[MPlayer-users] Error messages when encoding HDTV

[Adam Nielsen]

> Of course it can play HDTV 1080i in realtime (and with little main cpu use
> too).

Hmm...I might have to look into this, I'd love to be able to watch live HDTV 
in realtime.

> > surprisingly enough xvinfo reports my overlay as 2048x2048 however if I
> > try to display anything wider than ~1300 pixels the picture is very
> > unstable.
> With software playback the cpu's too busy for smooth playback...

No, I don't mean the framerate is uneven, I mean the picture (overlay) is 
literally unstable - if I *pause* mplayer, some of the scanlines are 
constantly jumping around randomly overwriting other parts of the overlay, 
what appears to be each refresh.  So even though mplayer is paused and 
showing a still frame, some of the scanlines are jumping around elsewhere 
about 80 times a second...!  (80Hz refresh rate.)  It's definitely a hardware 
limitation that's not being enforced, and it has strange effects when it's 
being run way above spec.

> > Can you use the video card's hardware decoding if you want to convert the
> > MPEG-2 stream into something else?
> No - haven't tried that.   Not sure it works like that.

Judging by the name "XvMC" it does sound like the MPEG decoding is tied into 
the xv overlay, so I guess it can only be shown on-screen.  Reminds of the 
dxr3/Hollywood+, that could only decode the MPEG data into its internal 
framebuffer and display that, although I think it was possible to access the 
framebuffer in some cases (screenshots, etc.)

Cheers,
Adam.