[MPlayer-users] How to sync mplayer using UDP or local

[Trinity Solutions / T.Reifenrath]

Hello, 

I´m new to this list and have problems to use mplayer for multiscreen Video-Playback.
Four different HD-movies should run synchronous to make a panorama-video over 4x Full-HD screens on a PC with  ATI Firepro Quadcard.
Alternative might be to use 4 PC´s and sync over UDP.

Using the latest Version of mplayer for Windows XP 



I tried the following options from the man-page:

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Synchronized playback over a network.
Multiple instances of MPlayer can synchronize playback over a network. This is useful for creating "video walls" with multiple screens controlled by different computers. Each MPlayer instance can play a different video, but they all will try to stay at the same time offset in the file. It is recommended but not necessary to encode the video files using the same codec and parameters.

The relevant options are -udp-master, -udp-slave, -udp-ip, -udp-port, and -udp-seek-threshold.

If -udp-master is given, MPlayer sends a datagram to -udp-ip (default: 127.0.0.1) on -udp-port (default: 23867) just before playing each frame. The datagram indicates the master's position in the file. If -udp-slave is given, MPlayer listens on -udp-ip/-udp-port and matches the master's position. Setting -udp-ip to the master's broadcast address allows multiple slaves having the same broadcast address to sync to the master. Note that this feature assumes an ethernet-like low-latency network connection. Your mileage may vary on high latency networks.

For example, assume 8 computers are on a network, with IP addresses 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.0.8. Assume the first computer is to be the master. Running ifconfig on all the machines lists "Bcast:192.168.0.255". On the master, run:

mplayer -udp-master -udp-ip 192.168.0.255 video1.mpg
On each slave, run:

mplayer -udp-slave videoN.mpg
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After setting –udp I get an Error message “Unknown Option”. Are there any changes in parameters ( using –master I get a message “Option –master has been removed, use –af volume instead” )

The command line for the slaves I tried looks like this:

Slave1:   mplayer -vo directx:noaccelaration -noborder -slave -geometry 512:0 -vf scale=512:288 Video1_2.mp4
Slave2:   mplayer -vo directx:noaccelaration -noborder -slave -geometry 1024:0 -vf scale=512:288 Video1_3.mp4
Slave3:   mplayer -vo directx:noaccelaration -noborder -slave -geometry 1536:0 -vf scale=512:288 Video1_4.mp4

( for testing I use just one monitor 1920x1080  with onboard Intel graphic, so I resized Videos and set position to view the Multiscreen effect)

Can anybody help me with working options ???

Thanks, Tom