BakaBT Wiki - User contributions [en]

Linux Video Playback

2010-09-18T07:12:22Z

Cenore: /* Red Hat Based Distributions (Including Fedora) */

==Recommended Media Players==
;* [[Wikipedia:MPlayer|MPlayer]]
;* [[Wikipedia:SMPlayer|SMPlayer]]

==MPlayer==
===Installation===
Perform one of the following commands as root, depending on your distribution. If you do not find information pertaining to the distribution you use, refer to your distributions documentation.

====Debian Based Distributions (Including Ubuntu)====
aptitude install mplayer
For additional codecs:
# Visit http://debian-multimedia.org/ and add it as a package repository using the instructions in the red boxes.
sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install mplayer w32codecs

=====Ubuntu PPA=====
The MPlayer version in the default Ubuntu repositories is outdated, look for a [https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas PPA] with an updated version.

====OpenSuse====
zypper in mplayer

====Red Hat Based Distributions (Including Fedora)====
MPlayer is not in the official Fedora repositories. You will have to add and enable the [http://rpmfusion.org/ RPM Fusion] third-party repositories before being able to install MPlayer.
yum install mplayer

====Arch Linux====
pacman -S mplayer

====Gentoo====
emerge -ptva mplayer

===MPlayer codecs===
Not all distributions include the full set of MPlayer codecs in their repositories. To install the full set follow these easy steps.

# Download: http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
# Extract with: tar xvf all-20071007.tar.bz2
# Copy the codecs (but not the directory) to the MPlayer codec directory. Default is /usr/lib/win32

====NVIDIA VDPAU====
If you use an NVIDIA GPU be sure to install their latest binary drivers as they offer a feature that enables offloading video decoding from the CPU to GPU which may provide smoother video playback, especially for h264 encoded videos while keeping CPU usage at low levels. Check your MPlayer configuration to use both the VDPAU video option (-vc) and video output (-vo). Type "mplayer -vo help" to list available outputs.

====ATI====
The open source video driver provides hardware accelerated video decoding for R600+ based GPUs.

===MPlayer tweaks===
This is a sample configuration file tailored for specific preferences. The MPlayer configuration file can be found at: ~/.mplayer/config. All of the options are documented in [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html the manual].

# If no GPU-specific video output driver is available, xv is the best choice,
# followed by x11 (which doesn't not do software zooming unless passed "-zoom" or "zoom=1")
vo=xv
ao=alsa
# 4 audio channels for surround sound files
channels=4
# Default audio and subtitle tracks. (Not all files use the correct tags,
# so sometimes it will be necessary to switch streams manually with '#' and 'j'
# or from the command line with "-aid x" and "-sid x")
alang=jp,jpn,
slang=en,eng,
# Find ASS subs and use the fonts provided in the file if possible
ass=1
embeddedfonts=1
fontconfig=1
# The highest level of subtitle anti-aliasing
spuaa=4
# Less stdout text
quiet=1

====MPlayer Tricks====
MPlayer has a large collection of video filters included. You may use them to achieve different results.

* Play interlaced video without combing:
mplayer -vf pullup myvideo.ext
* Increase saturation and contrast:
mplayer -vf eq2=0.8 myvideo.ext
* Remove "mosquito" noise:
mplayer -vf hqdn3d myvideo.ext
* Make crappy video look good:
mplayer -vf pp7 myvideo.ext
* Combine:
mplayer -ass -embeddedfonts -vf pullup,eq2=0.8,unsharp=l3x3:0.2,hqdn3d myvideo.ext

==SMPlayer==
SMPlayer provides a QT based front-end to MPlayer. It contains useful features such as saving the video position allowing you to continue watching the video from that point at a later date.

===Installing SMPlayer===
====Debian Based Distributions (Including Ubuntu)====
sudo apt-get install smplayer
You can also:
* Download the .deb file from [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php the SMPlayer website] or
* Add the SMPlayer repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list.
8.04 (hardy):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rvm/ubuntu hardy main
8.10 (intrepid):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rvm/ubuntu intrepid main

====Arch Linux====
pacman -S smplayer

====Gentoo====
emerge -ptva smplayer

====Red Hat Based Distributions (Including Fedora)====
You will need to enable the [http://rpmfusion.org/ RPM Fusion] third-party repositories to be able to install SMplayer.
yum install smplayer

====Building from Source (Compiling)====
Grab the tarball from [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php the SMPlayer download page]. Decompress it, cd into the directory, and run
./configure
make
sudo make install
If you don't have sudo installed/configured, then the last step will be instead
su
make install

===SMPlayer tweaks===
After installation you may want to configure SMPlayer. Start SMPlayer, open the options (Ctrl + P), go to the subtitles section, within the section go to the SSA/ASS library tab and check the check box for using SSA/ASS library.

