[MPlayer-users] RTSP streaming and caching

[Derek]

I am setting up a streaming server for large (~1.5-2GB) movie streaming on a 
local network.  I am encoding the files with mencoder and mp4creator, and 
streaming them with Darwin Streaming Server.  The resulting movies play ok 
for about 5-10 minutes, sometimes less, then I get major blocking, and the 
slow system error message.  These streams play fine with quicktime, but I 
don't want to use that because mplayer does so much more.  I have tried all 
of the switches suggested by the slow system message

-changed audio, and alsa seemed to degrade the stream slightly faster than oss
-changes in autosync caused much faster degredation
-using video drivers other than xv doesn't make a difference
-tried combinations of the broken file handlers (-nobps, -ni, -forceidx -mc 0)
   which did not make much difference either.

The only thing I can think of is that the cache isn't working, as the message 
"This stream is non-cacheable" comes up in the mplayer output.  Looking 
through the documentation and list archives, I didn't find anything that 
seemed to address this issue.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on how to get caching working, or maybe 
some other problem that might be going on here?


Here's the command line I use:

    mplayer -cache 8192 rtsp://192.168.1.1:554/sample.mp4

and this is the output I get:


MPlayer dev-CVS-060228-09:30-3.4.5 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon 64 Newcastle,Winchester,San Diego,Venice; 
Sempron Palermo (Family: 15, Stepping: 2)
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE SSE2

Playing rtsp://192.168.1.1:554/sample.mp4.
STREAM_RTSP, URL: rtsp://192.168.1.1:554/sample.mp4
Connecting to server 192.168.1.1[192.168.1.1]: 554...
rtsp_session: Not a Real server. Server type is 'DSS/5.6.0 (Build/497; 
Platform/Linux; Release/Development; BuildNote/LP64 Support; Tested/Mac OS 
X)'.
STREAM_LIVE555, URL: rtsp://192.168.1.1:554/sample.mp4
This stream is non-cacheable
Stream not seekable!
Initiated "audio/MPA" RTP subsession on port 33880
Initiated "audio/MPA" RTP subsession on port 33882
Initiated "video/MP4V-ES" RTP subsession on port 33884
Initiated "audio/MPA" RTP subsession on port 33886
WARNING: Audio stream header 0 redefined.
demux_rtp: Guessed the video frame rate as 24 frames-per-second.
        (If this is wrong, use the "-fps <frame-rate>" option instead.)
WARNING: Audio stream header 0 redefined.
VIDEO:  [mp4v]  0x0  0bpp  24.000 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 160.0 kbit/11.34% (ratio: 20000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm: mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
AO: [oss] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
[mpeg4 @ 0x86f0a08]header damaged
Error while decoding frame!
VDec: vo config request - 368 x 272 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.35:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 368x272 => 368x272 Planar YV12  [zoom]
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 449 bits! 729/729 ??% ??% ??,?% 717 0 0%
A:  32.4 V:  31.9 A-V:  0.497 ct:  0.000 754/754 ??% ??% ??,?% 742 0 0%

           ************************************************
           **** Your system is too SLOW to play this!  ****
           ************************************************

Possible reasons, problems, workarounds:
- Most common: broken/buggy _audio_ driver
  - Try -ao sdl or use the OSS emulation of ALSA.
  - Experiment with different values for -autosync, 30 is a good start.
- Slow video output
  - Try a different -vo driver (-vo help for a list) or try -framedrop!
- Slow CPU
  - Don't try to play a big DVD/DivX on a slow CPU! Try some of the lavdopts,
    e.g. -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts lowres=1:fast:skiploopfilter=all.
- Broken file
  - Try various combinations of -nobps -ni -forceidx -mc 0.
- Slow media (NFS/SMB mounts, DVD, VCD etc)
  - Try -cache 8192.
- Are you using -cache to play a non-interleaved AVI file?
  - Try -nocache.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/video.html for tuning/speedup tips.
If none of this helps you, read DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html.

A:  33.8 V:  33.1 A-V:  0.721 ct:  0.000 771/771 ??% ??% ??,?% 759 0 0%


Thank you in advance for your help
Derek