[MPlayer-users] Can't frontend mplayer?

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hallo!

I'm developing a multimedia frontend program, and I wanted to be able to 
let the user use mplayer (if installed) as one of the backends. However I 
can't seem to build a commandline and call mplayer from within my own 
program! For example, this simple program:

#include <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
system("/usr/local/bin/mplayer -vo null -quiet -framedrop 
/mymediafiles/fred.mpg >/test.log");
return 0;
}

Examining test.log (from the above) shows that mplayer parses the mpg file 
OK and gets as far as starting to play, but crashes everything (the 
keyboard is locked up, and I can't Ctrl-Alt-Backspace out of X, can't 
switch to another terminal, but the OS is still running underneath - I can 
connect via ftp). If I run mplayer from an xterm with the identical command 
line it works fine!

Can someone try the above program, of course replacing the path with some 
video file on your own system, and see if it is possible? Or maybe offer 
some suggestion as to why it behaves so strangely? :)