[MPlayer-users] mplayer -ss overshooting

[Heitzso]

Using -ss to position mplayer to a particular place in
a VBR mpeg2 file, mplayer typically overshoots and
starts playing significantly farther into the mpg file
than asked.  I don't need frame accuracy.  GOP level
or ± half second is fine.

Is there a workaround?  Or can someone suggest another
Linux video viewer that I can drive from the command
line to start at a particular place (roughly GOP level
accuracy) in a video file?

Does the problem go away with CBR encoding?

My mpeg2 files were generated from high quality DV
captured over firewire into raw.dv files,
then compressed with:

transcode -i in -o out -x dv,dv -y mpeg2enc,mp2enc \
 -N 0x50 -b 224 --export_prof dvd-ntsc \
 -w 8000 --export_asr 2 --encode_fields b -j 0,8,0,8 \
 -F '8,-c -4 2 -2 1 -K file=matrix.txt -R 2'
mplex -v 0 -f 8 -o out.m2v out.mpa -o out.mpg

The oddness about the above command is that I was
trying to force CBR, but I assume I failed because
mplayer still significantly overshoots when told
to go to a particular place in the video file and
start playing.

Any and all clues greatly appreciated!  Including
other email lists that I should monitor or post to.

THANKS
Heitzso