If you see a black screen at playing, the colors don't seem to be right, or playback is too slow, you may need to change the video rendering mode. To do this go to the Options > general section > general tab > output drivers > Video, and set it to <tt>x11</tt> - this will use software rendering. Alternatively you can use <tt>xv</tt> for XVideo rendering or either <tt>gl</tt> or <tt>gl2</tt> for OpenGL rendering. In general you should try these options in the following order for best quality and performance: <tt>xv</tt>, <tt>gl2</tt>, <tt>gl</tt> and finally <tt>x11</tt>.

Linux Video Playback

2010-08-30T00:46:41Z

Cenore: /* Installing SMPlayer */

This article explains video playback options for Linux and provides installation instructions.

==List of recommended players==
;* [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ MPlayer]
;* [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/ SMPlayer]
==MPlayer==

===Installing Mplayer from distro repos ===
Perform the one of the following commands as root, depending on your distribution.

====Debian based distributions (Includes Ubuntu)====
aptitude install mplayer

For additional codecs:

# Visit http://debian-multimedia.org/ and add it as a package repository using the instructions in the red boxes.
# sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install mplayer w32codecs

=====Ubuntu PPA=====
Usually the version in Ubuntu default repos is pretty old, you might want to check [https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas PPA] for updated versions.

====OpenSuse====
zypper in mplayer

====Fedora/Red Hat based distributions====
Mplayer is not in the official Fedora repos. You will have to add and enable the [http://rpmfusion.org/ RPM Fusion] third-party repos by hand before installing Mplayer.
yum install mplayer

====Arch Linux====
pacman -S mplayer

====Gentoo====
emerge -ptva mplayer

===Compiling MPlayer from source===
Most Linux distros ship with very outdated versions of MPlayer. The version of the source maintained at [http://repo.or.cz/w/mplayer-build.git uau's git repository] contains many features and bugfixes not found in the SVN trunk, including:
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU vdpau] support ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit GPU] decoding)
* better ff[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC h264] asm (faster decoding)
* newer lib[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubStation_Alpha ass] (better subtitle rendering; many bugfixes here alone)
* no need for external Windows codecs for some files anymore
* ordered chapters support (which a lot of modern DVD/bluray rips use)
* ffmpeg-mt (multithreaded decoding for multicore processors)
* various fixes for bad MPlayer behavior

git clone http://repo.or.cz/w/mplayer-build.git
cd mplayer-build
Read the README. Unfortunately, you will have to install the many development headers to enable basic features.

===MPlayer codecs===

Not all distributions include the full set of mplayer codecs in their repositories. To install the full set follow these easy steps.

# Download: http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
# Extract with: tar xvf all-20071007.tar.bz2
# Copy the codecs (but not the directory) to the MPlayer codec directory. Default is /usr/lib/win32

====NVIDIA vdpau====

If you use NVIDIA GPU, be sure to install their latest binary drivers, as they offer offloading video decoding from CPU to GPU which provides far smoother playback, especially for h264 video, while keeping CPU usage at vero low level. Check your mplayer configuration to use both vdpau video codec (-vc) and video output (-vo). Type "mplayer -vo help" to list available outputs.

====ATI====

The upcoming (as of 2009.10.04) open source driver should provide hardware accelerated video decoding for R600+ based GPUs. This will happen probably sometime around linux 2.6.32 release.

===MPlayer tweaks===
This is a sample configuration file tailored for specific preferences. The MPlayer configuration file can be found at: <tt>~/.mplayer/config</tt>. All of the options are documented in [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html the manpage].

