[MPlayer-users] Re: Mplayer Playlist problem (Bug?), input file problem etc.

[Alban Bedel]

Hi Konstantinos Karydas,

on Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:18:25 +0300 you wrote:

> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read
> DOCS/bugreports.html] Hello,
> a) firstly, I have been trying to use the playlist feature of the
> Mplayer but it crashes just a little while after the Mplayer starts
> playing the second mpeg2 video file. I.e. the first mpeg2 video file
> plays correctly, but when Mplayer opens the second mpeg2 file (from a
> video list file(videolist.txt) I have created), it crashes after the
> playback of just a few seconds. In the terminal, I give the command
> below: mplayer -playlist videolist.txt
> 
> So, is there a Bug in the playlist feature of the Mplayer or what am I
> doing wrong?
Wich version are you using ? If not CVS, did you tried CVS ?
If cvs is still broken we need -v output, gdb backtrace, etc see
DOCS/en/bugreports.html.

> b) secondly, I have been playing a lot with the piping features of the
> mplayer. Since I have an VIA EPIA-M 1000 and the platform is very slow
> compared to fast PC's, I am looking for a way to make things faster with
> lesser processing power.
I dunno these cpu exactly but i think it should be fast enouth if you
have a good video output.

> For this reason, the piping I have been doing to pass Mplayer commands
> the way below:
> # cmd_program | mplayer -slave somefile.mpg
>
> I have it replaced by the much faster:
> # mplayer -input file=mplcmd.txt somefile.mpg
> 
> ***But I had to use a structure like:
> ---------
> nothing
> 
> seek +15 type=2
> 
> nothing
> 
> pause
> 
> ---------
> 
> Please note that I include all the visible "new lines" between the
> commands, otherwise Mplayer does not get the commands at all. Also
> please note that the "nothing" command does not exist(!) but I have to
> use this so that: a) the Mplayer gets the first command I give (seek in
> this case). Otherwise if I had constructed the file like:
> -----
> seek +15 type=2
> 
> pause
> 
> -----
> then for some reason the Mplayer would not(!) get the seek command but
> it would implement only the "pause" command!
> b) the Mplayer will first seek to the given time (+15) and DISPLAY(!)
> the first frame at this point and then pause there. Otherwise the
> MPlayer would seek to the given time but it would not display the frame
> at this point(instead it would display paused the frame before the
> seek!) but only after you un-pause (resume playback).
> 
> 
> So, it looks like we have two 'nice' Bugs in the MPlayer! Has anyone of
> you ever noticed the mentioned problems? I would appreciate any
> suggestions.
Please try CVS it was recently fixed and stuff like
---
seek 15 3
pause

--- 
are now working.

But note that you can't use this with network sources or if the cache is
enabled. This is because the input will be read during blocking operations,
so network connection or cache filling can be interupted.
Also the file will be read only one time.

The "intended use" of this option is to allow control of mplayer from
the shell. You create a pipe somewhere and put
input=file=/path/to/my/pipe
in your config file. Then when mplayer is running you can control it
with echo for example:
echo "somecommand" > /path/to/my/pipe

But feel free to do whatever you'd like with it :)
	Albeu
 ---
Everything is controlled by a small evil group
to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs.