[MPlayer-matrox] Any way to run mplayer continuously for analog rebroadcasting?

[Brian Thompson]

Hi, we're currently using mplayer to decode a video stream
from another university on a 24/7 basis and using the matrox
G550 tv-out to rebroadcast the stream in analog form to quite
a few locations over an existing CATV system. The stream
that is being provided to us is divided up by program/event.
This makes mplayer quit at the end of each event.

At the moment we just have a script which simply restarts
mplayer after the end of each event. This is causing several
minor problems though:

a) We're using "-cache 1024 -cache-min 40" which causes
a few seconds of delay before the matrox tv-out starts outputting
video at the start of each event. At the start of each event while
the buffer is filling to the 40% mark, the matrox tv-out doesn't
send out proper NTSC sync, which is seen as an unprofessional
glitch between each event.

b) It takes a while at the end of each event for the buffer to
empty. That amount of video is then lost at the beginning
of the next event since the next event has already started to
stream to us and we're still playing the buffered portion of the
previous event (the next mplayer process hasn't started yet
on our end).

It would be ideal if there was a way to keep mplayer from
quiting at the end of an event and try to reopen the same
stream, preferably while the remaining buffer is still playing
in order to avoid the loss of the first few seconds of the next
event. If no content is available or while it's trying to reopen
the URL and refill it's cache, the matrox card would output
a blank/black tv-out image with proper sync.

Does such a "continuous mode" exist and I'm just not able
to find it in the command line options, or is this something that
can be requested for a future release?

Thanks for any input/suggestions.

-Brian

Brian Thompson
College of Engineering
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI USA
brian [@] eng.wayne.edu