# If no GPU-specific video output driver is available, xv is the best choice,
# followed by x11 (which doesn't not do software zooming unless passed "-zoom" or "zoom=1")
vo=xv
ao=alsa
# 4 audio channels for surround sound files
channels=4
# Default audio and subtitle tracks. (Not all files use the correct tags,
# so sometimes it will be necessary to switch streams manually with '#' and 'j'
# or from the command line with "-aid x" and "-sid x")
alang=jp,jpn,
slang=en,eng,
# Find ASS subs and use the fonts provided in the file if possible
ass=1
embeddedfonts=1
fontconfig=1
# The highest level of subtitle anti-aliasing
spuaa=4
# Less stdout text
quiet=1

====MPlayer Tricks====
MPlayer has a huge collection of filters included. Some of them are magical.

* Play interlaced video without combing:
mplayer -vf pullup myvideo.ext
* Increase saturation and contrast:
mplayer -vf eq2=0.8 myvideo.ext
* Remove "mosquito" noise:
mplayer -vf hqdn3d myvideo.ext
* Make crappy video look good:
mplayer -vf pp7 myvideo.ext
* Combine:
mplayer -ass -embeddedfonts -vf pullup,eq2=0.8,unsharp=l3x3:0.2,hqdn3d myvideo.ext

==SMPlayer==
SMPlayer provides an easy-to-use QT interface to MPlayer. It contains a couple of nice features including saving the playback position so you can continue watching your video the next time you start it (this feature can be disabled of course).

===Installing SMPlayer===
====Debian/Ubuntu====
sudo apt-get install smplayer
You can also:
* Download the .deb file from [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php the SMPlayer website] or
* Add the SMPlayer repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list.
8.04 (hardy):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rvm/ubuntu hardy main
8.10 (intrepid):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rvm/ubuntu intrepid main

====Arch Linux====
pacman -S smplayer

====Gentoo====
emerge -ptva smplayer

====Fedora====
You will need to enable [http://rpmfusion.org/ RPM Fusion] to install SMplayer.
yum install smplayer

====Building from Source (Compiling)====
Grab the tarball from [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php the SMPlayer download page]. Decompress it, cd into the directory, and run
./configure
make
sudo make install
If you don't have sudo installed/configured, then the last step will be instead
su
make install

===SMPlayer tweaks===
After installation you'll need to configure it a little:
Start SMPlayer, open the options (Ctrl + P), go to the subtitles section, within the section go to the SSA/ASS library tab and check the check box for using SSA/ASS library.

If you see a black screen at playing, the colors don't seem to be right, or playback is too slow, you may need to change the video rendering mode. To do this go to the Options > general section > general tab > output drivers > Video, and set it to <tt>x11</tt> - this will use software rendering. Alternatively you can use <tt>xv</tt> for XVideo rendering or either <tt>gl</tt> or <tt>gl2</tt> for OpenGL rendering. In general you should try these options in the following order for best quality and performance: <tt>xv</tt>, <tt>gl2</tt>, <tt>gl</tt> and finally <tt>x11</tt>.

Linux Video Playback

2010-08-30T00:43:03Z

Cenore: /* Fedora/Red Hat based distributions */

This article explains video playback options for Linux and provides installation instructions.

==List of recommended players==
;* [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ MPlayer]
;* [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/ SMPlayer]
==MPlayer==

===Installing Mplayer from distro repos ===
Perform the one of the following commands as root, depending on your distribution.

====Debian based distributions (Includes Ubuntu)====
aptitude install mplayer

For additional codecs:

# Visit http://debian-multimedia.org/ and add it as a package repository using the instructions in the red boxes.
# sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install mplayer w32codecs

=====Ubuntu PPA=====
Usually the version in Ubuntu default repos is pretty old, you might want to check [https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas PPA] for updated versions.

====OpenSuse====
zypper in mplayer

====Fedora/Red Hat based distributions====
Mplayer is not in the official Fedora repos. You will have to add and enable the [http://rpmfusion.org/ RPM Fusion] third-party repos by hand before installing Mplayer.
yum install mplayer

====Arch Linux====
pacman -S mplayer

====Gentoo====
emerge -ptva mplayer

===Compiling MPlayer from source===
Most Linux distros ship with very outdated versions of MPlayer. The version of the source maintained at [http://repo.or.cz/w/mplayer-build.git uau's git repository] contains many features and bugfixes not found in the SVN trunk, including:
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU vdpau] support ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit GPU] decoding)
* better ff[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC h264] asm (faster decoding)
* newer lib[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubStation_Alpha ass] (better subtitle rendering; many bugfixes here alone)
* no need for external Windows codecs for some files anymore
* ordered chapters support (which a lot of modern DVD/bluray rips use)
* ffmpeg-mt (multithreaded decoding for multicore processors)
* various fixes for bad MPlayer behavior

git clone http://repo.or.cz/w/mplayer-build.git
cd mplayer-build
Read the README. Unfortunately, you will have to install the many development headers to enable basic features.

