comparison DOCS/documentation.html @ 6868:f6e17d2b448e

The rectangle of the rectangle plugin is not necessarily white. Consistently put punctuation marks right after the word without a blank. Corrected two links and updated the wording here and there (Gabucino).

6867:c80534f06cf5

the avifile
library at all!). The another big feature of mplayer is the wide range of
supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev,
AAlib, DirectFB, but you can use GGI and SDL (and this way all their drivers)
and some lowlevel card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3Dfx and Radeon,
Mach64, Permedia3) too! Most
of them supports software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in
fullscreen. <B>MPlayer</B> supports displaying through some hardware MPEG
decoder boards, such as the <B><A HREF="DVB">DVB</A></B> and <B> <A
HREF="DXR3">DXR3/Hollywood+</A></B> ! And what about the nice big antialiased
shaded subtitles (<B>10 supported types!!!</B>) with european/ISO 8859-1,2
(Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic, Korean fonts, and the onscreen
display (OSD)?</P>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> is under GPL v2 license.</P>

    Try it, and be amazed! Thousands of new features added... and of course
    old code was improved too, bugs removed etc.</LI>
<LI><B>MPlayer 0.18 "The BugCounter"</B> Jul 9, 2001<BR>
    2 months since 0.17 and here's a new release.. Completed ASF support,
    more subtitle formats, introduced libao (similar to libvo but to audio),
    even more stable than ever, and so on. It's a MUST !</LI>
<LI><B>MPlayer 0.50 "The Faszom(C)ounter"</B> Oct 8, 2001<BR>
    Hmm. Release again. Tons of new features, beta GUI version, bugs fixed,
    new vo and ao drivers, ported to many systems, including opensource DivX
    codecs and much more. Try it!</LI>
<LI><B>MPlayer 0.60 "The RTFMCounter"</B> Jan 3, 2002<BR>

<UL>
  <LI><B>binutils</B> - suggested version is <B>2.11.x</B> . This program is
    responsible for generating MMX/3DNow!/etc instructions, thus very important.</LI>
  <LI><B>gcc</B> - suggested versions are: <B>2.95.3</B>, <B>2.95.4</B> and <B>3.1</B>.
    <B>NEVER</B> use 2.96 or 3.0.x !!! They generate faulty code for MPlayer.
    If you decide to change gcc from 2.96, then don't decide in favor of 3.0.x
    just because it's newer! Early releases of 3.0.x were even more buggy than
    2.96. So downgrade to 2.95.x (downgrade libstdc++ too, other programs may
    need it) or don't up/downgrade at all (but in this case, be prepared for
    runtime problems). If you vote for 3.x.x, try to use the latest version,

</UL>

<P><B>CODECS</B></P>

<UL>
<LI><B>libavcodec</B> : If you want to use this DivX3/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42/etc
codec, check the
<A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.2">2.2.1.2</A> section before compiling. Features :<BR>
<UL>
  <LI>you can <B>gain DivX/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42 playback on non-x86
    machines</B></LI>
  <LI>RealVideo 1.0/VIVO/MJPEG/h263/others playing and encoding</LI>
  <LI>this codec has the <B>greatest decoding speed</B> for DivX and DivX4/DivX5
movies (even faster than the original DivX4 library itself) ! Recommended!</LI>
</UL>
</LI>

<LI><B>Win32 codecs</B> : If you plan to use <B>MPlayer</B> on x86
architecture, you will possibly need them. Download and unzip w32codecs.zip to
/usr/lib/win32 <B>BEFORE</B> compiling <B>MPlayer</B>, otherwise no Win32
support will be compiled!<BR>
Note: the avifile project has similar codecs package, but it
differs from ours, so if you want to use all supported codecs, then use our

  ASF's with MP41 or MP42 video (though VoxWare audio is frequent for these
  files - it's done by the Win32 codec), or WMV7.</LI>
</UL>
</LI>

<LI><B>DivX4/DivX5</B> : information about this codec is available in the
<A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.1">2.2.1.1</A> section. If you don't want to encode
with it, you possibly don't want this codec as <B>libavcodec</B> (see above) is
much faster than this.<BR>
Features:
<UL>
  <LI>1 pass or 2 pass encoding with <A HREF="encoding.html">MEncoder</A></LI>
  <LI>can play old <B>DivX3</B> movies much faster than the Win32 DLL but
    slower than <B>libavcodec</B> !</LI>
  <LI>it's closed-source, and only an x86 version is available.</LI>
</UL>
</LI>

