[MPlayer-users] help me!! mplayer using network

[Arpi]

Hi,

> > It's the Question that drives us, Manuel Mollar :
> > > Any player for windows does not requires user to read even one line of help.
> > M$ convinced people that the computer is just a strange TV.
> 
> 	MPlayer could still stand some improvement. It would
> be nice if the program could be just a little smarter in its detection and
> utilization of system capabilities.

I think, the UNIX way is allow users to specify anything and give users all
possibilities, not only one as most program does. Windows way is make it
easy to use, speed/performance doesn't matter, their dual p4 will be enough...

Just an example:
there are 2 ways to parse AVI files: interleaved and non-interleaved.
all other programs use always the noninterleaved method, it works for all
files, but it requires 2 reading thread -> worse performance, especially
from slowly-seekable media like net or cdrom.

mplayer tries to detect format, and use interleaved mode if possible.
but this check sometimes fail (note: only fail for broken files).
if you like the slower, but always-working method, just add ni=yes to your
config file. you can't do this with other programs. and so on.

most of unliked extras of mplayer can be disabled, but they all will result
worse quality or performance, but easier to use.

mplayer is made for advanced users, not for beginner lamers.
you should learn to use it or forget to use it. it's your choice.

maybe, in the future, we'll make an userfriendly version/interface/frontend
for such people, with gui and all this messy userfriendly stuff.

but i think, if you ever learned how to use it, and you know the tricks,
you'll like it better than those easy-to-use but not finetune-able progs.

i think it's very similar to cdrecord. it has many guis and frontends, but
if you ever learned its options and understood how it works, you'll like its
commandline interface *much* better than all guis and frontends.

> > > But xine, a linux player I feel worse than mplayer, does not need any setup, even
> > > on version 0.5, and any command line options.
> > But it's worse after all. (you said)
> 
> 	Strange, isn't it? All these people persistently asking questions
> on the MPlayer list instead of giving up and using another program can
> only mean that there's something special about MPlayer...

I always wonder why does avifile list traffic decreasing the same way as
mplayer's traffic increasing :)
(hehe maybe users like our aviplay skin better than original? :))


A'rpi / Astral & ESP-team

--
mailto:arpi at thot.banki.hu
http://esp-team.scene.hu