[MPlayer-users] Quicktime playback on MPlayer/Linux -- Somevideos play in ultra-slow-motion?

[Phil Rhodes]

 Nope. The initial environment was plain-vanilla Debian Sarge (back when
> that was stable)

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. "I used this, when it was OK to 
use this, which you... sort of have to just know. Now, I'd probably use 
something else, which you also sort of have to just know." Nobody's keeping 
track of this. None of this is documented anywhere. None of this is in any 
book. It's dark secret knowledge which you have to find out by trial and a 
rather large amount of error. Today, X works, and Y doesn't. Tomorrow, who 
knows? Who's in charge of all this? Who's responsible for making things 
work? Mister Nobody. And thus it doesn't.

> source tree (initially taken from a release tarball, then later on
> downloaded via Subversion)

Which you have to get. And unpack. And copy to the right location, or more 
to the point, perform the right get-and-unpack-and-copy dance of destruction 
for this particular tarball or SVN checkout on this day on this particular 
configuration of this particular linux distro with the particular 
modifications you or the software engineer or the packager has made, for 
each of which any variation involves hacking shell scripts all day and 
night, sacrificing a chicken and standing on one leg in a rainstorm.

This is so typical of linux people - you make out that it's simple simply by 
ignoring the complicated bits. Compare Windows or Mac experience: download 
installer. Run installer. Done.

> This was the case a decade or so ago. It isn't the case now.

God help those who tried to do this a decade ago, if the current situation 
is considered -good-.

P