Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Wed, 25 May 2005, David Moberg wrote:

> > So, -noaspect and -vc ffmpeg12 are recommended for use in x11 on a
> > 'slow' computer (if you lose sound), but if you have a VESA 2.0
> > video card use that instead.  Since you can't switch vts in x11
> > with the -vc switch it has no advantages over straight vesa video.
>
> Except that you can resize the window at will and do other things
> in X at the same time.

What would I want to do at the same time as playing a DVD?  Anything I did 
even in the background would just slow down the DVD playback. 
And I could not find any way to make the movie-image larger or smaller, 
just move it around.


> > I tried playing this B&W DVD, and also a color DVD with reduced color depth.
> >
> > Xvesa -screen 640x480x1 &rxvt  and then playdvd (default video).
> > It won't play in mono:  X11 error:  BadValue
> >
> > 4-bit color:  X11 error:  BadValue
> > 8-bit color (Xvesa looks okay so far with no icewm)
> > No accelerated colorspace conversion found
> > BGR not supported, please contact the developers
> > FATAL:  Cannot initialize video driver
>
> MPlayer can't dither video on its own.
>
> > Mplayer appears to require at least 16-bit color.  Abiword and
> > Links2 accept 8-bit color (I think).

> It may work if the movie is actually 1-bit color (DVDs are always
> color. A B&W movie on a DVD is like taking a color scan of a B&W
> photo)

We figured they had created a color movie in two colors.  Someone once 
sent me a photograph of a black and white letter to translate, in 
truecolor, so that when I tried to print I got dark grey on light grey.
But it still seems to require less cpu time to play a black and white 
movie in color than a color movie in color.

> > A SURPRISE:
> >
> > I then tried 800x600x16 without a window manager, and without
> > -framedrop. Occasional colored blocks appear in this BW movie near
> > the beginning (buffer still filling up?) but it straightens out
> > shortly.  The sound and speed are just fine.  Apparently icewm made
> > just enough difference to overflow the buffer on a BW movie, which
> > uses less cpu than color.
>
> Now that is certainly not what I expected.

Me neither.  When we first started to watch library videotapes, we hooked 
up a green TTL monitor to the VCR and watched in black and green.  Since 
then we have collected RGB (old Commodore) monitors that we can plug into 
the VCR instead.  We watched the olympics once using the VCR tuner.

> > Without a window manager, -noaspect had no effect (nor did it in vesa).
> > Maybe the window manager is actually using up more cpu time to
> > change the aspect to normal monitor ratios instead of movie-screen
> > ratios (the way it was filmed)?
>
> I don't think the window manager is directly doing that. MPlayer may
> not support -noaspect without a window manager.


What I was trying to say is that maybe the movie was actually filmed in 
the 1:33:1 ratio and -noaspect changes that to something that fills the 
monitor screen better.


> > Colored movie without a window manager:  sound already out of sync
> > and then cut out, but later than usual, meaning the buffer took
> > longer to fill and overflow?
>
> Colored movie has more information, which means more work for the
> CPU. I cannot understand how icewm causes this.

What we compared was BW in X11 with and without icewm and it worked 
without icewm (or any wm) and did not work for long with icewm.

Color did not work with or without icewm (except with -framedrop).

So it is a combination of icewm and color that overloads the buffer.

> > So to watch a BW movie you have a choice of:
> >
> > vesa if available (needs vesa 2.0 video chip)
> > x11 (with icewm) -vc ffmpeg12 -framedrop
> > x11 (without wm)
> >
> > Vesa fills the entire width of the screen, x11 leaves about 1/2" at
> > each side of our 17" monitor in 800x600 Xvesa mode, so I prefer it.
>
> These are default sizes.

Don't other sizes use more cpu?  I can also adjust the monitor directly.

> > For a color movie, you have only the first two choices.
> >
> > Was there anything else I should have tested?
>
> No. Thanks, everyone, for squishing the bugs!
>
> > The latest mplayer plays mp3s (offline) very loudly, and it also
> > plays DVDs louder than #1.  Why?  We have the sound output plugged
> > into the 'aux' input of a radio with a volume control.  I can't try
> > it online jsut now because I am online on this other computer
> > (could not go online while watching dvds on the same computer).
>
> That is one unponderable question. I didn't change _anything_ related
> to sound volume. MPlayer allows you to adjust volume. See mplayer --help
> or just use * and / to increase and decrease, respectively.

These work in small increments.  I had to push them at least 10 times to 
hear a noticeable difference.  Thanks, I can use mplayer with unpowered 
speakers and powered sound card now.
 >
> David
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org