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[sindi keesan <keesan AT SDF.ORG>]

Download http://keesan.freeshell.org/bl/movgrab
and chmod +x if necessary.

This was compiled by someone for puppy linux.  Search the puppy forums
for a long discussion of how to use it.  There is also a youtube-dl
which is 10X as big and won't work with BL.

Download http://keesan.freeshell.org/bl/mplayer-1.0pre7try2-uclibc.gz
and gunzip (and chmod +x if necessary).

It works with my 500MHz Pentium III.  Probably does not support i586
(for which I compiled mplayer sound-only) or p54C (PI).  Not sure
about Pentium II - I have one I can try that plays 240p in puppy.
Any glibc will work since it is uclibc-static.

They can both go into /usr/local/bin.

To fetch a movie, use links or lynx to go to youtube and search on 
keywords, then copy the URL http://youtube.com/watch?v=........

movgrab -f 3gp URL  - downloads to whatever directory you are in.
movgrab -f flv -o /path/to/filename URL - specify file location and name.

-f 3gp - 320x180  (youtube offers 144)
-f flv - 400x280  (youtube offers 240)
-f mp4 - 480x360  (360p in Youtube parlance)

This version of mplayer (but nothing else that I have for BL)
will play all the formats.

movgrab - long help file with more commands and suggestions.

In a terminal, cd to where you want to download to.
Start the download.  3gp downloads at about 50K/sec
and flv and mp4 at about 240K/sec for me at 'up to 3MBps'.
So do not choose 3gp.  If the computer is under 200Mhz you
can't use this mplayer anyway.

As it downloads, you can play the file, which does not acquire
the mp4 or flv ending until it is fully downloaded.
So point it at the first few letters:  mplayer ....... Movie*
not *.flv.  On my slow connection, it still downloads about
4X as fast as it can play (don't recall if I tested 240p
or 360p but it kept up with them fine, no stalls).

My 233Mhz Thinkpad with 96MB memory plays flv well with about 60-70% of 
cpu.  Very little memory is needed by mplayer. (Tested with puppy linux 
mplayer, which I know supports that cpu).

My 400Mhz Thinkpad plays flv with 50% of cpu but 360p is jerky.

My 500MHz DELL 3700 plays mp4 despite a warning that my computer is too 
slow.  If it starts to look jerky use -framedrop.

In a terminal (if your computer has framebuffer support)

mplayer -vo fbdev moviename

In X

mplayer -vo x11 moviename

Don't forget to load the sound modules first.


/ - reduce volume
* - increase volume
spacebar - pause and resume
Left and right arrows - back and forward (10 sec?)
Down and up arrows - back and forward more
Page down and up - even more

-fs is supposed to be fullscreen.

When I tried it, the small video moved to center of screen and the
background text went away. I think some video chips will do fullscreen.
Same small screen with black background using fbdev or x11.
Same effect if I start without -fs and type Alt-F10 - the window
becomes fullscreen but the movie does not.

In puppy linux, youtube-viewer lets you search and play with no
need to copy files but it won't work in BL or even puppy 4
(missing some perl files). I used Lupu 5.2.8.6 (latest).

Also on some computers Alt-F10 gives you full-screen play.

Anyone know how to make grub4dos recognize BL2 and DOS?

Sindi Keesan