<LI><B>XviD</B> : Open source encoding alternative to Divx4Linux<BR>
Features:
<UL>
  <LI>1 pass or 2 pass encoding with <A HREF="encoding.html">MEncoder</A></LI>
  <LI>it's open-source, so not only an x86 version is available.</LI>
  <LI>it's about 2 times faster than divx4 when encoding - about the same quality</LI>

<LI>The <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.3">XAnim codecs</A> are the best (full screen,
hardware YUV zoom) for decoding <B>3ivx</B> and Indeo 3/4/5 movies, and some
old formats. And they are multiplatform, so this is the only way to play Indeo on
non-x86 platforms (well, apart from using XAnim:). But for example Cinepak
movies are best played with <B>MPlayer</B>'s own Cinepak decoder !</LI>

<LI>For <B>Ogg Vorbis</B> audio decoding you need to install
  <CODE>libvorbis</CODE> properly. Use deb/rpm packages if available, or
  compile from
  <A HREF="http://ogg.org/ogg/vorbis/download/vorbis_nightly_cvs.tgz">source</A>

They can display and scale (zoom) the picture to any size that fits in
their memory, with <B>small CPU usage</B> (zooming doesn't increase it!), thus
you get a nice and very fast fullscreen playing.</P>

<UL>
<LI><B>Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 cards</B>: although a
  <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.9">Vidix driver</A> is provided, it is recommended
  to use the old mga_vid kernel module instead, for it works much better.
  Please see the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.7">mga_vid</A> section about its
  installation and usage. It is important to do these steps <I>before</I>
  compiling <B>MPlayer</B>, otherwise no mga_vid support will be built. Also
  check out the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.A.1">Matrox TV-out</A> section.
  <U><B>If you are non-Linux user</B></U>, your only possibility is the Vidix
  driver: read <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.15">Vidix</A> documentation !</LI>

<LI><B>3Dfx Voodoo3/Banshee cards</B>: please see the
  <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.9">2.3.1.9</A> section in order to gain big
  speedup. It is important to do these steps <I>before</I> compiling
  <B>MPlayer</B>, otherwise no 3Dfx support will be built. Also see the <A
  HREF="video.html#2.3.1.A.3">3dfx TV-out section</A>. If you use X, use at
  least 4.2.0, as 3dfx Xv driver was broken in 4.1.0, and earlier
  releases!</LI>

<LI><B>ATI cards</B>: <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.14">Vidix driver</A> is
  provided for the following cards:
  <B>Radeon</B>, <B>Rage128</B>, <B>Mach64</B> (Rage XL/Mobility, Xpert98).
  Also see the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.A.2">ATI cards
  section</A> of the TV-out documentation, to know if you card's TV-out is
  supported under Linux/MPlayer.</LI>

<LI><B>S3 cards</B>: the Savage and Virge/DX chips have hardware acceleration. Use as
new XFree86 version as possible, older drivers are buggy. Savage chips
have problems with YV12 display, see <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.2.2">S3 Xv
section</A> for details. Older, Trio cards have no, or slow hardware
support.</LI>

<LI><B>nVidia cards</B>: very bad choice for video playing (nVidia has
<A HREF="users_against_developers.html#nvidia">different opinion</A>!).
nVidia's cards have very cheap and bad
quality chips. Moreover, <U>the built-in nVidia driver in XFree86 doesn't
contain support for hardware YUV acceleration for all nVidia cards !</U>
You have to download nVidia's closed-source drivers from nVidia.com. See
details in <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.2.3">nVidia Xv driver</A> section.</LI>

<LI><B>3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3</B>: a Vidix driver is provided
  (pm3_vid). Please see the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.15">Vidix
  instructions</A>.</LI>

<LI><B>other cards</B>: none of the above?
  <UL>
    <LI>Try if the XFree86 driver (and your card) supports hardware
      acceleration. See the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.2">Xv section</A> for
      details.</LI>
    <LI>If it doesn't, then your card's video features aren't supported under your OS :(<BR>
      If it does hardware scaling under Windows, it doesn't mean it will do the same
      under Linux or other OS, it depends on the drivers! Most manufacturers don't
      make Linux drivers nor release chip specs - so you're unlucky if using their cards.
      See next section:
    </LI>

<B>by software</B> (use the option -zoom, but i warn you: this is slooow!),
or changing to a smaller video mode, for
example to 352x288. If you don't have YUV acceleration, this latter method is
the recommended one. Throughout <B>MPlayer</B>, <U>this behavior can
be switched on by using the <CODE>-vm</CODE> option</U> and with
the following drivers :
</P>

