[MPlayer-users] suggestions for stopping mplayer and restarting where stopped

[Loren Merritt]

On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, The Wanderer wrote:
> Jerry Geis wrote:
>
>> I am wanting to gracefully stop mplayer, then restart it at whatever
>> position is stopped at.
>> This can be for a dvd or jome mpeg clip.
>> 
>> I have tried the -ss option and it does not seem to be the answer..
>> I have inquired about seeking to a byte position and that doesnt seem
>> to be the answer..
[...]
> While you're at it, devise an algorithm - probably involving brute-force
> inspection of all frames along the way - for determining what frame in
> an MPEG file (and DVDs are considered MPEG files in this respect)
> corresponds to a given time offset. When you've done that, please
> announce it to the world (especially if it does *not* involve brute
> force), because no such thing appears to have been invented to date.
>
> All dryness aside: unfortunately, the capability you want requires the
> ability to do two things which MPlayer cannot do. Many, many people
> (myself included) would very much like to be able to do those things,
> but the problems appear to be intractable.

While -sb doesn't do exactly what he asks, a similar function could 
perform a stop/start without needing a full mapping of timestamp -> frame.

--Loren Merritt