[MPlayer-dev-eng] Design questions

[Marcus Thiesen]

Hi,

I got two questions about MPlayer behavior that I believe are Design Issues 
and best addressed on this list.
First thing is the way MPlayer handles playback for multiple files. The way 
MPlayer actually loads files as I understand is works this way:
	check file type
	cache stuff
	load decoder
	load output stuff
	playback
The problem I see here is that this is what MPlayer does all over for each 
file given e.g. on command line and this leads to non continuous playback of 
files. I find it kind of annoying if I look a two part version of a file and 
I have a break in between. Would be much better if it was either switchable 
(like "keep output open") or default behavior to do the stuff required for 
playing the second file while the first file is still playing. As I 
understand it MPlayer stops reading the first file when he has everything in 
his cache. For slow lines (i.e. WLAN) where you have to wait a long time for 
16M of Cache it is somehow strange to not load something for a while (i.e the 
time when everything is in cache but the playback is not yet finished) and 
then have to wait till something is loaded (time after the playback 
finished). 
The second thing I couldn't really figure out is constant cache. Caching does 
depend on so many things (i.e. bit rate of the video, length, line speed) and 
I don't understand why it is just one constant value in the config file (or, 
I know, a command line switch). The thing I don't really understand is the 
output mplayer gives while caching, cause I don't understand what the percent 
values mean. Wouldn't cache be better a either a ratio or a time value then 
something in MB? 

Have fun, good work
	Marcus

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
|Marcus Thiesen                           ICQ# 108989768|
---------------------------------------------------------
|                   www.thiesenweb.de                   |
---------------------------------------------------------
  28A7 37CC AE2C BB6C D56D  8A3D E614 E56B 7546 75F2
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: signature
URL: <http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/attachments/20031208/3e1c6346/attachment.pgp>