[mythtv-users] mplayer doesn't work when started by mythfrontend

[Fedor Pikus]

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 6:20 AM, Derek & Cindi Cass
<cass at casscoenterprises.com> wrote:
> Andrew, can you open another terminal window and run top?  My guess is that
> you are maxing out the cpu when running mplayer.  I see that you are forcing
> vdpau codecs; it appears to me that your playback is falling back to ffmpeg
> with ffodivx which would indicate software decoding.  In my experience,
> mplayer will play mostly fine with software decoding in its' own window, but
> mythtv using mplayer will show a blank screen if you use software decoders
> that use too much cpu.  I think that there isn't enough cpu left for X/Myth
> to function.
>
> According to Wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PureVideo_HD#PureVideo_HD) only the Nvidia 2xx
> series of video cards will decode divx/xvid, and I don't know that mplayer
> has a vdpauffdivx codec for use at this point (although I could easily be
> wrong).
>

I've heard about mplayer getting confused and trying to use wrong
codec (i.e. applying a codec from -vc even when it should use its own
choice of codec). The following script was created for early versions
of VDPAU, it shows how to detect codec outside of mplayer and
customize the command line. You may be able to hack it to change -vc
in a way which makes your setup work.

#!/bin/bash

IAM=$0
FILE=$1

#if no input display usage
if [[ -z "$FILE" ]]; then
        echo usage: $0 /path/to/file
        exit
fi

MPLAYER=/usr/bin/mplayer

# Options for all videos: fullscreen, SPDIF passthrough DTS/AC3
BASIC_OPTS="-fs -zoom -quiet -ao alsa:device=iec958 -ac hwdts,hwac3,"
# Options for non-HD videos: force aspect to 16x9 (to ensure video
fills TV screen)
NOHD_OPTS="-aspect 16:9"
# Options for normal and lowres videos: use XV w/deinterlace filter, force 16x9
LOW_OPTS="-aspect 16:9 -vf yadif=3:1 -pp 0x33 -vo xv"

VWIDTH=$($MPLAYER -identify -vo vdpau -frames 0 "$FILE" | grep
ID_VIDEO_WIDTH | cut -c 16-25)
VCODEC=$($MPLAYER -identify -vo vdpau -frames 0 "$FILE" | grep
ID_VIDEO_CODEC | cut -c 16-25)

# all following echo commands can be uncommented for debug info
#echo "VIDEO CODEC: $VCODEC"
#echo "VIDEO WIDTH: $VWIDTH"

# Test for codec, if it's supported by VDPAU, set options to use it.
Then, check if the video is in HD,
# and if it's not, set non-HD options.
case $VCODEC in
ffh264)
        #echo -e "Playing h.264 file $FILE:\n"
        MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau"
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 1280 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$MPLAYEROPTS $NOHD_OPTS"
        fi
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 700 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS $LOW_OPTS"
        fi
        ;;
ffmpeg2)
        #echo -e "Playing MPEG2 file $FILE:\n"
        MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS -vo vdpau -vc ffmpeg12vdpau"
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 1280 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$MPLAYEROPTS $NOHD_OPTS"
        fi
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 700 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS $LOW_OPTS"
        fi
        ;;
ffwmv3)
        #echo -e "Playing WMV3 file $FILE:\n"
        MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS -vo vdpau -vc ffwmv3vdpau"
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 1280 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$MPLAYEROPTS $NOHD_OPTS"
        fi
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 700 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS $LOW_OPTS"
        fi
        ;;
# VC-1 is largely unsupported by nvidia - uncomment this section if
you're sure your card supports it.
ffvc1)
        #echo -e "Playing VC-1 file $FILE:\n"
        MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS -vo vdpau -vc ffvc1vdpau"
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 1280 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$MPLAYEROPTS $NOHD_OPTS"
        fi
        if [ $VWIDTH -lt 700 ] && [ $VWIDTH != 0 ]; then
                MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS $LOW_OPTS"
        fi
        ;;
*)
        #echo -e "Playing normal file $FILE:\n"
        # Use XV and yadif filter with 'normal' (DiVX, XViD, old WMV,
etc.) files, and force 16:9
        # -vf filters only seem to work with XV, or at least they
don't work w/VDPAU
        MPLAYEROPTS="$BASIC_OPTS $LOW_OPTS"
        ;;
esac

#echo "mplayer options are: $MPLAYEROPTS"

$MPLAYER $MPLAYEROPTS "$FILE"


-- 
Fedor G Pikus (fpikus at gmail.com)
http://www.pikus.net
http://wild-light.com