Linux Video Playback

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

List of recommended players

• MPlayer
• SMPlayer

MPlayer

Installing MPlayer

Perform the one of the following commands as root, depending on your distribution.

Gentoo

emerge -ptva mplayer

OpenSuse

opensuse-package-manager-name --install-command mplayer

Debian based distributions (Includes Ubuntu!)

apt-get install mplayer

Fedora/Red Hat based distributions

yum install mplayer

MPlayer codecs

Not all distributions include the full set of mplayer codecs. To install the full set follow these easy (for Linux-users!) steps.
1. Download: http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
2. Extract with: tar xvf all-20071007.tar.bz2
3. Copy the codecs (but not the directory) to the MPlayer codec directory. Default is /usr/lib/win32

MPlayer tweaks

These are some sample config files tailored for specific preferences. The MPlayer configuration file can be found at: (~/.mplayer/config)

For English audio preference, then Spanish (?? Correct if wrong, delete this part otherwise.), with 4 audio channels for surround sound files.

vo=xv
ao=alsa
channels=4
alang=en,es

For Japanese audio preference, subtitles on. SDL A/V output for performence.

ao=sdl
vo=sdl 
#Note: SDL video output does not work well with xinerama. Those wishing to watch video on a TV or other display should use "vo=xv"
alang=jpn,Japanese 
#Not all files use the correct tags, so sometimes it will be neccisary to switch audio streams manually or from the command line with "-aid x", where "x"   is the number of the audio stream.
sid=0
subfont-autoscale=1
ass=1

SMPlayer

MPlayer by itself is fine but SMPlayer provides an easy to use interface to MPlayer so it is a better choice for most. It contains a couple of nice features, including autosaving the playback position so you can continue watching your movie the next time you start it (this feature can be disabled of course).

Installing SMPlayer

• For OpenSUSE users you can grab the .rpm from SMPlayer's website, for Ubuntu users you can use the .deb from SMPlayer's website or you can install it with the following command:
  

sudo apt-get install smplayer

• If you don't use OpenSUSE or Ubuntu then you can compile from source, the source code along with installation instructions are available on SMPlayer's website.
• 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. With this you can see the subtitle's colors and fonts (Note: the used fonts must be installed on the system for this).

SMPlayer tweaks

If you see a black screen at playing, or the colors doesn't seems to be right, or the playing is too slow or wrong 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 x11 - this will use software rendering. Alternatively you can use xv for XVideo rendering or either gl or gl2 for OpenGL rendering. In general you should try these options in the following order for best quality and performance: xv, gl2, gl and finally x11.