with option -loop: mplayer { 1.avi -loop 2 2.avi } -loop 3 will play files in this order: 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 2

  file  mplayer [options] [path/]filename
filesmplayer [default options] [path/]filename1 [options for filename1] filename2 [options for filename2] ...
VCDmplayer [options] -vcd trackno [-cdrom-device /dev/cdrom]
DVDmplayer [options] -dvd titleno [-dvd-device /dev/dvd]
WWWmplayer [options] http://site.com/file.asf (playlists can be used, too)
RTSPmplayer [options] rtsp://server.example.com/streamName

Latest versions of MPlayer also accept VCD and DVD tracks in URL style, just like xine does: mplayer dvd://1 or mplayer vcd://1

  mplayer -vo x11 /mnt/Films/Contact/contact2.mpg
  mplayer -vcd 2
  mplayer -afm 3 /mnt/DVDtrailers/alien4.vob
  mplayer -dvd 1 -dvd-device /dev/hdc
  mplayer -abs 65536 -delay -0.4 -nobps ~/movies/test.avi

3.2 Control

MPlayer has a fully configurable, command driven, control layer which lets you control MPlayer with keyboard, mouse, joystick or remote control (using LIRC). See the man page for the complete list of keyboard controls.

3.2.1 Controls configuration

MPlayer allows you bind any key/button to any MPlayer command using a simple config file. The syntax consist of a key name followed by a command. The default config file location is $HOME/.mplayer/input.conf but it can be overridden using the -input conf switch (relative path are relative to $HOME/.mplayer).

Example:

##
## MPlayer input control file
##

RIGHT seek +10
LEFT seek -10
- audio_delay 0.100
+ audio_delay -0.100
q quit
> pt_step 1
< pt_step -1
ENTER pt_step 1 1

3.2.1.1 Key names

You can have a full list by running mplayer -input keylist

Keyboard:

  • Any printable character
  • SPACE
  • ENTER
  • TAB
  • CTRL
  • BS
  • DEL
  • INS
  • HOME
  • END
  • PGUP
  • PGDWN
  • ESC
  • RIGHT
  • LEFT
  • UP
  • DOWN

Mouse (only supported under X):

  • MOUSE_BTN0 (Left button)
  • MOUSE_BTN1 (Right button)
  • MOUSE_BTN2 (Middle button)
  • MOUSE_BTN3 (Wheel)
  • MOUSE_BTN4 (Wheel)
  • ...
  • MOUSE_BTN9

Joystick (support must be enabled at compile time):

  • JOY_RIGHT or JOY_AXIS0_PLUS
  • JOY_LEFT or JOY_AXIS0_MINUS
  • JOY_UP or JOY_AXIS1_MINUS
  • JOY_DOWN or JOY_AXIS1_PLUS
  • JOY_AXIS2_PLUS
  • JOY_AXIS2_MINUS
  • ...
  • JOY_AXIS9_PLUS
  • JOY_AXIS9_MINUS

3.2.1.2 Commands

You can have a full list of known commands by running "mplayer -input cmdlist"

  • seek (int) val [(int) type=0]

    Seek to some place in the movie.
    Type 0 is a relative seek of +/- val seconds.
    Type 1 seek to val % in the movie.

  • audio_delay (float) val

    Adjust the audio delay of val seconds

  • quit

    Quit MPlayer

  • pause

    Pause/unpause the playback

  • grap_frames

    Somebody know ?

  • pt_step (int) val [(int) force=0]

    Go to next/previous entry in playtree. Val sign tell the direction.
    If no other entry is available in the given direction it won't do anything unless force is non 0.

  • pt_up_step (int) val [(int) force=0]

    Like pt_step but it jump to next/previous in the parent list. It's useful to break inner loop in the playtree.

  • alt_src_step (int) val

    When more than one source is available it select the next/previous one (only supported by asx playlist).

  • sub_delay (float) val [(int) abs=0]

    Adjust the subtitles delay of +/- val seconds or set it to val seconds when abs is non zero.

  • osd [(int) level=-1]

    Toggle osd mode or set it to level when level > 0.

  • volume (int) dir

    Increase/decrease volume

  • contrast (int) val [(int) abs=0]
  • brightness (int) val [(int) abs=0]
  • hue (int) val [(int) abs=0]
  • saturation (int) val [(int) abs=0]

    Set/Adjust video parameters. Val range from -100 to 100.

  • frame_drop [(int) type=-1]

    Toggle/Set frame dropping mode.

  • sub_visibility

    Toggle subtitle visibility.

  • sub_pos (int) val

    Adjust subtitles position.

  • vobsub_lang

    Change the language of VobSub subtitles.

  • vo_fullscreen

    Switch fullscreen mode.

