[MPlayer-users] Re: SVN Compilation in Win XP (MinGW)

[John Brown]

Alexander Bokovikov wrote:
>>John Brown wrote:
>
>>Anyway, MSYS includes its own version of "make". This is also called
>>make.exe and installed in the MSYS bin directory
>
>Yes, you're correct! Moreover, MSYS "knows" how to call it! In fact I have 
>none of bin directories now in my PATH variable, and nevertheless MSYS 
>works nice.

Are you sure? MSYS maintains its own environment variables. It adds your 
Windows PATH to the end of the MSYS path, so if you run "echo $PATH" in the 
MSYS console, you should see something like:
/usr/local/bin:/mingw/bin:/bin:/<windows-path-in-MSYS-syntax>, where /bin is 
the MSYS bin and /usr/local/bin is the default location for executables if 
you did not specify --prefix.



>I'd like to compile MEncoder. I don't care too much about MPlayer itself, 
>because I don't use it now, though I'd use it in Mac OS, where I can't see 
>MPEG-4 movies now, because QT does not recognize DiVX/XVID codecs.
>
MPlayer and MEncoder executables are both built by default. You can 
--disable-mplayer or --disable-mencoder if you wish.

>But my main concern now is to compile MEncoder in Windows with as many 
>"input" formats as possible now, and with at least FLV format as output. 
>I'd appreciate it if you'll let me know what options and external 
>libraries/packages should I use for that. Do JPEG/PNG/GIF libraries a 
>matter here?

You can use MEncoder to combine a sequence of JPEG/PNG/GIF still images into 
a movie if you have the corresponding libraries installed. If you have such 
a collection of JPEG images, perhaps produced by a webcam, and you want to 
make them into a real movie, then you need the JPEG library.

The output container formats are handled by libavformat, which is included 
with MPlayer. I do not think that MEncoder needs any external libraries to 
create a file in any of the supported container formats (AVI, MPEG and 
others). Sometimes, external codecs are required, and sometimes MEncoder 
needs the codec to decode, and sometimes it needs it to encode.

For example, using the external AMR codecs, MPlayer can play 3GP videos 
(commonly used on GSM cell phones). However, you cannot use MEncoder to 
convert an AVI or MPEG file to 3GP, because it cannot encode AMR sound; it 
can only decode it. I also doubt that it can save a file in the 3GP 
container format.

>AFAIU, ZLib is needed for some MOV's import, right? And what other packages 
>are? Is H264 required to have H264 decoding ability? Is it not included 
>into inner codecs?

To be honest, I don't know for a fact when MPlayer and MEncoder need 
external libraries or codecs, and when they do not. The MPlayer 
documentation (available online - by the way, it is not automatically built 
when you build MPlayer; it is a separate step) may have more information.
>
>
>Lame may be required by MEncoder to produce MP3 soundtrack, Isn't it 
>correct?
Yes. Twolame or Toolame may be used instead of Lame. I do not know which one 
is best.

But I'm not sure about other libraries, so your clarifications
>help me a lot.
>
>Will try to make MPlayer without further libraries attaching... We'll see 
>what we'll get...

That really is the best way. Trust me.

>
>Also, what are binary codecs for? Are they for MEncoder too or they're just 
>for MPlayer? Should I install the to a target machine in order have the 
>ability for MEncoder to read several formats?

They are used by MPlayer *and* MEncoder to decode (and/or encode?) videos 
that cannot be handled by the libavcodec library, which is included with 
MPlayer. They may be without a public specification, such as Real Medi and 
Windows Media. They need to be installed on the machine on which you run 
MPlayer/MEncoder, in the directory specified by --codecsdir, otherwise there 
are some default places where it will try to find them (I don't know where, 
exactly).

"mplayer -vc help" gives a list of codecs. Those that have a filename 
(*.dll, *.ax, etc.) in [] are binary codecs.

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