[MPlayer-users] performance...

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 03:11:29AM +0200, Arpi wrote:
> 
> hey, who needs windows any more? :)

Anyone who wants smooth (judder free) video -- especially on TV.

There is not a single (that I have discovered yet and I have been at
it a while as many here and on V4L list will atest) workable solution
on Linux to get video out to a TV, with a nice bright, judder free
picture.

The only possibility that I know of to get judder free video on either
a monitor or TV in Linux is using a Matrox G400.  I don't think there
is any other video card providing VSYNC syncronization (in Linux
drivers anyway).  Even at that it is unstable.  Using syncfb from
Mplayer project causes my box to hang after a while playing and
Mplayer does not work with CVS version of syncfb.  mga_vid is supposed
to perform VSYNC operation of syncfb but my testing shows far more
judder with -vo mga on framebuffer than -vo syncfb on framebuffer.

However in order to get hardware scaled accelerated output to TV on
G400 you must use framebuffer and that provides a much darker picture
than on Xwindow or even VESA with my Radeon doing the same job.  Too
dark to be acceptable in fact.

Not to even mention the inability to get the G400 to "fill" the TV
screen with framebuffer timings.  I have fat black bars on the left
and right of the TV and the picture stretches too far off the top and
bottom of the screen.  The aspect ratio is horrible.

Now, if I use Xing mpeg player (or WMP for that matter) on Windows98
with my G400 and using Matrox' "DVDMax" feature to duplicate overlay
to TV-Out display, the picture is bright, smooth (no judder) and fills
the geometry of the TV screen perfectly.

I wish oh so badly I could achieve the same results with Linux.

~sigh~

b.

-- 
Brian J. Murrell