[MPlayer-users] Seek and chapter

[Alexander Roalter]

Olivier Rolland wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Nov 9, 2007 11:08 AM,  <mplayer-users-request at mplayerhq.hu> wrote:
>> I find it unlikely that it ever worked that way - at least reliably -
>> anyway now it's not possible (although it's easy to add the relative
>> code). A quick workaround is:
>> $ mplayer -identify|grep -i chapter
>> $ mplayer -ss YOURTIME
> 
> Unfortunately, this does not work reliably with a DVD !
Programwise (but not directly accessible to the user) a solution could 
be something like -chapter 4+1:38 (which should seek a minute and 38 
seconds after chapter 4. it would even be possible to specify -chapter 
4+1:38-10+32, i.e. playing from aforementioned position to 32 seconds 
into chapter 10.

as in DVDs the timestamps are not reliable, they at least could be 
between chapters (hoping that the reset, usually due to layer breaks) is 
also on a chapter break.

Code would be as follows: read timestamp from chapter position, add time 
offset, seek to that offset. Problem: if e.g. chapter 10 has timestamp 
0:01:42 (again), while chapter 9 had 0:49:55, as might be due to a layer 
break, mplayer should be so smart to seek to the 0:01:42 of chapter 10 
rather than somewhere in the first chapters.

Mplayer could use the chapter index to build such a table (on demand), 
don't know where the position of the timestamp reset is stored so that 
that could also be incorporated...


-- 
cheers,
Alex