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9281:1a11de853e51

<H4><A NAME="dga">2.3.1.2.2 DGA</A></H4>


<H5>PREAMBLE</H5>

<P>This section tries to explain in some words what DGA is in general and what
  the DGA video output driver for MPlayer can do (and what it can't).</P>


<H5>WHAT IS DGA</H5>

<P>DGA is short for Direct Graphics Access and is a means for a program to
  bypass the X-Server and directly modifying the framebuffer memory.
  Technically spoken this happens by mapping the framebuffer memory into
  the memory range of your process. This is allowed by the kernel only

<P>However DGA has some drawbacks. It seems it is somewhat dependent on the
  graphics chip you use and on the implementation of the X server's video
  driver that controls this chip. So it does not work on every system.</P>


<H5>INSTALLING DGA SUPPORT FOR MPLAYER</H5>

<P>First make sure X loads the DGA extension, see in /var/log/XFree86.0.log:</P>

<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>(II) Loading extension XFree86-DGA</CODE></P>

<P>Now use the <CODE>-vo dga</CODE> option, and there you go (hope so :))!
  You should also try if the <CODE>-vo sdl:dga</CODE> option works for you. It's
  much faster.</P>


<H5>RESOLUTION SWITCHING</H5>

<P>The DGA driver allows for switching the resolution of the output signal. 
  This avoids the need for doing (slow) software scaling and at the same time
  provides a fullscreen image. Ideally it would switch to the exact resolution
  (except for honoring aspect ratio) of the video data, but the X server only

    Modeline	"320x240"  12.588 320 336 384 400   240 245 246 262 Doublescan
  EndSection
</PRE>


<H5>DGA &amp; MPLAYER</H5>

<P>DGA is used in two places with MPlayer: The SDL driver can be made to
  make use of it (-vo sdl:dga) and within the DGA driver (-vo dga). The above
  said is true for both; in the following sections I'll explain how the DGA
  driver for MPlayer works.</P>


<H5>FEATURES</H5>

<P>The DGA driver is invoked by specifying -vo dga at the command line.
  The default behavior is to switch to a resolution matching the original
  resolution of the video as close as possible. It deliberately ignores the
  -vm and -fs options (enabling of video mode switching and fullscreen) -

  works with doublebuffering enabled. However, enabling doublebuffering may
  result in a big speed penalty (on my K6-II+ 525 it used an additional 20% of
  CPU time!) depending on the implementation of DGA for your hardware.</P>


<H5>SPEED ISSUES</H5>

<P>Generally spoken, DGA framebuffer access should be at least as fast as using
  the X11 driver with the additional benefit of getting a fullscreen image. 
  The percentage speed values printed by MPlayer have to be interpreted
  with some care, as for example, with the X11 driver they do not include the

<P>I've seen some AVI files already be replayed on a Pentium MMX 266. AMD K6-2
  CPUs might work at 400 MHZ and above.</P>


<H5>KNOWN BUGS</H5>

<P>Well, according to some developers of XFree, DGA is quite a beast. They
  tell you better not to use it. Its implementation is not always flawless
  with every chipset driver for XFree out there.</P>

  <TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>F</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>toggles fullscreen/windowed mode</TD></TR>
  <TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>C</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>cycles available fullscreen modes</TD></TR>
  <TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>W/S</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>mappings for * and / (mixer control)</TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<H5>KNOWN BUGS</H5>

<UL>
  <LI>Keys pressed under sdl:aalib console driver repeat forever. (use -vo aa!)
    It's bug in SDL, I can't change it (tested with SDL 1.2.1).</LI>
  <LI>DO NOT USE SDL with GUI! It won't work as it should.</LI>
</UL>


<H4><A NAME="svgalib">2.3.1.2.4 SVGAlib</A></H4>

<H5>INSTALLATION</H5>

<P>You'll have to install svgalib and its development package in order for
  MPlayer build its SVGAlib driver (autodetected, but can be forced),
  and don't forget to edit /etc/vga/libvga.config to suit your card &amp;
  monitor.</P>

<H5>NOTES</H5>

<P>Be sure not to use the -fs option, since it toggles the usage of the software
  scaler, and it's slow. If you really need it, use the <CODE>-sws 4</CODE>
  option which will produce bad quality, but is somewhat faster.</P>