===MPlayer codecs===

Not all distributions include the full set of mplayer codecs in their repositories. To install the full set follow these easy steps.

# Download: http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
# Extract with: tar xvf all-20071007.tar.bz2
# Copy the codecs (but not the directory) to the MPlayer codec directory. Default is /usr/lib/win32

====NVIDIA vdpau====

If you use NVIDIA GPU, be sure to install their latest binary drivers, as they offer offloading video decoding from CPU to GPU which provides far smoother playback, especially for h264 video, while keeping CPU usage at vero low level. Check your mplayer configuration to use both vdpau video codec (-vc) and video output (-vo). Type "mplayer -vo help" to list available outputs.

====ATI====

The upcoming (as of 2009.10.04) open source driver should provide hardware accelerated video decoding for R600+ based GPUs. This will happen probably sometime around linux 2.6.32 release.

===MPlayer tweaks===
This is a sample configuration file tailored for specific preferences. The MPlayer configuration file can be found at: <tt>~/.mplayer/config</tt>. All of the options are documented in [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html the manpage].

# If no GPU-specific video output driver is available, xv is the best choice,
# followed by x11 (which doesn't not do software zooming unless passed "-zoom" or "zoom=1")
vo=xv
ao=alsa
# 4 audio channels for surround sound files
channels=4
# Default audio and subtitle tracks. (Not all files use the correct tags,
# so sometimes it will be necessary to switch streams manually with '#' and 'j'
# or from the command line with "-aid x" and "-sid x")
alang=jp,jpn,
slang=en,eng,
# Find ASS subs and use the fonts provided in the file if possible
ass=1
embeddedfonts=1
fontconfig=1
# The highest level of subtitle anti-aliasing
spuaa=4
# Less stdout text
quiet=1

====MPlayer Tricks====
MPlayer has a huge collection of filters included. Some of them are magical.

* Play interlaced video without combing:
mplayer -vf pullup myvideo.ext
* Increase saturation and contrast:
mplayer -vf eq2=0.8 myvideo.ext
* Remove "mosquito" noise:
mplayer -vf hqdn3d myvideo.ext
* Make crappy video look good:
mplayer -vf pp7 myvideo.ext
* Combine:
mplayer -ass -embeddedfonts -vf pullup,eq2=0.8,unsharp=l3x3:0.2,hqdn3d myvideo.ext

==SMPlayer==
SMPlayer provides an easy-to-use QT interface to MPlayer. It contains a couple of nice features including saving the playback position so you can continue watching your video the next time you start it (this feature can be disabled of course).

===Installing SMPlayer===
====Debian/Ubuntu====
sudo apt-get install smplayer
You can also:
* Download the .deb file from [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php the SMPlayer website] or
* Add the SMPlayer repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list.
8.04 (hardy):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rvm/ubuntu hardy main
8.10 (intrepid):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rvm/ubuntu intrepid main

====Arch Linux====
pacman -S smplayer

====Gentoo====
emerge -ptva smplayer

====Building from Source (Compiling)====
Grab the tarball from [http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/downloads.php the SMPlayer download page]. Decompress it, cd into the directory, and run
./configure
make
sudo make install
If you don't have sudo installed/configured, then the last step will be instead
su
make install

===SMPlayer tweaks===
After installation you'll need to configure it a little:
Start SMPlayer, open the options (Ctrl + P), go to the subtitles section, within the section go to the SSA/ASS library tab and check the check box for using SSA/ASS library.

If you see a black screen at playing, the colors don't seem to be right, or playback is too slow, you may need to change the video rendering mode. To do this go to the Options > general section > general tab > output drivers > Video, and set it to <tt>x11</tt> - this will use software rendering. Alternatively you can use <tt>xv</tt> for XVideo rendering or either <tt>gl</tt> or <tt>gl2</tt> for OpenGL rendering. In general you should try these options in the following order for best quality and performance: <tt>xv</tt>, <tt>gl2</tt>, <tt>gl</tt> and finally <tt>x11</tt>.