comparison DOCS/xml/en/video.xml @ 12349:1deefcd5428d

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12348:9782f90f4f44

<note>
<para>
It's currently unclear which Savage models lack YV12 support, and convert by
driver (slow). If you suspect your card, get a newer driver, or ask politely
on the mplayer-users mailing list for an MMX/3DNow enabled driver.
</para>
</note>
</sect5>

<note>
<para>
The rendering is very CPU intensive, especially when using AA-on-X
(using aalib on X), and it's least CPU intensive on standard,
non-framebuffer console. Use SVGATextMode to set up a big textmode,
then enjoy! (secondary head Hercules cards rock :)) (but imho you
can use <option>-vf 1bpp</option> option to get graphics on hgafb:)
</para>
</note>

<para>

</para>
</sect4>


<sect4 id="caca">
<title><systemitem class="library">libcaca</systemitem> - Colour AsCii Art library</title>

<para>
The <ulink url="http://sam.zoy.org/projects/libcaca/"><systemitem class="library">libcaca</systemitem></ulink>
library is a graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels, so that it
can work on older video cards or text terminals. It is not unlike the famous

<itemizedlist>
<title>The differences with <systemitem class="library">AAlib</systemitem> are
  the following:</title>
<listitem><simpara>
   16 available colours for character output (256 colour pairs)
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
   color image dithering
  </simpara></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

  (Recommended for ATI cards.)
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
  If you have VESA VBE 3.0+, and you had specified
  <option>monitor-hfreq, monitor-vfreq, monitor-dotclock</option> somewhere
  (config file, or commandline) you will get the highest possible refresh rate.
  (Using General Timing Formula). To enable this feature you have to specify
  <emphasis role="bold">all</emphasis> your monitor options.
  </simpara></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>
Avoid if possible. Outputs to X11 (uses shared memory extension), with no
hardware acceleration at all. Supports (MMX/3DNow/SSE accelerated, but
still slow) software scaling, use the options <option>-fs -zoom</option>.
Most cards have hardware scaling support, use the <option>-vo xv</option>
output for them, or <option>-vo xmga</option> for Matroxes.
</para>

<para>
The problem is that most cards' driver doesn't support hardware
acceleration on the second head/TV. In those cases, you see green/blue

</para>
</formalpara>
<para>
This interface was designed as an attempt to fit existing video
acceleration interfaces (known as mga_vid, rage128_vid, radeon_vid,
pm3_vid) into a fixed scheme. It provides highlevel interface to chips
which are known as BES (BackEnd scalers) or OV (Video Overlays). It doesn't
provide lowlevel interface to things which are known as graphics servers.
(I don't want to compete with X11 team in graphics mode switching). I.e.
main goal of this interface is to maximize the speed of video playback.
</para>

<itemizedlist spacing="compact">

  Compile the module in the <filename class="directory">svgalib_helper</filename>
  directory (it can be found inside the <filename class="directory">svgalib-1.9.17/kernel/</filename>
  directory if you've downloaded the source from the svgalib site) and insmod it.
  </para></step>
<step><para>
  To create the neccessary devices in the <filename class="directory">/dev</filename>
  directory, do a <screen>make device</screen> in the <filename class="directory">svgalib_helper</filename>
  dir, as root.
  </para></step>
<step><para>
  Move the <filename class="directory">svgalib_helper</filename> directory to

  mplayer dvb://R1
</screen>

<para>
  If you have more than one card you also need to specify the number of the card 
  where the channel is visibile (e.g. 2) with the syntax:
</para>

<screen>
  mplayer dvb://2@R1
</screen>

to reencode it to MPEG it will fill the buffer very fast.
With prebuffering video playback is <emphasis role="bold">much</emphasis>
less sensitive to other programs hogging the CPU, it will not drop frames unless
applications hog the CPU for a long time.
When running without prebuffering the em8300 is much more sensitive to CPU load,
so it is highly suggested that you turn on <application>MPlayer's</application>
<option>-framedrop</option> option to avoid further loss of sync.
<option>sync</option> will turn on the new sync-engine. This is currently an
experimental feature. With the sync feature turned on the em8300's internal clock
will be monitored at all times, if it starts to deviate from
<application>MPlayer's</application> clock it will be reset causing the em8300 to

