[MPlayer-users] mplayer slow to start displaying video

[Etienne Buira]

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 09:25:19AM -0700, James Board wrote:
> I'm running mplayer on a linux machine with a 64-bit OS.  The mplayer command is
>     mplayer -fs -vo sdl filename.mpg
> When I do that, the screen goes blank for 3 seconds before playing video.  When I quit, the screen goes blank for 3 seconds before exiting.
> 
> This is too cumbersome when I'm looking through several files in a playlist: 3 seconds to start each file, then another 3 seconds at the end of each file means that's about 6 seconds between each file.
> 
> There are only two error/warning messages, and they are displayed immediately, before the delay:
>     mplayer: could not connect to socket
>     mplayer: No such file or directory
> 
> If I don't use the '-vo sdl' switch, there's no delay, but then the video only displays in a small part of the screen: it isn't scaled to full screen.
> 
> What is causing this delay and how can I get rid of it?

It looks like the delay is due to a graphical mode switching (what
happens if you press 'f' while playing, same delay?).

Solutions I see are to configure SDL to behave differently, or to
configure/use another vo, like xv (see xvinfo) or a better if your
hardware permits it.