<H5>EGA (4BPP) SUPPORT</H5>

<P>SVGAlib incorporates EGAlib, and MPlayer has the possibility to
  display any movie in 16 colors, thus usable in the following sets:</P>

<UL>

<P>So you have chances to get working TV-out by using this driver.<BR>
  (I guess that TV-out frequently is standalone head or standalone output
  at least.)</P>

<H5>ADVANTAGES</H5>

<UL>
  <LI>You have the possibility to watch movies <B>even if Linux doesn't know</B>
    your video hardware.</LI>
  <LI>You don't need to have installed any graphics' related things on your Linux

    file, or commandline) you will get the highest possible refresh rate. (Using
    General Timing Formula). To enable this feature you have to specify
    <B>all</B> your monitor options.</LI>
</UL>

<H5>DISADVANTAGES</H5>

<UL>
  <LI>It works only on <B>x86 systems</B>.</LI>
  <LI>It can be used only by <B>root</B>.</LI>
  <LI>Currently it's available only for <B>Linux</B>.</LI>
</UL>

<P>Don't use this driver with <B>GCC 2.96</B>! It won't work!</P>

<H5>COMMAND LINE OPTIONS AVAILABLE FOR VESA</H5>
<DL>
  <DT><CODE>-vo vesa:opts</CODE></DT>
  <DD>currently recognized: <B>dga</B> to force dga mode and <B>nodga</B> to
    disable dga mode. In dga mode you can enable double buffering via the
    <CODE>-double</CODE> option. Note: you may omit these parameters to enable
    <B>autodetection</B> of dga mode.</DD>
</DL>

<H5>KNOWN PROBLEMS AND WORKAROUNDS</H5>

<UL>
  <LI>If you have installed <B>NLS</B> font on your Linux box and run VESA
    driver from text-mode then after terminating MPlayer you will have
    <B>ROM font</B> loaded instead of national. You can load national font again

  video modes.</P>


<H4><A NAME="vidix">2.3.1.2.12 VIDIX</A></H4>

<H5>PREAMBLE</H5>

<P>VIDIX is the abbreviation for <B>VID</B>eo <B>I</B>nterface for *ni<B>X</B>.
  It was designed and introduced as an interface for fast user-space drivers
  providing such video performance as mga_vid does for Matrox cards. It's also
  very portable.</P>

  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.</P>

<H5>USAGE</H5>

<UL>
  <LI>You can use standalone video output driver: <CODE>-vo xvidix</CODE><BR>
    This driver was developed as X11's front end to VIDIX technology. It
    requires X server and can work only under X server. Note that, as it

    <CODE>-vo vesa:vidix</CODE> (<B>Linux only</B>) and <CODE>-vo fbdev:vidix</CODE></LI>
</UL>

Indeed it doesn't matter which video output driver is used with <B>VIDIX</B>.

<H5>REQUIREMENTS</H5>

<UL>
  <LI>video card should be in graphics mode (I write <B>should</B> simply
    because I tested it in text mode - it works but has awful output ;) Use
    AAlib for that).<BR>

    vo_vesa driver.</I></LI>
  <LI>MPlayer's video output driver should know active video mode and be
    able to tell to VIDIX subdevice some video characteristics of server.</LI>
</UL>

<H5>USAGE METHODS</H5>

<P>When VIDIX is used as <B>subdevice</B> (<CODE>-vo vesa:vidix</CODE>) then
  video mode configuration is performed by video output device
  (<B>vo_server</B> in short). Therefore you can pass into command line of
  MPlayer the same keys as for vo_server. In addition it understands

  risk!</B>). Alternatively, you can use a special kernel module, like this:</P>

<OL>
  <LI>Download the
    <A HREF="http://www.arava.co.il/matan/svgalib/">development version</A>
    of svgalib (for example 1.9.17).</LI>
  <LI><B>OR</B> download a version made by Alex especially for usage with
    MPlayer (it doesn't need the svgalib source to compile) from
    <A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/~alex/svgalib_helper-1.9.17-mplayer.tar.bz2">
    here</A>.
  <LI>Compile the module in the <CODE>svgalib_helper</CODE> directory (it can
    be found inside the <CODE>svgalib-1.9.17/kernel/</CODE> directory if you've
    downloaded the source from the svgalib site) and insmod it.</LI>
  <LI>Move the <CODE>svgalib_helper</CODE> directory to
    <CODE>mplayer/main/libdha/svgalib_helper</CODE>.</LI>

