[MPlayer-users] Re: mencode + mplay = timeshifting

[D Richard Felker III]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 06:48:44PM +0200, David Kuehling wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> 
> > so ideally, i'd like to setup a tivo-like operation, where i can pause
> > and fastforward live tv.
> 
> > this seems as easy as running mencoder and mplayer at the same time.
> 
> > this doesn't work, however, as mplayer can't seem to handle the fact
> > that it's playfile grows as it's being played.
> 
> > is there any way to circumvent this problem? a switch perhaps, that
> > tells mplayer to recheck the length of the file once it reaches the
> > end?  or a streaming mode?
> 
> The problem is not mplayers fault.  It is just the flawed design of the
> AVI format.  AVIs are no real video streams, instead they use an index

AVI works fine without the index (except no seeking), and mplayer will
play files while they're being written by mencoder. It used to stop
playing when it got to the position that had been the end when mplayer
was started, but that was fixed 3 or 4 months ago!

Rich