[MPlayer-dev-eng] Advice on the use/modification of mplayer

[David Ayre]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on a problem i'm not sure how to approach, but
wondering if MPlayer could be modified to do this.  I'm planning on
developing custom software for an art installation.  Ideally, the
software would take multiple video files and play them simultaneously in
different locations on the screen.  The screen would be split into 15
different regions, each region is designated by a letter as seen below
(region A, B etc..)

AABBCCDDEE
AABBCCDDEE
FFGGGGGGHH
FFGGGGGGHH
IIGGGGGGJJ
IIGGGGGGJJ
KKLLMMNNOO
KKLLMMNNOO

Some of you may wonder why not just resample the individual clips into a
single video file.  This isn't an option due to the nature of the
installation.  It has to happen in real time.  I'm not sure how to
approach this problem.  Could a single mplayer be modified to perform
this ?  Could this be done running multiple mplayers positioned in a
grid, one for each region ?

My questions are these:

Can Mplayer be modified to do this ?  
What are the major issues that you see with implementing this
(performance bottlenecks/hardware restrictions etc) ?  
Where should i start looking in the code as a point of modification (if
possible) ?

Any information or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in
advance,

dave at ayre dot ca