  ./configure --with-extraincdir=<DVB source directory>/ost/include
</PRE>

<P>Then compile and install as usual.</P>

<H5>USAGE</H5>

<P>Hardware decoding (playing standard MPEG1/2 files) can be done with this
  command:</P>

<PRE>

<PRE>
for  3:4 TV: -vop lavc,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,scale=-1:0,dvbscale
for 16:9 TV: -vop lavc,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,scale=-1:0,dvbscale=1024
</PRE>

<H5>FUTURE</H5>

<P>If you have questions or want to hear feature announcements and take part in
  discussions on this subject, join our
  <A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb">MPlayer-DVB</A>
  mailing list. Please remember that the list language is English.</P>

  0.12.0 or later. You can find the drivers and installation instructions at
  the <A HREF="http://dxr3.sourceforge.net/">DXR3 &amp; Hollywood Plus for
  Linux</A> site. Configure should detect your card automatically, compilation
  should go without problems.</P>

<H5>USAGE</H5>
<DL>
  <DT><CODE>-vo dxr3:prebuf:sync:norm=x:&lt;device&gt;</CODE></DT>
  <DD><CODE>overlay</CODE> activates the overlay instead of TVOut. It requires
    that you have a properly configured overlay setup to work right. The easiest
    way to configure the overlay is to first run autocal. Then run mplayer with

  <A HREF="http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/">http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/</A></P>


<H4><A NAME="tv-out_ati">2.3.1.5.3 ATI cards</A></H4>

<H5>PREAMBLE</H5>

<P>Currently ATI doesn't want to support any of its TV-out chips under Linux,
  because of their licensed Macrovision technology.</P>

<H5>ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX</H5>

<UL>
  <LI><B>ATI Mach64</B>: Supported by
    <A HREF="http://gatos.sf.net">gatos</A>.</LI>
  <LI><B>ASIC Radeon VIVO</B>: Supported by

9282:513e02e2e553

<H4><A NAME="dga">2.3.1.2.2 DGA</A></H4>


<H4>PREAMBLE</H4>

<P>This section tries to explain in some words what DGA is in general and what
  the DGA video output driver for MPlayer can do (and what it can't).</P>


<H4>WHAT IS DGA</H4>

<P>DGA is short for Direct Graphics Access and is a means for a program to
  bypass the X-Server and directly modifying the framebuffer memory.
  Technically spoken this happens by mapping the framebuffer memory into
  the memory range of your process. This is allowed by the kernel only

<P>However DGA has some drawbacks. It seems it is somewhat dependent on the
  graphics chip you use and on the implementation of the X server's video
  driver that controls this chip. So it does not work on every system.</P>


<H4>INSTALLING DGA SUPPORT FOR MPLAYER</H4>

<P>First make sure X loads the DGA extension, see in /var/log/XFree86.0.log:</P>

<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>(II) Loading extension XFree86-DGA</CODE></P>

<P>Now use the <CODE>-vo dga</CODE> option, and there you go (hope so :))!
  You should also try if the <CODE>-vo sdl:dga</CODE> option works for you. It's
  much faster.</P>


<H4>RESOLUTION SWITCHING</H4>

<P>The DGA driver allows for switching the resolution of the output signal. 
  This avoids the need for doing (slow) software scaling and at the same time
  provides a fullscreen image. Ideally it would switch to the exact resolution
  (except for honoring aspect ratio) of the video data, but the X server only

    Modeline	"320x240"  12.588 320 336 384 400   240 245 246 262 Doublescan
  EndSection
</PRE>


<H4>DGA &amp; MPLAYER</H4>

<P>DGA is used in two places with MPlayer: The SDL driver can be made to
  make use of it (-vo sdl:dga) and within the DGA driver (-vo dga). The above
  said is true for both; in the following sections I'll explain how the DGA
  driver for MPlayer works.</P>


<H4>FEATURES</H4>

<P>The DGA driver is invoked by specifying -vo dga at the command line.
  The default behavior is to switch to a resolution matching the original
  resolution of the video as close as possible. It deliberately ignores the
  -vm and -fs options (enabling of video mode switching and fullscreen) -

  works with doublebuffering enabled. However, enabling doublebuffering may
  result in a big speed penalty (on my K6-II+ 525 it used an additional 20% of
  CPU time!) depending on the implementation of DGA for your hardware.</P>


