Hi I come from a successfully 6-months mplayer 0.91/CVS experience: the primary reason of this choice was the chance to re-encoder on the flying streams (like RealVideo->DivX), then I've appreciated lightweith and speed of mplayer. Also: mplayer plays EVERYTHING, also those files who neither WinMP or DivX Player doesn't, and that makes me happy Now the subject. I'm trying to install 1.0 pre1 snapshot available on my Debian Unstable. Here's the feedback: 1) configuring and making: no problems at all, just run ./configure || make, everything runs fine 2) configuring with GUI: there's a dipendence problem, probably due to some unstable packages conflict: $./configure [...] Checking for gtk version ... Error: the GUI requires GTK (which was not found) $ this is because I can't install libglib1.2-dev package. Debian problem. Anyway, no hurry to got a GUI now: also in 0.91 the gui wasn't working properly due to conflicts between debian mplayer and CVS' one. 3) mencod-ing: really good: everything I did with my 0.91cvs version after a lot of time spending on documentation on how to stream this and that, now it'w working by default (assuming you have codecs properly installed) I didn't install new version (both mencoder and mplayer) on the system as root, but I'm using it from the same directory to compare installed (and working fine, so I care about it) version and the new 1.0 pre1. So first thing I've tried is to grab a typicaly realvideo stream file I use to take everyday: $ ./mencoder -mc 10 -ovc divx4 -oac mp3lame rtsp://mm4.rai.it/raitre/blob/ultimo/blob.rm -o blob.avi it works good, just like the previous version. 4) mplay-ing: I've just done 1 attempt at now, and some has failed. specifically: for the 'blob.avi' file just taken as described above, I got no audio If I use the 0.91cvs version installed on the system, it works instead: so I am sure mencoder has worked fine. Maybe something related to codecs.conf format? of course at now on my system all configuration files are designed for the 0.91 series. That's the output:

$ ./mplayer blob.avi MPlayer 1.0pre1-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team

CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Coppermine,Geyserville (Family: 6, Stepping: 6)Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0 Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE

Reading config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf Warning unknown option skin at line 51 Reading config file /home/maxbini/.mplayer/config Reading /home/maxbini/.mplayer/codecs.conf: This codecs.conf is too old and incompatible with this MPlayer release! at line 6 Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: This codecs.conf is too old and incompatible with this MPlayer release! at line 6 Using built-in default codecs.conf Font /home/maxbini/.mplayer/font/font.desc loaded successfully! (206 chars) Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts. Using usleep() timing Can't open input config file /home/XXX/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory Input config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 52 binds

Playing blob.avi Cache fill: 0,00% (0 bytes) AVI file format detected. VIDEO: [DX50] 176x132 24bpp 25,000 fps 494,9 kbps (60,4 kbyte/s) Clip info: Software: MEncoder 1.0pre1-3.3.2 ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3 MP3lib: init layer2&3 finished, tables done AUDIO: 22050 Hz, 2 ch, 16 bit (0x10), ratio: 6000->88200 (48,0 kbit) Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm:mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3) ========================================================================== vo: X11 running at 1024x768 with depth 16 and 16 bpp (":0.0" => local display) ========================================================================== Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4) ========================================================================== Checking audio filter chain for 22050Hz/2ch/16bit -> 22050Hz/2ch/16bit... AF_pre: af format: 2 bps, 2 ch, 22050 hz, little endian signed int AF_pre: 22050Hz 2ch Signed 16-bit (Little-Endian) Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. Audio: no sound Starting playback... This file was encoded with DivX501 Build20020416 VDec: vo config request - 176 x 132 (preferred csp: Planar YV12) VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0) Movie-Aspect is 1,33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect. VO: [xv] 176x132 => 176x132 Planar YV12 V: 1,0 27 73% 1% 0,0% 0 0 93%% Exiting... (Quit)

any idea? 5) Today I've found auto a type of RealPlayer streaming that mplayer can't grab, neither 0.91 or 1 version. Sorry: I can't remember from which pages I've taken streams data (aol music portal, but where?), but they are the following. this is "38ydhjkds93_o93eu79ds.rm" file content:

rtsp://demand1.stream.aol.com:554/aol/us/aolmusic/artists/wmg/rem/38ydhjkds93_o93eu79ds.rm?cloakport=80,554,7070 --stop-- pnm://demand1.stream.aol.com:7070/aol/us/aolmusic/artists/wmg/rem/38ydhjkds93_o93eu79ds.rm?cloakport=80,554,7070

if your try to run $ realplay rtsp://demand1.stream.aol.com:554/aol/us/aolmusic/artists/wmg/rem/38ydhjkds93_o93eu79ds.rm?cloakport=80,554,7070 it works fine. But mplayer fails. From what I can understand, this 'rm' file isn't a real 'streaming' file, but that's another 'index' file like the one I've downloaded to extract the above streaming informations. Also, there is a specification of 'cloaked ports'. I don't know if it known already, or if it is really possible, but maybe this can help you (developers) to understand an eventual problem 6) the 0.91 blank GUI problem. As other users (probably a few) I'm experiencing a problem when running gmplayer: the gui show only the 'shape', but everything is blank inside it. I've found out some things: it's not a permission-related problems (I've already checked them all in past months), but looks like my compiled version GUI is not working:

$ which gmplayer /usr/local/bin/gmplayer

so running $ gmplayer shows the blank GUI if I run $ /usr/bin/gmplayer (the debian version) the GUI just works good. What could be wrong? it's an problem in the CVS version, or a conflict with the installed debian package, maybe configuration files? Finished. Thank you for your time :) regards Max -- Massimiliano Bini <maxbini@inwind.it>