[MPlayer-users] Nobody knows ...

[Adam Nielsen]

> I record some video with VDR and can see the ercords with VDR through 
> the same output. All this is done with a remote from my armchair.

Yes, this is because you're recording MPEG-2 shows, and then watching MPEG-2 
shows.  It works because it's MPEG-2, which your card knows how to decode.

> I can play this movies and DVD through a matrox G550 tv-out

That's because the Matrox card does not do any decoding, mplayer decodes the 
data and sends it directly to the TV out - so you can watch anything mplayer 
can decode.

> > If you leave off the -vc switch but use the proper -vo switch,
> ie -vo mpegpes ?

I don't think so, because your DVB card supports MPEG-2 only, think of mpegpes 
as hardware ***MPEG-2*** decoding.  If it's not MPEG-2, it won't work.

> mplayer film.vdr -vo mpegpes , work fine:

Yes, because film.vdr is MPEG-2.

> mplayer film.avi -vo mpegpes

No, because film.avi is *not* MPEG-2.

> mplayer film.avi -vo mpegpes -vf scale=720:576

No, because MPEG-4 is still MPEG-4, regardless of what you resize it to.

I'm not sure how you do it with a DVB card, but I have a hardware MPEG-2 
decoder card (a Hollywood+ or DXR3) and it works in a similar way:

	mplayer file.mpg -vo dxr3

This uses the dxr3 output driver (which, like your DVB card, only supports 
MPEG-2) however if I do this:

	mplayer divx-movie.avi -vo dxr3

then divx-movie.avi is converted to MPEG-2 on-the-fly and sent to the decoder 
card.  This means I can play any file mplayer supports, and it will convert 
it to MPEG-2 so that my card can decode it.

I'm not sure what you'd use for a DVB card (-vo dxr3 certainly won't work), so 
I guess it's just a matter of finding the correct output plugin (I don't 
think it's -vo mpegpes, because I think the dxr3 driver uses that 
internally.)

If you can't find it, you could try starting a new thread on this mailing 
list, but make sure you use a proper subject - most people won't bother 
reading a thread titled "Nobody knows", but they probably would read a thread 
called "How can I play MPEG-4 through an MPEG-2 decoder card?"

Cheers,
Adam.