[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] Make aa video output a bit more workable

[Ababilov Alexei]

To tell the truth, I tried to save backwards compatibility and the
spirit of the original vo_aa.cc. So excuse my timidity.
vo_aa.cc was written in 2001. However, I cannot understand why an
explicit testing for "linux" driver is done. The old aalib-1.2 (1998)
does the following: try to initialize at first the recommended
drivers, then try all compiled drivers in this order: dos, X11, linux,
slang, curses, os2vio, stdout, stderr. So does the new aalib-1.4
(2001).
I can make a conclusion that no checks should be done in mplayer:
aalib does this job perfectly. User can explicitly choose a driver
(aa:driver=slang), and if it fails to initialize, one of the rest
drivers will be used. I propose to remove "linux" driver tests from
mplayer (mplayer-aa-1-linux.patch).

We have three nice not-X11 drivers (linux, slang, and curses; stdout
and stderr just break the console :) ). MPlayer's messages make break
the picture, so I usually add a command line option "-msglevel
all=-1". I propose to disable all messages (set mp_msg_level_all = -1
or something like this) if stdout and/or stderr are not redirected.
The same thing should be done with caca and fbdev/fbdev2 drivers.

2011/3/7 Reimar Döffinger <Reimar.Doeffinger at gmx.de>:
> That's not a good idea anyway really. With the right resolution characters can be square.
I propose to set monitor_pixel_aspect to default value -1. Then,
aspect_save_screenres will be changed as in the
mplayer-aa-2-monitor.patch. So, vo_aa just tests monitor_pixel_aspect
and sets it to 0.5 if it equals to (-1). BTW, I haven't seen square
characters nor in console, nor in X terminal emulators.

2011/3/8 Carl Eugen Hoyos <cehoyos at ag.or.at>:
> Alessio Ababilov <ilovegnulinux <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> AA library has a nice display driver called "slang". It works
>>   even if /dev/vcsaXX is not writable. It would be better if
>> "slang" were recommended to aalib.
>
> Does this justify an additional change to this output line?
> "driver    set recommended aalib driver (X11,curses,linux)"
Yes, I've made appropriate changes.

>> Also, the "linux" aa driver should be recommended explicitly.
>
> Could you explain what this fixes?
> (I assume it is unrelated to the slang change.)
I think that it was strange: to check that the "linux" driver is
workable and to _not_ recommend it to aalib :)

Alessio Ababilov
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