  • tv_step_channel (int) dir

    Select next/previous tv channel.

  • tv_step_norm

    Change TV norm.

  • tv_step_chanlist

    Change channel list.

  • gui_loadfile
  • gui_loadsubtitle
  • gui_about
  • gui_play
  • gui_stop
  • gui_playlist
  • gui_preferences
  • gui_skinbrowser

    GUI actions

3.2.2 Control from LIRC

Linux Infrared Remote Control - use an easy to build home-brewn IR-receiver, an (almost) arbitrary remote control and control your Linux box with it! More about it at www.lirc.org.

If you have installed the lirc-package, configure will autodetect it. If everything went fine, MPlayer will print a message like "Setting up lirc support..." on startup. If an error occurs it will tell you. If it doesn't tell you anything about LIRC there's no support compiled in. That's it :-)

The application name for MPlayer is - oh wonder - mplayer. You can use any mplayer commands and even pass more than one command by separating them with \n. Don't forget to enable the repeat flag in .lircrc when it make sense (seek, volume, etc). Here's an excerpt from my .lircrc:

begin
     button = VOLUME_PLUS
     prog = mplayer
     config = volume 1
     repeat = 1
end

begin
    button = VOLUME_MINUS
    prog = mplayer
    config = volume -1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    button = CD_PLAY
    prog = mplayer
    config = pause
end

begin
    button = CD_STOP
    prog = mplayer
    config = seek 0 1\npause
end

If you don't like the standard location for the lirc-config file (~/.lircrc) use the -lircconf <filename> switch to specify another file.

3.2.3 Slave mode

The slave mode allow you to build simple frontend to MPlayer. When enabled (with the -slave switch) MPlayer will read commands separated by new line (\n) from stdin.

3.3 Streaming from network or pipes

MPlayer can play files from network, using the HTTP, MMS or RTSP/RTP protocol.

Playing goes by simply using adding the URL to the command line. MPlayer also honors the http_proxy environment variable, and uses proxy if available. Proxy usage can also be forced:

mplayer http_proxy://proxy.micorsops.com:3128/http://micorsops.com:80/stream.asf

MPlayer can read from stdin (NOT named pipes). This can be for example used to play from FTP:

  wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -

Note: it's also recommended to enable CACHE when playback from network:

  wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -cache 8192 -

4. FAQ section

5. CD/DVD section

6. Ports

6.1 Linux

The main development platform is Linux on x86, altough MPlayer works on many other Linux ports.

6.1.1 Debian packaging

To build a Debian package, run the following command in the MPlayer source directory:

    fakeroot debian/rules binary

As root you can then install the .deb package as usual:

    dpkg -i ../mplayer_<version>.deb

Christian Marillat has been making unofficial Debian MPlayer, MEncoder and font packages for a while, you can (apt-)get them from his homepage. These packages are highly unofficial, however, as Christian made and redistributed these packages when MPlayer was still not fully GPLed and binary redistribution was not allowed. Christian ignored requests to stop redistributing his packages, which caused bad blood with MPlayer developers. Binary redistribution is not a problem anymore, but we do not support these packages!

6.1.2 RPM packaging

Dominik Mierzejewski created and maintains official Red Hat RPM packages of MPlayer. They are available from his homepage. Please read the instructions there and report problems to him, not us.

There are other RPM versions (SuSE now includes MPlayer in their official distribution, Mandrake packages are available from the P.L.F) of MPlayer, but none of them is officially supported.

6.1.3 ARM

MPlayer works on Linux PDAs with ARM CPU e.g. Sharp Zaurus, Compaq Ipaq. The easiest way to obtain MPlayer is to get it from one of the Openzaurus package feeds. If you want to compile it yourself, you should look at the mplayer and the libavcodec directory in the OpenZaurus distribution buildroot. These always have the latest Makefile and patches used for building a CVS MPlayer with libavcodec.
If you need a GUI frontend, you can use xmms-embedded.

6.2 *BSD

MPlayer runs on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS and Darwin. There are ports/pkgsrc/fink/etc versions of MPlayer available that are probably easier to use than our raw sources.

To build MPlayer you will need GNU make (gmake - native BSD make will not work) and a recent version of binutils.

If MPlayer complains about not finding /dev/cdrom or /dev/dvd, create an appropiate symbolic link:
ln -s /dev/(your_cdrom_device) /dev/cdrom.

To use Win32 DLLs with MPlayer you will need to re-compile the kernel with "option USER_LDT" (unless you run FreeBSD -CURRENT, where this is the default).

6.2.1 FreeBSD

If your CPU has SSE, recompile your kernel with "options CPU_ENABLE_SSE" to use it (FreeBSD-STABLE or kernel patches required).