<UL>
  <LI><B>using</B> XFree86 : see details in
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.3">DGA driver</A> and
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.13">X11 driver</A> sections. DGA is
    recommended! Also try DGA via SDL, sometimes it's better.</LI>
  <LI><B>not using</B> XFree86 : try the drivers in the following order :
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.12">vesa</A>,
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.6">fbdev</A>,
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.5">svgalib</A>,
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.11">aalib</A>.</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>SOUND CARDS</B></P>

<UL>
<LI><B>Soundblaster Live!</B> : with this card you can use 4 or 6 (<B>5.1</B>)
channels AC3 decoding instead of 2. Read the
<A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.2.1">Software AC3 decoding</A> section.
For hardware AC3 passthrough you MUST use ALSA 0.9 oss emulation!</LI>

<LI><B>C-Media with SP/DIF out</B> : hardware AC3 passthrough is possible
  with these cards, see
  <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.2.2">Hardware AC3 decoding</A> section.</LI>

<LI><B>other cards'</B> features aren't supported by <B>MPlayer</B>.
  <U>It's very recommended to read the <A HREF="sound.html#2.3.2">sound card
  section</A> !</U>
</UL>

<P><B>FEATURES</B></P>

<UL>

</PRE>

<P>At this point, <B>MPlayer</B> is ready to use. The directory
<CODE>$PREFIX/share/mplayer</CODE> contains the <CODE>codecs.conf</CODE>
file, which is used to tell the program all the codecs and their capabilities.
This file should always be kept uptodate together with the main binary !<BR>
Check if you have codecs.conf in your home directory (~/.mplayer/codecs.conf)
left from old MPlayer versions, and remove it!</P>

<P><B>Debian users</B> can build a .deb package for themselves, it's very
simple. Just exec <CODE>fakeroot debian/rules binary</CODE> in <B>MPlayer</B>'s

<P>
<B>VobSub subtitles</B><BR> 
VobSub subtitles consist of a big (some megabytes) .SUB file, and optional 
.IDX and/or .IFO files.<BR>
Usage : if you have files like <CODE>sample.sub</CODE>, <CODE>sample.ifo</CODE>,
<CODE>sample.idx</CODE> - you have to pass the <CODE>-vobsub sample -vobsubid
&lt;id&gt;</CODE> options (optionally with pathname, of course). The
<CODE>-vobsubid</CODE> option is like <CODE>-sid</CODE> for DVDs, you can
choose between subtitle tracks (languages) with it.</P>

<P>
<B>Other subtitles</B><BR>
The other formats consist of a single text file containing timing, placement
and text information.<BR>
Usage : if you have a file like <CODE>sample.txt</CODE>, you have to pass 
the option <CODE>-sub sample.txt</CODE> (optionally with pathname, of course). 
</P>

<P>
<B>Adjusting subtitle timing and placement</B><BR>

<CODE>-subdelay &lt;sec&gt;</CODE> : Delays subtitles by &lt;sec&gt; seconds. Can be negative.<BR>
<CODE>-subfps &lt;rate&gt;</CODE> : Specify frame/sec rate of subtitle file (float number)<BR>
<CODE>-subpos &lt;0 - 100&gt;</CODE> : Specify the position of subtitles.<BR>
</P>
<P>
If you experience a growing delay between the movie and the subtitles when using a MicroDVD
subtitle file, most likely the frame rate of the movie and the subtitle file are different.<BR>
Please note that the MicroDVD subtitle format uses absolute frame numbers for its

<P>About DVD subtitles, read the <A HREF="cd-dvd.html#4.2">DVD section</A>.</P>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> introduces a new subtitle format called <B>MPsub</B>.
It was designed by me (Gabucino). Basically its main feature is being
<I>dynamically</I> time-based (although it has frame-based mode too). Example (from
<A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/tech/mpsub.sub">DOCS/tech/mpsub.sub</A>) :
</P>

<P><CODE><I>
# first number  : wait this much after previous subtitle disappeared<BR>
# second number : display the current subtitle for this many seconds<BR>

(note: you must have HSI RAW plugin too, see URL below)</LI>
</UL>

<P>After that, UNZIP the file you downloaded to <CODE>~/.mplayer</CODE> or
<CODE>$PREFIX/share/mplayer</CODE>. Then rename or symlink one of them to
<CODE>font</CODE> (like : <CODE>ln -s ~/.mplayer/arial-24
~/.mplayer/font</CODE>). Now you have to see a timer at the upper left corner
of the movie (switch it off with the "o" key).</P>

