[MPlayer-users] blacking screen for a predefined time

[Alexander Roalter]

Ok, here's the problem:

Movies which feature an overture (such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001, 
Ben-Hur, Spartacus and more recently Kingdom of Heaven DC) should be 
played on a closed screen in theatres, only to open the curtain at the 
logo which appears after the overture, but before the starting credits.
Normally, the video is black for these scenes (as it is the case on the 
2001 DVD), but with e.g. Ben-Hur or Spartacus, there has benn inserted a 
  picture from the opening credits with a text saying "Overture" for 
those silly people wondering if the TV-Set is damaged, when only sound 
comes, but no video...

Now, is there a possibility to blank out the screen for a predefined 
amount of time (say the first 30 seconds) and then play the normal 
video? something like a special subtitle with a big overlay which 
blackens out the screen?



Now something else: I play the movies on my computer with TV-Out on the 
TV Set. I run my display at 1280x960 pixels, but the TV-Out only 
presents 1024x768. In order to get the entire picture, I have to change 
the resolution prior to starting the movie? Is there a way to tell 
mplayer to get the information on the current screen size from the 
second screen (the one on the TV-Out) rather than the current display?




And finally something different: what's about the audio output filters 
(-af surround)? Playing dolby surround (instead of 5.1) there's some 
problem outputting something else than 6 or 2 channels to alsa (and I 
assume I'd need 4 channels for Dolby Surround)

The output reads:
AC3: 2.0 (dolby)  48000 Hz  192.0 kbit/s
Unimplemented resampler for mode 0xA -> 6 channels conversion - Contact
MPlayer developers!
Unimplemented resampler for mode 0xA -> 5 channels conversion - Contact
MPlayer developers!
Unimplemented resampler for mode 0xA -> 4 channels conversion - Contact
MPlayer developers!
Unimplemented resampler for mode 0xA -> 3 channels conversion - Contact
MPlayer developers!
Using MMX optimized resampler

any ideas?

cheers,
Alex