<H4>SPEED ISSUES</H4>

<P>Generally spoken, DGA framebuffer access should be at least as fast as using
  the X11 driver with the additional benefit of getting a fullscreen image. 
  The percentage speed values printed by MPlayer have to be interpreted
  with some care, as for example, with the X11 driver they do not include the

<P>I've seen some AVI files already be replayed on a Pentium MMX 266. AMD K6-2
  CPUs might work at 400 MHZ and above.</P>


<H4>KNOWN BUGS</H4>

<P>Well, according to some developers of XFree, DGA is quite a beast. They
  tell you better not to use it. Its implementation is not always flawless
  with every chipset driver for XFree out there.</P>

  <TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>F</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>toggles fullscreen/windowed mode</TD></TR>
  <TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>C</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>cycles available fullscreen modes</TD></TR>
  <TR><TD></TD><TD><CODE>W/S</CODE></TD><TD></TD><TD>mappings for * and / (mixer control)</TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<H4>KNOWN BUGS</H4>

<UL>
  <LI>Keys pressed under sdl:aalib console driver repeat forever. (use -vo aa!)
    It's bug in SDL, I can't change it (tested with SDL 1.2.1).</LI>
  <LI>DO NOT USE SDL with GUI! It won't work as it should.</LI>
</UL>


<H4><A NAME="svgalib">2.3.1.2.4 SVGAlib</A></H4>

<H4>INSTALLATION</H4>

<P>You'll have to install svgalib and its development package in order for
  MPlayer build its SVGAlib driver (autodetected, but can be forced),
  and don't forget to edit /etc/vga/libvga.config to suit your card &amp;
  monitor.</P>

<H4>NOTES</H4>

<P>Be sure not to use the -fs option, since it toggles the usage of the software
  scaler, and it's slow. If you really need it, use the <CODE>-sws 4</CODE>
  option which will produce bad quality, but is somewhat faster.</P>

<H4>EGA (4BPP) SUPPORT</H4>

<P>SVGAlib incorporates EGAlib, and MPlayer has the possibility to
  display any movie in 16 colors, thus usable in the following sets:</P>

<UL>

<P>So you have chances to get working TV-out by using this driver.<BR>
  (I guess that TV-out frequently is standalone head or standalone output
  at least.)</P>

<H4>ADVANTAGES</H4>

<UL>
  <LI>You have the possibility to watch movies <B>even if Linux doesn't know</B>
    your video hardware.</LI>
  <LI>You don't need to have installed any graphics' related things on your Linux

    file, or commandline) you will get the highest possible refresh rate. (Using
    General Timing Formula). To enable this feature you have to specify
    <B>all</B> your monitor options.</LI>
</UL>

<H4>DISADVANTAGES</H4>

<UL>
  <LI>It works only on <B>x86 systems</B>.</LI>
  <LI>It can be used only by <B>root</B>.</LI>
  <LI>Currently it's available only for <B>Linux</B>.</LI>
</UL>

<P>Don't use this driver with <B>GCC 2.96</B>! It won't work!</P>

<H4>COMMAND LINE OPTIONS AVAILABLE FOR VESA</H4>
<DL>
  <DT><CODE>-vo vesa:opts</CODE></DT>
  <DD>currently recognized: <B>dga</B> to force dga mode and <B>nodga</B> to
    disable dga mode. In dga mode you can enable double buffering via the
    <CODE>-double</CODE> option. Note: you may omit these parameters to enable
    <B>autodetection</B> of dga mode.</DD>
</DL>

<H4>KNOWN PROBLEMS AND WORKAROUNDS</H4>

<UL>
  <LI>If you have installed <B>NLS</B> font on your Linux box and run VESA
    driver from text-mode then after terminating MPlayer you will have
    <B>ROM font</B> loaded instead of national. You can load national font again

  video modes.</P>


<H4><A NAME="vidix">2.3.1.2.12 VIDIX</A></H4>

<H4>PREAMBLE</H4>

<P>VIDIX is the abbreviation for <B>VID</B>eo <B>I</B>nterface for *ni<B>X</B>.
  It was designed and introduced as an interface for fast user-space drivers
  providing such video performance as mga_vid does for Matrox cards. It's also
  very portable.</P>

