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

[Andrew Junev]

Hello Fedor,

Monday, December 7, 2009, 9:06:06 AM, you wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:05 PM, Andrew Junev <a-j at a-j.ru> wrote:
>>
>> Monday, December 7, 2009, 12:03:37 AM, you wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Andrew Junev <a-j at a-j.ru> wrote:
>>>>> Hello All,
>>>>>
>>>>> I have a strange issue with "Watch Videos" on my frontend-only
>>>>> machine. mplayer starts, but video is like "paused" and I can't switch
>>>>> it to "play" mode. I can seek forward/backward, but instead of playing
>>>>> the video back, I only get a still image.
>>>>> I tried it with -vo xv and -vo vdpau, without any difference.
>>>>>
>>>>> If I quit mythfrontend and execute exactly the same player run string
>>>>> from a terminal window:
>>>>>
>>>>> mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet <filename>
>>>>>
>>>>> the file is played back just fine!!!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I checked the log, and couldn't see any difference between running
>>>>> mplayer from a command line and running mplayer from within
>>>>> mythfrontend:
>>>>>
>>>>> MPlayer SVN-r29800-4.4.2 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
>>>>>
>>>>> Playing /video.archive/back.to.the.future.1.avi.
>>>>> Cache fill: 19.97% (3350528 bytes)
>>>>> AVI file format detected.
>>>>> [aviheader] Video stream found, -vid 0
>>>>> [aviheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
>>>>> VIDEO:  [XVID]  608x336  12bpp  23.976 fps  1600.3 kbps (195.3 kbyte/s)
>>>>> Clip info:
>>>>>  Software: VirtualDubMod 1.5.4.1 (build 2178/release)
>>>>> ==========================================================================
>>>>> Forced video codec: ffh264vdpau
>>>>> Forced video codec: ffmpeg12vdpau
>>>>> Forced video codec: ffvc1vdpau
>>>>> Forced video codec: ffwmv3vdpau
>>>>> Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
>>>>> Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
>>>>> ==========================================================================
>>>>> ==========================================================================
>>>>> Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
>>>>> AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 192.0 kbit/12.50% (ratio: 24000->192000)
>>>>> Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm: mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
>>>>> ==========================================================================
>>>>> AO: [pulse] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
>>>>> Starting playback...
>>>>> Movie-Aspect is 1.81:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
>>>>> VO: [vdpau] 608x336 => 608x336 Planar YV12  [fs] [zoom]
>>>>>
>>>>> Exiting... (Quit)
>>>>>
>>>>> (this is taken from the mythfrontend log). No errors, nothing that can
>>>>> indicate an issue. But instead of a smooth playback I only get a still
>>>>> image (that changes if I press FF / RR buttons on my remote).
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there anyone else here who had such an issue?
>>>>>
>>>>> Any ideas on how to make mplayer work from mythfrontend?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks in advance!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> P.S. I have and NVidia 8600GT-based video adapter. My mplayer is
>>>>> configured to use vdpau by default:
>>>>> $ cat /home/mythtv/.mplayer/config
>>>>> vo=vdpau,xv,
>>>>> vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,
>>>>> cache=16384
>>>>> $
>>>>
>>>> I recently found a file that wouldn't play if the -vc switch was
>>>> included, but would if it was left out. ie
>>>>
>>>> mplayer -vo vdpau file.mkv would work
>>>>
>>>> mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau file.mkv wouldn't
>>>>
>>>> Mind you it was a weird file that xbmc would play as random coloured stripes!
>>
>>> You should always put a comma at the end of "vc" line: -vc foo,bar,baz,
>>> This allows mplayer to select whatever codec it would have selected
>>> without -vc if it does not like any of the specified codecs. For
>>> example, for vdpau I have:
>>> -vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,
>>
>> Yep, the comma is there for me. And mplayer log is exactly the same,
>> no matter if it's sarted from mythfrontend or from a terminal window.
>> But if it's started from a terminal window, I can watch a movie, and
>> if it's started from mythfrontend - I can only watch a slide show by
>> pressing FastForward continuously...
>>
>> Is there any way to trace what the problem is? Running mythfrontend
>> with '-v playback' doesn't provide any additional information in this
>> case...
>>

> If you can log into the machine (or throw a terminal onto another PC)
> you can try to run "ps -elf" and see what the actual command line
> arguments to mplayer are when it's launched by the frontend.

Here it is:

0 S mythtv    2177  1717  1  80   0 - 36413 hrtime 20:10 ?        00:00:00 mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet /video.archive/Asterix.avi

So these are exactly the same arguments that I'm passing to mplayer
while running from a terminal window...


Maybe mythfrontend occupies something in the video output subsystem
that causes such a strange behavior of mplayer? But there are no
errors, so mplayer probably "thinks" everything is fine...

-- 
Best regards,
 Andrew