[MPlayer-users] SVN-r32479: pcm:file=fifo does not work

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 10:23:02AM +0200, Oliver Seitz wrote:
> >Why in the world does mplayer (ffmpeg) care if audio.wav is a fifo?
> 
> Because the pcm data in wav files is organized in chunks. At the
> beginning of each chunk, the size of that chunk is stored.
> 
> So, mplayer writes audio data, and when finished, seeks back in the
> file to insert the correct chunk size. This is obviously impossible
> in a fifo.
> 
> For raw pcm, it could be possible to stream it through a fifo, but
> that depends on the implementation, I think.

Considering that all applications _producing_ audio hang the far
more reasonable approach is to look at the other end.
Probably NeroAac doesn't work correctly with pipes.
Sometimes adding doing something like "cat pipe1 > pipe2" helps
since 1) cat works with pipes 2) it adds a bit of extra buffer.