  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.</P>

<H4>USAGE</H4>

<UL>
  <LI>You can use standalone video output driver: <CODE>-vo xvidix</CODE><BR>
    This driver was developed as X11's front end to VIDIX technology. It
    requires X server and can work only under X server. Note that, as it

    <CODE>-vo vesa:vidix</CODE> (<B>Linux only</B>) and <CODE>-vo fbdev:vidix</CODE></LI>
</UL>

Indeed it doesn't matter which video output driver is used with <B>VIDIX</B>.

<H4>REQUIREMENTS</H4>

<UL>
  <LI>video card should be in graphics mode (I write <B>should</B> simply
    because I tested it in text mode - it works but has awful output ;) Use
    AAlib for that).<BR>

    vo_vesa driver.</I></LI>
  <LI>MPlayer's video output driver should know active video mode and be
    able to tell to VIDIX subdevice some video characteristics of server.</LI>
</UL>

<H4>USAGE METHODS</H4>

<P>When VIDIX is used as <B>subdevice</B> (<CODE>-vo vesa:vidix</CODE>) then
  video mode configuration is performed by video output device
  (<B>vo_server</B> in short). Therefore you can pass into command line of
  MPlayer the same keys as for vo_server. In addition it understands

  risk!</B>). Alternatively, you can use a special kernel module, like this:</P>

<OL>
  <LI>Download the
    <A HREF="http://www.arava.co.il/matan/svgalib/">development version</A>
    of svgalib (for example 1.9.17),<BR>
    <B>OR</B><BR>
    download a version made by Alex especially for usage with
    MPlayer (it doesn't need the svgalib source to compile) from
    <A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/~alex/svgalib_helper-1.9.17-mplayer.tar.bz2">
    here</A>.</LI>
  <LI>Compile the module in the <CODE>svgalib_helper</CODE> directory (it can
    be found inside the <CODE>svgalib-1.9.17/kernel/</CODE> directory if you've
    downloaded the source from the svgalib site) and insmod it.</LI>
  <LI>Move the <CODE>svgalib_helper</CODE> directory to
    <CODE>mplayer/main/libdha/svgalib_helper</CODE>.</LI>

  ./configure --with-extraincdir=<DVB source directory>/ost/include
</PRE>

<P>Then compile and install as usual.</P>

<H4>USAGE</H4>

<P>Hardware decoding (playing standard MPEG1/2 files) can be done with this
  command:</P>

<PRE>

<PRE>
for  3:4 TV: -vop lavc,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,scale=-1:0,dvbscale
for 16:9 TV: -vop lavc,expand=-1:576:-1:-1:1,scale=-1:0,dvbscale=1024
</PRE>

<H4>FUTURE</H4>

<P>If you have questions or want to hear feature announcements and take part in
  discussions on this subject, join our
  <A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb">MPlayer-DVB</A>
  mailing list. Please remember that the list language is English.</P>

  0.12.0 or later. You can find the drivers and installation instructions at
  the <A HREF="http://dxr3.sourceforge.net/">DXR3 &amp; Hollywood Plus for
  Linux</A> site. Configure should detect your card automatically, compilation
  should go without problems.</P>

<H4>USAGE</H4>
<DL>
  <DT><CODE>-vo dxr3:prebuf:sync:norm=x:&lt;device&gt;</CODE></DT>
  <DD><CODE>overlay</CODE> activates the overlay instead of TVOut. It requires
    that you have a properly configured overlay setup to work right. The easiest
    way to configure the overlay is to first run autocal. Then run mplayer with

  <A HREF="http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/">http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.eriksen/matrox_tvout/</A></P>


<H4><A NAME="tv-out_ati">2.3.1.5.3 ATI cards</A></H4>

<H4>PREAMBLE</H4>

<P>Currently ATI doesn't want to support any of its TV-out chips under Linux,
  because of their licensed Macrovision technology.</P>

<H4>ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX</H4>

<UL>
  <LI><B>ATI Mach64</B>: Supported by
    <A HREF="http://gatos.sf.net">gatos</A>.</LI>
  <LI><B>ASIC Radeon VIVO</B>: Supported by