[MPlayer-dev-eng] Some thoughts on mode switching

[Jan Andres]

Hi,

I don't know about other TVs but mine offers a range of modes at its
native resolution with different refresh rates matching those typically
found in video content, such as 29.97 Hz, 25 Hz, 23.97 Hz etc.
I observe that visual quality improves a lot in some scenes (e.g. when
the camera is panning slowly) if I set the refresh rate to match the
movie's frame rate prior to playback. Again this may not be the case on
other TVs but I suppose it wouldn't hurt, so I'm wondering if one should
add code to mplayer to match the refresh rate to the movie frame rate
automatically.

Ideally this would be an option separate from "-vm", as AFAIK the
scalers in TVs differ widely in quality and most users would probably
be best off running the TV at its native resolution with scaling
performed by mplayer, but matching the refresh rate to the movie's may
still be beneficial.

What are your thoughts on this?

Secondly, I'd like to inquire why the X11-based output drivers contain
code to grab the pointer to the output window in case "-vm" is given
(and only then). At least for my use-case, this is counterproductive:
I have my TV connected to the computer as a secondary display and
usually have mplayer play video there while continuing to work normally
(even if distracted:) on the primary display. I cannot do this when the
pointer gets grabbed by the mplayer output window on the secondary
display. So from my perspective, it'd be better if this behavior were at
least made optional.

Regards,
Jan

-- 
Jan Andres <jandres at gmx.net>