[MPlayer-dev-eng] Mplayer use on set-top box...

[Stephen Davies]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2002 hayward at slothmud.org wrote:

> Now I need to design a user interface and be able to control it with my
> X10 serial-connected remote-control.
> 
> I have three things I need to figure out regarding MPlayer, the first is
> most important, the other two are "nice" features:
> 
> 1) X10 Mouse Input:  My plan is to have a controlling process (perl
> script or something similar) that runs the different programs and
> listens on the serial port for commands.  This must be able to receive
> commands and communicate to MPlayer - e.g. FF, Rewind, Pause, Exit, etc.
> I know MPlayer receives input through X instead of STDIN, does mplayer
> provide the ability to receive commands through STDIN or a socket, or will
> I need to develop that feature?  A standard controlling interface might be
> nice to use, so that any "remote control" program can implmeent it's API.

MPlayer has an LIRC interface, and a "STDIN" interface.  One of these may
be suitable.

> 2) Overlay a menu on-top of the running movie with an interface (still
> controlled by the running process).  From what I've read, I believe this
> may be possible using SDL, but again I'm not sure how to tell MPlayer what
> to put on the screen - or if it is fully supported.

I'd be inclined to use mplayer on X (XVideo).  You can then open an
ordinary X window on top of mplayer.  Make the background the chroma-key
colour and it will look transparent.

> 3) The ability to stop MPlayer, exit it all together, then come back in
> at the exact spot we left off - this would require mplayer to save it's
> current position in the movie and resume on next "play".  This is the
> least important feature, but would definitely be nice.

Yep - I'd like that feature, too.  Perhaps you'd like to try implementing
it for us...?

Steve