6.2.2 OpenBSD

Due to limitations in different versions of gas (relocation vs MMX), you will need to compile in two steps: First make sure that the non-native as is first in your $PATH and do a gmake -k, then make sure that the native version is used and do gmake.

6.3 Solaris

MPlayer should work on Solaris 2.6 or newer.

On UltraSPARCs, MPlayer takes advantage of their VIS extensions (equivalent to MMX), currently only in libmpeg2, libvo and libavcodec, but not in mp3lib. You can watch a VOB file on a 400MHz CPU. You'll need mLib installed.

To build the package you will need GNU make (gmake, /opt/sfw/gmake), native Solaris make will not work. Typical error you get when building with Solaris' make instead of GNU make:

   % /usr/ccs/bin/make
   make: Fatal error in reader: Makefile, line 25: Unexpected end of line seen

On Solaris SPARC, you need the GNU C/C++ Compiler; it does not matter if GNU C/C++ compiler is configured with or without the GNU assembler.

On Solaris x86, you need the GNU assembler and the GNU C/C++ compiler, configured to use the GNU assembler! The mplayer code on the x86 platform makes heavy use of MMX, SSE and 3DNOW! instructions that cannot be compiled using Sun's assembler /usr/ccs/bin/as.

The configure script tries to find out, which assembler program is used by your "gcc" command (in case the autodetection fails, use the --as=/whereever/you/have/installed/gnu-as option to tell the configure script where it can find GNU "as" on your system).

Error message from configure on a Solaris x86 system using GCC without GNU assembler:

   % configure
   ...
   Checking assembler (/usr/ccs/bin/as) ... , failed
   Please upgrade(downgrade) binutils to 2.10.1...

(Solution: Install and use a gcc configured with "--with-as=gas")

Typical error you get when building with a GNU C compiler that does not use GNU as:

   % gmake
   ...
   gcc -c -Iloader -Ilibvo -O4 -march=i686 -mcpu=i686 -pipe -ffast-math
	-fomit-frame-pointer  -I/usr/local/include   -o mplayer.o mplayer.c
   Assembler: mplayer.c
   "(stdin)", line 3567 : Illegal mnemonic
   "(stdin)", line 3567 : Syntax error
   ... more "Illegal mnemonic" and "Syntax error" errors ...

Due to bugs in Solaris 8, you may not be able to play DVD discs larger than 4 GB:

  • The sd(7D) driver on Solaris 8 x86 has a bug when accessing a disk block >4GB on a device using a logical blocksize != DEV_BSIZE (i.e. CD-ROM and DVD media). Due to a 32Bit int overflow, a disk address modulo 4GB is accessed. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/22516)

    This problem does not exist in the SPARC version of Solaris 8.

  • A similar bug is present in the hsfs(7FS) filesystem code (aka ISO9660), hsfs may not not support partitions/disks larger than 4GB, all data is accessed modulo 4GB. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarisonintel/message/22592).

    The hsfs problem can be fixed by installing patch 109764-04 (sparc) / 109765-04 (x86).

On Solaris with an UltraSPARC CPU, you can get some extra speed by using the CPU's VIS instructions for certain time consuming operations. VIS acceleration can be used in MPlayer by calling functions in Sun's mediaLib.

VIS accelerated operations from mediaLib are used for mpeg2 video decoding and for color space conversion in the video output drivers.

6.5 Silicon Graphics / IRIX

You can either try to install the GNU install program, and (if you did not put it in your global path) then point to the location with:

  ./configure --install-path=PATH

Or you can use the default install delivered with IRIX 6.5 in which case you will have to edit the Makefile a littlebit by hand. Change the following two lines:

  $(INSTALL) -c -m 644 DOCS/mplayer.1 $(MANDIR)/man1/mplayer.1

  $(INSTALL) -c -m 644 etc/codecs.conf $(CONFDIR)/codecs.conf

to:

  $(INSTALL) -m 644 mplayer.1 $(MANDIR)/man1/

  $(INSTALL) -m 644 codecs.conf $(CONFDIR)/

And then do (from within the MPlayer source dir):

  cp DOCS/mplayer.1 . ; cp etc/codecs.conf .

and then go on with building and installing.

6.6 QNX

Works. You'll need to download SDL for QNX, and install it. Then run MPlayer with -vo sdl:photon and -ao sdl:nto options, and it should be fast.

The -vo x11 output will be even slower than on Linux, since QNX has only X emulation which is VERY slow. Use SDL.

6.7 Cygwin

The Cygwin port is still in its infancy. Currently there is no support for Win32 DLLs, VCDs or OpenGL. SDL is known to distort sound and image or crash on some systems. Patches are always welcome. Best results are achieved with the native DirectX video output driver (-vo directx) and the native Windows waveout audio driver (-ao win32). You should also check out the mplayer-cygwin mailing list for help and latest information.