<P>OSD has 3 states: (switch with 'o')</P>
<UL>

<P><A NAME=2.6.16><B>2.6.16.  Rectangle</B></A></P>

<P><B><U>Description</U></B>:</P>

<P>Draws a white rectangle of the requested width and height at the designated
  coordinates over the image.  Useful to get visual feedback for the parameters
  of <CODE>-vop crop</CODE> before applying them.</P>

<P><B><U>Usage</U></B>:</P>

<LI>DOWN</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>Mouse</B></P>

<P>Note : mouse is only supported under X</P>

<UL>
<LI>MOUSE_BTN0 (Left button)</LI>
<LI>MOUSE_BTN1 (Right button)</LI>
<LI>MOUSE_BTN2 (Middle button)</LI>

<LI>MOUSE_BTN9</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>Joystick</B></P>

<P>Note : joystick support must be enabled at compile time</P>

<UL>
<LI>JOY_RIGHT or JOY_AXIS0_PLUS</LI>
<LI>JOY_LEFT or JOY_AXIS0_MINUS</LI>
<LI>JOY_UP or JOY_AXIS1_MINUS</LI>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> can play files from network, using the HTTP or MMS protocol.</P>

<P>Playing goes by simply using adding the URL to the command line. <B>MPlayer</B>
also honors the http_proxy environment variable, and uses proxy if available.
Proxy usage can also be forced :</P>

<P><CODE>mplayer http_proxy://proxy.micorsops.com:3128/http://micorsops.com:80/stream.asf</CODE></P>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> can read from stdin (NOT named pipes). This can be for example
used to play from FTP:</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -</CODE></P>

<P>Note: it's also recommended to enable CACHE when playback from network:</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -cache 8192 -</CODE></P>


<P><B><A NAME=4></A>4. <A HREF="faq.html">FAQ section</A></B></P>

<LI>and about matroxfb-TVout stuff.</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI>MPlayer &amp; DVB card users:<BR>
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb">http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb</A>
<P>Things related to the hardware decoder card called DVB. (NOT dxr3!)</P>
</LI>
<LI>MPlayer CVS-log: <BR>
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cvslog">http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cvslog</A>
<P>Send only questions about CVS changes here.
(if you don't understand why a change is required or you've better fix or you've

6868:f6e17d2b448e

the avifile
library at all!). The another big feature of mplayer is the wide range of
supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev,
AAlib, DirectFB, but you can use GGI and SDL (and this way all their drivers)
and some lowlevel card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3Dfx and Radeon,
Mach64, Permedia3), too! Most
of them supports software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in
fullscreen. <B>MPlayer</B> supports displaying through some hardware MPEG
decoder boards, such as the <B><A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.16">DVB</A></B> and
<B> <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.17">DXR3/Hollywood+</A></B>! And what about the
nice big antialiased
shaded subtitles (<B>10 supported types!!!</B>) with european/ISO 8859-1,2
(Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic, Korean fonts, and the onscreen
display (OSD)?</P>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> is under GPL v2 license.</P>

    Try it, and be amazed! Thousands of new features added... and of course
    old code was improved too, bugs removed etc.</LI>
<LI><B>MPlayer 0.18 "The BugCounter"</B> Jul 9, 2001<BR>
    2 months since 0.17 and here's a new release.. Completed ASF support,
    more subtitle formats, introduced libao (similar to libvo but to audio),
    even more stable than ever, and so on. It's a MUST!</LI>
<LI><B>MPlayer 0.50 "The Faszom(C)ounter"</B> Oct 8, 2001<BR>
    Hmm. Release again. Tons of new features, beta GUI version, bugs fixed,
    new vo and ao drivers, ported to many systems, including opensource DivX
    codecs and much more. Try it!</LI>
<LI><B>MPlayer 0.60 "The RTFMCounter"</B> Jan 3, 2002<BR>

<UL>
  <LI><B>binutils</B> - suggested version is <B>2.11.x</B> . This program is
    responsible for generating MMX/3DNow!/etc instructions, thus very important.</LI>
  <LI><B>gcc</B> - suggested versions are: <B>2.95.3</B>, <B>2.95.4</B> and <B>3.1</B>.
    <B>NEVER</B> use 2.96 or 3.0.x!!! They generate faulty code for MPlayer.
    If you decide to change gcc from 2.96, then don't decide in favor of 3.0.x
    just because it's newer! Early releases of 3.0.x were even more buggy than
    2.96. So downgrade to 2.95.x (downgrade libstdc++ too, other programs may
    need it) or don't up/downgrade at all (but in this case, be prepared for
    runtime problems). If you vote for 3.x.x, try to use the latest version,

