[MPlayer-users] iso images: transparently setting dvd-device

[RC]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:46:21 +0200 (CEST)
p64 at free.fr wrote:

> mplayer is able to open ISO images of classic media like DVD,VCD...
> so it automatically detects them and knows of their structure.
> 
> However, it behaves differently: in "ISO opening mode", DVD subtitles
> are not detected, unless option "dvd-device" is set.

There is no "ISO mode".  It's just luck that VCDs and DVDs are simple
enough that MPlayer can skip the junk at the beginning (and end), and
find the MPEG stream inside/after it.  

MPlayer doesn't know it's dealing with a DVD/VCD image.  It also doesn't
always work, as I've seen first hand...   If you master a VCD with a
10MB+ file in the mode1/ISO portion, or perhaps a DVD that starts with
10MBs+ of menus and the like, MPlayer will probably exit before
it can find the MPEG stream.

> It would be very handy if mplayer automatically set "dvd-device"
> when recognizing ISOs of classical media.

It would be better if your app (eg. file manager) looked at the file
extension or the file's contents, found it to be a VCD/DVD image, and
invoked MPlayer with appropriate options, rather than blindly treating
everything as a video file, forcing MPlayer to act as the file manager,
and hoping things work right.