[MPlayer-users] [draft] mplayer quickstart guide

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 12:56:01AM +0000, Arpi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > 2) A discussion of the pros and cons of various MPEG4 codecs to help
> > the user decide which one(s) to use:
> > 
> > libavcodec -- overall the most bugfree/compatible and fastest, but
> > needs to be downloaded separately it using CVS. Plays almost all MPEG4
> > variants: msmpeg4v2, msmpeg4v3 (DivX 3.x), mpeg4 (DivX 4/5, OpenDivX,
> > ISO MPEG4), and h263(+), etc. GPL.
> it's included in release versions. only cvs users need to get it from ffmpeg
> cvs

I know lots of times in between releases, users grab the CVS snapshots
from the website, and IIRC those don't include lavc. Perhaps the
CVS-snapshot generating script could be updated to add lavc to the
tarball as well? IMO this would help lots of newbies.

> > XVID -- Based on the last version of OpenDivX (GPL), with DivX 4/5
> > functionality reimplemented. Does not play DivX 3.x files.
> 
> does it play divx5 at all?
> it failed even to play some divx4 files i have...
> imho xvid is encoder only, at leats its decoder is buggy and slower than
> libavcodec

I never had trouble with any DivX4 files. I only have a few encoded
with the ProjectMayo codec though -- most of my movies are either
DivX3 or else encoded with lavc. No idea if it decodes DivX5 right,
but for some reason I was under the impression it did.

> > Win32 codecs -- mostly obsoleted, but some buggy DivX 3.x files that
> > display weird artifacts (bars, hue shift, etc.) when played with newer
> > codecs might look right with the original DivX 3 dll. Also includes
> > internal postprocessing.
> and it is REQUIRED for playback of .wmv (7/8), and many divx avis/asf
> with 'divx audio' (really .wma).

If you read my email, I was talking about various MPEG4 codecs, so
only the DivX-related Win32 codecs. Sorry, I should have been more
precise and said "Win32 DivX codecs"...

> > Someone else should check all this info, since I just put it together
> > from memory. Maybe also mention how to switch between compiled-in
> > codecs at runtime with -vc.
> 
> > Finally, wouldn't this discussion be more appropriate on -dev-eng? I'm
> not, as it should be commented by teh users, who actually will use/read this
> text. you know, developers are too cubehead tech ppl to comment such thing

Ah, good point. :)

Rich