[Mplayer-advusers] some suggestions etc. for mplayer

[Mike Melanson]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Gabucino wrote:

> Some notes (probably you already know about them, but just in case) :
>  - is it needed to read the whole file before playing? I don't have a real
>    fast HDD :(

	RoQ files don't have index chunks like general media formats (AVI,
ASF, MOV, RM, etc.), so the only way to get an index in advance is to
traverse the file. Unless I forgo building the index and just have the
demuxer traverse the frames until EOF as it's reading, which might
make sense since there are no key frames, so no reason to keep a
past record of frames. Based on your feedback, I may go that route.

>  - detects wrong aspect (RTCW intro, as always:), -aspect 16:7 fixes it
>    Does RoQ actually contain aspect value?

	I don't quite follow you here. Does this mean the frame's
dimensions are messed up? All I do is read the movie's width and height
from the file and let MPlayer worry about the rest.

>  - a/v desync, no real seeking - probably already on your TODO list..

	RoQ files have the same issue as FLI files in that frames often
depend on previous frames to have been decoded first, and the format
doesn't support the notion of key frames. So I don't believe seeking will
happen. The file format wasn't designed for it (it was designed to be
played once from start to finish in the course of playing a game, after
all).

	A/V desync: Does this mean that the audio and video don't match
up? I started to notice that in the RTCW intro, but the excerpt was so
brief, that I couldn't tell for sure (a movie has to progress for awhile
before you really notice sync problems).

>  - strange values in status bar ;)
> 
> A:37583.4 V:  50.0 A-V:37533.422 ct:  4.996  1200/1200  14%  5%  0.5% 0 0 47%

	I've never understood what these numbers mean in the first place,
so I've always qualified them as "strange"...:) Can you explain them, or
is the answer in TFM?

	Another problem I'm noticing that I can't account for is that when
I use the xmga target, the color is okay, but when I use the xv target,
the U and V planes are reversed. Any clues on this?

	Thanks...
-- 
	-Mike Melanson