<varlistentry>
<term><option>-ac hwac3</option></term>
<listitem><para>
The em8300 supports playing back AC3 audio (surround sound) through the
digital audio output of the card. See the <option>-ao oss</option> option above,
it must be used to specify the DXR3's output instead of a soundcard.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect4>

this driver but can be done using the video filters. For example, suppose
that you have a movie with a resolution of 512x272 and you want to view it
fullscreen on your DC10+. There are three main possibilities, you may scale
the movie to a width of 768, 384 or 192. For performance and quality reasons,
I would choose to scale the movie to 384x204 using the fast bilinear software
scaler. The commandline is
<screen>
mplayer -vo zr -sws 0 -vf scale=384:204 <replaceable>movie.avi</replaceable>
</screen>
</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
  <term>XFree86</term>
  <listitem><para>
    Using the driver and the HAL module, available from <ulink
    url="http://www.matrox.com">Matrox's site</ulink>. This will give you X
    on the TV.
    </para><para>
    <emphasis role="bold">This method doesn't give you accelerated playback</emphasis>
    as under Windows! The second head has only YUV framebuffer, the <emphasis>BES</emphasis>
    (Back End Scaler, the YUV scaler on G200/G400/G450/G550 cards) doesn't

displaying the first CRTC's output onto both of the heads at once, as currently
recommended for G400, see the section above.
</para>

<para>
The necessary kernel patch and the detailed howto is downloadable from
<ulink url="http://www.bglug.ca/matrox_tvout/"/>
</para>
</sect4>

<itemizedlist>
<title>ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX</title>
<listitem><simpara>
  <emphasis role="bold">ATI Mach64</emphasis>:
  supported by <ulink url="http://gatos.sf.net">gatos</ulink>.
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
  <emphasis role="bold">ASIC Radeon VIVO</emphasis>:
  supported by <ulink url="http://gatos.sf.net">gatos</ulink>.
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
  <emphasis role="bold">Radeon</emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">Rage128</emphasis>:
  supported by <application>MPlayer</application>!
  Check <link linkend="vesa">VESA driver</link> and

12349:1deefcd5428d

<note>
<para>
It's currently unclear which Savage models lack YV12 support, and convert by
driver (slow). If you suspect your card, get a newer driver, or ask politely
on the mplayer-users mailing list for an MMX/3DNow! enabled driver.
</para>
</note>
</sect5>

<note>
<para>
The rendering is very CPU intensive, especially when using AA-on-X
(using aalib on X), and it's least CPU intensive on standard,
non-framebuffer console. Use SVGATextMode to set up a big textmode,
then enjoy! (secondary head Hercules cards rock :)) (but IMHO you
can use <option>-vf 1bpp</option> option to get graphics on hgafb:)
</para>
</note>

<para>

</para>
</sect4>


<sect4 id="caca">
<title><systemitem class="library">libcaca</systemitem> - Color ASCII Art library</title>

<para>
The <ulink url="http://sam.zoy.org/projects/libcaca/"><systemitem class="library">libcaca</systemitem></ulink>
library is a graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels, so that it
can work on older video cards or text terminals. It is not unlike the famous

<itemizedlist>
<title>The differences with <systemitem class="library">AAlib</systemitem> are
  the following:</title>
<listitem><simpara>
   16 available colors for character output (256 color pairs)
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
   color image dithering
  </simpara></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

  (Recommended for ATI cards.)
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
  If you have VESA VBE 3.0+, and you had specified
  <option>monitor-hfreq, monitor-vfreq, monitor-dotclock</option> somewhere
  (config file, or command line) you will get the highest possible refresh rate.
  (Using General Timing Formula). To enable this feature you have to specify
  <emphasis role="bold">all</emphasis> your monitor options.
  </simpara></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>
Avoid if possible. Outputs to X11 (uses shared memory extension), with no
hardware acceleration at all. Supports (MMX/3DNow/SSE accelerated, but
still slow) software scaling, use the options <option>-fs -zoom</option>.
Most cards have hardware scaling support, use the <option>-vo xv</option>
output for them, or <option>-vo xmga</option> for Matrox cards.
</para>