You have to copy or symlink etc/cygwin_inttypes.h from the MPlayer source directory to /usr/include/inttypes.h in order to make MPlayer compile.

To get native DirectX video, download DirectX 7 header files, extract them to /usr/include/ or /usr/local/include/ and recompile. If the image is distorted, try turning off hardware acceleration with -vo directx:noaccel.

Instructions and files for making SDL run under Cygwin can be found on the libsdl site.

7. Encoding with MEncoder

Appendix A - Mailing lists

There are some public mailing lists on MPlayer. Unless explicitly stated otherwise the language of these lists is English. Please do not send messages in other languages or HTML mail! Message size limit is 80k. If you have something bigger put it up for download somewhere. Click the links to subscribe. On the mailing lists, the same rules about writing and quoting apply as on usenet. Please follow them, it makes the life of those who read your mails a lot easier. If you do not know them please read HOWTO edit messages or (if you are in a hurry) Quoting HOWTO.

Note: You can reach the searchable mailing list archives at http://www.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch.

Appendix B - How to report bugs

Appendix C - Known bugs

Special system/CPU-specific bugs/problems:

  • SIGILL (signal 4) on P3 using 2.2.x kernels:
    Problem: kernel 2.2.x doesn't have proper (working) SSE support
    Solution: upgrade kernel to 2.4.x
    Workaround: ./configure --disable-sse
  • General SIGILL (signal 4):
    Problem: you compiled and run mplayer in different machines (for example compiled on P3 and running on Celeron)
    Solution: compile MPlayer on the same machine where you will use it!
    Workaround: ./configure --disable-sse etc. options
  • "Internal buffer inconsistency" during MEncoder run:
    Problem: known problem when lame < 3.90 was compiled with gcc 2.96 or 3.x.
    Solution: use lame >=3.90.
    Workaround: compile lame with gcc 2.95.x and remove any already installed lame packages, they may have been compiled with gcc 2.96.
  • Messed up MP2/MP3 sound on PPC:
    Problem: known GCC miscompilation bug on PPC platforms, no fix yet.
    Workaround: use FFmpeg's (slow) MP1/MP2/MP3 decoder (-ac ffmpeg)
  • sig11 in libmpeg2, when scaling+encoding:
    Problem: known GCC 2.95.2 MMX bug, upgrade to 2.95.3.

Various A-V sync and other audio problems:

General audio delay or jerky sound (exists with all or many files):
  • most common: buggy audio driver! - try to use different drivers, try ALSA 0.9 OSS emulation with -ao oss, also try -ao sdl, sometimes it helps. If your file plays fine with -nosound, then you can be sure it's sound card (driver) problem.
  • audio buffer problems (buffer size badly detected)
    Workaround: mplayer -abs option
  • samplerate problems - maybe your card doesn't support the samplerate used in your files - try the resampling plugin (-aop)
  • slow machine (CPU or VGA)
    try with -vo null, if it plays well, then you have slow VGA card/driver
    Workaround: buy a faster card or read this documentation about how to speed up
    Also try -framedrop
Audio delay/de-sync specific to one or a few files:
  • bad file
    Workaround:
    • -ni or -nobps option (for non-interleaved or bad files)
      and/or
    • -mc 0 (required for files with badly interleaved VBR audio)
      and/or
    • -delay option or +/- keys at runtime to adjust delay
    If none of these help, please upload the file, we'll check (and fix).
  • your sound card doesn't support 48kHz playback
    Workaround: buy a better sound card... or try to decrease fps by 10% (use -fps 27 for a 30fps movie) or use the resampler plugin
  • slow machine
    (if A-V is not around 0, and the last number in the status line increasing)
    Workaround: -framedrop
No sound at all:
  • your file uses an unsupported audio codec
    Workaround: read the documentation and help us adding support for it
No picture at all (just plain grey/green window):
  • your file uses an unsupported video codec
    Workaround: read the documentation and help us adding support for it
  • auto-selected codec can't decode the file, try to select another using -vc or -vfm options
  • you try to play DivX 3.x file with OpenDivX decoder or XviD (-vc odivx) - install Divx4Linux and recompile player

Video-out problems:

First note: options -fs -vm and -zoom are just recommendations, not (yet) supported by all drivers. So it isn't a bug if it doesn't work. Only a few driver supports scaling/zooming, don't expect this from x11 or dga.

OSD/sub flickering:
- x11 driver: sorry, it can't be fixed now
- xv driver: use -double option

Green image using mga_vid (-vo mga / -vo xmga):
- mga_vid misdetected your card's RAM amount, reload it using mga_ram_size option

Appendix D - MPlayer skin format

Appendix E - Developer Cries

Appendix F - How to send patches