[MPlayer-users] asf mmst streaming problems

[Jake Benilov]

Hello,

I've been trying to regularly "download" (dump to disk) WMV3 streams
off a website; here are a couple of example commands that i'm calling:

mplayer -noframedrop -dumpstream -dumpfile "Daily Show - 2005.09.21 -
Stewart - Closer Look - Press Secretaries.wmv"
mms://a874.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/874/9950/v001/comedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_10119.wmv

mplayer -noframedrop -dumpstream -dumpfile "Daily Show - 2005.09.21 -
Celebrity Interview - Ricky Gervais.wmv"
mms://a1740.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1740/9950/v001/comedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/celeb/celeb_10119.wmv

Frustratingly, my downloads are frequently fail. Mplayer falls over
with the following message:

read error:: Invalid argument
pre-header read failed
Core dumped ;)

I tracked this message down in the code to
libmpdemux\asf_mmst_streaming.c

I poked around further and hypothesised that the error has something
to do with a dropped connection to the server. I then tested a hunch
by repeating my download and disabling my network connection during
the process. And presto, I got the same message, and upon repeating it
I got the message:

read error:: Invalid argument
media data read failed
Core dumped ;)

(which is from the same function in the code).

This all probably makes sense, because my internet connection is a bit
dodgy: it's shared amonst many people and also it's through a proxy;
as a result, it must drop out periodically.

As a result of this "adventure", I have several requests/bug reports to make:
1) Is it possible to make the error message less cryptic? Users
shouldn't really have to dig through the source to figure out the
meaning of errors.

2) These streams that I'm using are diagnosed as "not seekable".
However this isn't the case as windows media player (and other
programs) have no problems resuming from the failure point in the
video stream when the connection is dropped. If the streams could be
made resumable under MPlayer, then interruptions would not be so bad,
in the sense that the dumping could just proceed from that point, and
wouldn't have to be started again.

3) If while viewing one of the above URLs, the user tries to seek
forward, Mplayer crashes.

The "-v" output is included below. I'm running an AMD Athlon64 3000+
S939 under WinXP SP2; these problems manifest themselves under the
latest CVS build.

Regards,

Jake Benilov

========================================================

MPlayer Sherpya-MinGW-20050917-3.4.4 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices  (Family: 8, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx


CommandLine: '-v' '-noframedrop' '-dumpstream' '-dumpfile' 'Daily Show - 2005.09
.14 - Stewart - What, Me Sorry.wmv' 'mms://a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.
net/7/1437/9950/v001/comedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_1
0116.wmv'
init_freetype
get_path('font/font.desc') -> 'c:/programs/mplayer/mplayer/font/font.desc'
font: can't open file: c:/programs/mplayer/mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can't open file: /usr/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Using MMX (with tiny bit MMX2) Optimized OnScreenDisplay
Using Windows native timing
get_path('input.conf') -> 'c:/programs/mplayer/mplayer/input.conf'
Parsing input config file c:/programs/mplayer/mplayer/input.conf
Input config file c:/programs/mplayer/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 42 binds
get_path('jon_10116.wmv.conf') -> 'c:/programs/mplayer/mplayer/jon_10116.wmv.con
f'
Playing mms://a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1437/9950/v001/comedyst
or.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_10116.wmv.
WINSOCK2 init: 0
Filename for url is now mms://a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1437/99
50/v001/comedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_10116.wmv
Filename for url is now mms://a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1437/99
50/v001/comedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_10116.wmv
STREAM_ASF, URL: mms://a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1437/9950/v001
/comedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_10116.wmv
Trying ASF/UDP...
  ===> ASF/UDP failed
Trying ASF/TCP...
Resolving a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net for AF_INET...
Connecting to server a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net[84.53.146.35]:1755
 ...
connected
unknown object
unknown object
file object, packet length = 2888 (2888)
unknown object
unknown object
stream object, stream id: 2
stream object, stream id: 4
unknown object
data object
mmst packet_length = 2888
Cache size set to 64 KBytes
STREAM: [null] mms://a1437.v99506.c9950.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1437/9950/v001/c
omedystor.download.akamai.com/9951/com/dailyshow/jon/jon_10116.wmv
STREAM: Description: mms and mms over http streaming
STREAM: Author: Bertrand, Reimar Doeffinger, Albeu
STREAM: Comment: originally based on work by Majormms (is that code still there?
)
Stream not seekable!
read error:: Invalid argument
pre-header read failed
Core dumped ;)
WINSOCK2 uninit

Exiting... (End of file)