[MPlayer-users] two question about sound in mplayer

[Jan Knutar]

On Monday 16 March 2009, peng shao wrote:

>===== [AO_ALSA] Playback open error: Device or resource busy


> I installed mplayer through svn several weeks ago so there is no
> problem with the version of it.
> So what am I supposed to do? Thank you.

My guess would be that something else is using the sound without letting 
mplayer share it.

You could try:
lsof | grep snd

to find out which applications are using it.

An example from my own system:

pulseaudi  4506        jk   26u      CHR              116,6        0t0       
3219 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p

This indicates pulseaudio is using the sound.
>
> 2. What is the function of the option "normalize sound" in
> gmplayer/mplayer? I am just curious about it..

It's probably tied to -af volnorm, which tries to make all files sound 
equally loud. It looks at the volume over a short period and adjusts it.