<para>
The problem is that most cards' driver doesn't support hardware
acceleration on the second head/TV. In those cases, you see green/blue

</para>
</formalpara>
<para>
This interface was designed as an attempt to fit existing video
acceleration interfaces (known as mga_vid, rage128_vid, radeon_vid,
pm3_vid) into a fixed scheme. It provides a high level interface to chips
which are known as BES (BackEnd scalers) or OV (Video Overlays). It doesn't
provide low level interface to things which are known as graphics servers.
(I don't want to compete with X11 team in graphics mode switching). I.e.
main goal of this interface is to maximize the speed of video playback.
</para>

<itemizedlist spacing="compact">

  Compile the module in the <filename class="directory">svgalib_helper</filename>
  directory (it can be found inside the <filename class="directory">svgalib-1.9.17/kernel/</filename>
  directory if you've downloaded the source from the svgalib site) and insmod it.
  </para></step>
<step><para>
  To create the necessary devices in the <filename class="directory">/dev</filename>
  directory, do a <screen>make device</screen> in the <filename class="directory">svgalib_helper</filename>
  dir, as root.
  </para></step>
<step><para>
  Move the <filename class="directory">svgalib_helper</filename> directory to

  mplayer dvb://R1
</screen>

<para>
  If you have more than one card you also need to specify the number of the card 
  where the channel is visible (e.g. 2) with the syntax:
</para>

<screen>
  mplayer dvb://2@R1
</screen>

to reencode it to MPEG it will fill the buffer very fast.
With prebuffering video playback is <emphasis role="bold">much</emphasis>
less sensitive to other programs hogging the CPU, it will not drop frames unless
applications hog the CPU for a long time.
When running without prebuffering the em8300 is much more sensitive to CPU load,
so it is highly suggested that you turn on <application>MPlayer</application>'s
<option>-framedrop</option> option to avoid further loss of sync.
<option>sync</option> will turn on the new sync-engine. This is currently an
experimental feature. With the sync feature turned on the em8300's internal clock
will be monitored at all times, if it starts to deviate from
<application>MPlayer's</application> clock it will be reset causing the em8300 to

<varlistentry>
<term><option>-ac hwac3</option></term>
<listitem><para>
The em8300 supports playing back AC3 audio (surround sound) through the
digital audio output of the card. See the <option>-ao oss</option> option above,
it must be used to specify the DXR3's output instead of a sound card.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect4>

this driver but can be done using the video filters. For example, suppose
that you have a movie with a resolution of 512x272 and you want to view it
fullscreen on your DC10+. There are three main possibilities, you may scale
the movie to a width of 768, 384 or 192. For performance and quality reasons,
I would choose to scale the movie to 384x204 using the fast bilinear software
scaler. The command line is
<screen>
mplayer -vo zr -sws 0 -vf scale=384:204 <replaceable>movie.avi</replaceable>
</screen>
</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
  <term>XFree86</term>
  <listitem><para>
    Using the driver and the HAL module, available from the <ulink
    url="http://www.matrox.com">Matrox site</ulink>. This will give you X
    on the TV.
    </para><para>
    <emphasis role="bold">This method doesn't give you accelerated playback</emphasis>
    as under Windows! The second head has only YUV framebuffer, the <emphasis>BES</emphasis>
    (Back End Scaler, the YUV scaler on G200/G400/G450/G550 cards) doesn't

displaying the first CRTC's output onto both of the heads at once, as currently
recommended for G400, see the section above.
</para>

<para>
The necessary kernel patch and the detailed HOWTO is downloadable from
<ulink url="http://www.bglug.ca/matrox_tvout/"/>
</para>
</sect4>

<itemizedlist>
<title>ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX</title>
<listitem><simpara>
  <emphasis role="bold">ATI Mach64</emphasis>:
  supported by <ulink url="http://gatos.sf.net">GATOS</ulink>.
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
  <emphasis role="bold">ASIC Radeon VIVO</emphasis>:
  supported by <ulink url="http://gatos.sf.net">GATOS</ulink>.
  </simpara></listitem>
<listitem><simpara>
  <emphasis role="bold">Radeon</emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">Rage128</emphasis>:
  supported by <application>MPlayer</application>!
  Check <link linkend="vesa">VESA driver</link> and