[MEncoder-users] Mencoder soft telecine broken; fix included

[The Wanderer]

xiphmont at xiph.org wrote:

> On 9/30/07, The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> xiphmont at xiph.org wrote:
>> 
>>> Oh, I should mention-- I'm *not* using a recent copy of mplayer
>>> due to 32/64 bit issues, I let someone else deal with the
>>> crosscompile for me :-)
>>>
>>> deep-space-bananafish:~/g/57> mplayer32 --version
>>> MPlayer 2:0.99+1.0pre7try2+cvs20060117-0ubuntu8 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
>> 
>> That's... significantly old. Its behaviour in any specific context
>> cannot safely be assumed to be anywhere near the same as the
>> current development version, or even the most recent release. For
>> anyone using a recent version, your reports based on this old
>> version are in all probability effectively useless.
> 
> *I* am not reporting anything.  Someone else is reporting a problem.

I did not say that you were reporting a problem.

You are reporting, *to the person who is having a problem*, that
"MPlayer behaves in such-and-such a way for me". However, because that
person is not using such an outdated version, your reports of what works
or does not work for you are not going to be useful to them.

Is that more clear?

> I mentioned the age for a good reason, that is, 'evidence suggests it
> used to work, and something specific broke it.'

I did not see your comment in that light. I will take your word that you
intended it that way, but it sounded to me more like a mirror image of
the type of user who says "I'm using $old_version, and $new_feature is
not present" - expecting that the behaviour will be comparable.

Ergh. This sounds more negative and hostile than I want it to.My primary
point was that it is neither polite nor appropriate to base
recommendations to someone who is not using an old version on the
behaviour of that old version without making such clear up front.

> And no, thanks, I don't feel like upgrading to a known broken
> version.

I was not recommending that you do so, only that you not base
suggestions of what might work for someone else on such an old version.

(I might indeed recommend that you install the latest version, at least
alongside your current one, if only because since you are IIRC a
developer of a not entirely unrelated project it seems unconscionable to
fall so far behind the times. However, I have not done so thus far, and
the decision does remain up to you.)

>>> Unknown option on the command line: --version
>>> 
>>> (and yet, it printed the version like I asked :-)
>> 
>> That's because the version is part of the banner, which gets
>> printed automatically unless the MPLAYER_VERBOSE environment
>> variable is set in such a way as to prevent it.
>> 
>> MPlayer does not use '--foo' options, anyway; if there even were
>> such an option, it would be '-version'. As it happens, there is
>> not, because there is no need for it.
> 
> Here on the Internets, that ':-)' meant it was a joke.

Yes, I know what the smiley means. It still seemed reasonable to
conclude, from the fact that you felt it worth mentioning (and the fact
that you thought to use such an option in the first place), that you did
not know the syntax involved; therefore I explained it. If you already
knew, no harm done; if you did not know, then now you do.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.