[MPlayer-users] DVD PLayback with -ss option

[D Richard Felker III]

On Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 12:20:18PM -0400, A. Campling wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Hi,
> I've been trying to use -ss option to playback a DVD using the -ss flag to 
> start the playback at some point other than the start of title 1, chapter 
> 1. For instance:
> mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 -ss 40:00
> When I do this, it takes me to the time on the disc marked 58:57.
> 
> For various other time settings, I get the same problem - never to where I 
> request, always some point forward from that.  I looked at all the numbers 
> at it appears to be a linear relationship of 1.5x what I request - but 
> never exactly that, more like 1.5 give or take a minute or so here and 
> there.
> I've verified that the times mplayer reports are correct on a component 
> player, so it's not the the OSD is wrong.
> 
> Is this a known issue?  anyone know how to correct this?

Yes, it's a known issue. The only way to reliably seek to 40:00 in
mpeg is to read and parse headers for the ENTIRE file up to that
point, which needless to say will take a bit of time... :( You can't
even optimize it with a binary search since timestamps in mpeg streams
can and often do lie/reset-to-0 at random... :(

Rich