</UL>

<P><B>CODECS</B></P>

<UL>
<LI><B>libavcodec</B>: This codec package is capable of decoding
  H263/MJPEG/RV10/DivX3/DivX4/DivX5/MP41/MP42/WMV1 encoded video streams on
  multiple platforms. Details can be found
  <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.2">here</A>. Features:
  <UL>
    <LI>Decoding of above mentioned codecs on non-x86 machines.</LI>
    <LI>Encoding with most of the above mentioned codecs.</LI>
    <LI>This is the <B>fastest available</B> codec for DivX/3/4/5 and other
      MPEG4 types and therefore highly recommended.</LI>
  </UL>
</LI>
<LI><B>Win32 codecs:</B> If you plan to use <B>MPlayer</B> on x86
architecture, you will possibly need them. Download and unzip w32codecs.zip to
/usr/lib/win32 <B>BEFORE</B> compiling <B>MPlayer</B>, otherwise no Win32
support will be compiled!<BR>
Note: the avifile project has similar codecs package, but it
differs from ours, so if you want to use all supported codecs, then use our

  ASF's with MP41 or MP42 video (though VoxWare audio is frequent for these
  files - it's done by the Win32 codec), or WMV7.</LI>
</UL>
</LI>

<LI><B>DivX4/DivX5:</B> information about this codec is available in the
<A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.1">2.2.1.1</A> section. If you don't want to encode
with it, you possibly don't want this codec as <B>libavcodec</B> (see above) is
much faster than this.<BR>
Features:
<UL>
  <LI>1 pass or 2 pass encoding with <A HREF="encoding.html">MEncoder</A></LI>
  <LI>can play old <B>DivX3</B> movies much faster than the Win32 DLL but
    slower than <B>libavcodec</B>!</LI>
  <LI>it's closed-source, and only an x86 version is available.</LI>
</UL>
</LI>

<LI><B>XviD:</B> Open source encoding alternative to Divx4Linux<BR>
Features:
<UL>
  <LI>1 pass or 2 pass encoding with <A HREF="encoding.html">MEncoder</A></LI>
  <LI>it's open-source, so not only an x86 version is available.</LI>
  <LI>it's about 2 times faster than divx4 when encoding - about the same quality</LI>

<LI>The <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.3">XAnim codecs</A> are the best (full screen,
hardware YUV zoom) for decoding <B>3ivx</B> and Indeo 3/4/5 movies, and some
old formats. And they are multiplatform, so this is the only way to play Indeo on
non-x86 platforms (well, apart from using XAnim:). But for example Cinepak
movies are best played with <B>MPlayer</B>'s own Cinepak decoder!</LI>

<LI>For <B>Ogg Vorbis</B> audio decoding you need to install
  <CODE>libvorbis</CODE> properly. Use deb/rpm packages if available, or
  compile from
  <A HREF="http://ogg.org/ogg/vorbis/download/vorbis_nightly_cvs.tgz">source</A>

They can display and scale (zoom) the picture to any size that fits in
their memory, with <B>small CPU usage</B> (zooming doesn't increase it!), thus
you get a nice and very fast fullscreen playing.</P>

<UL>
<LI><B>Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 cards:</B> although a
  <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.9">Vidix driver</A> is provided, it is recommended
  to use the old mga_vid kernel module instead, for it works much better.
  Please see the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.7">mga_vid</A> section about its
  installation and usage. It is important to do these steps <I>before</I>
  compiling <B>MPlayer</B>, otherwise no mga_vid support will be built. Also
  check out the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.A.1">Matrox TV-out</A> section.
  <U><B>If you are non-Linux user</B></U>, your only possibility is the Vidix
  driver: read <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.15">Vidix</A> documentation!</LI>

<LI><B>3Dfx Voodoo3/Banshee cards:</B> please see the
  <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.9">2.3.1.9</A> section in order to gain big
  speedup. It is important to do these steps <I>before</I> compiling
  <B>MPlayer</B>, otherwise no 3Dfx support will be built. Also see the <A
  HREF="video.html#2.3.1.A.3">3dfx TV-out section</A>. If you use X, use at
  least 4.2.0, as 3dfx Xv driver was broken in 4.1.0, and earlier
  releases!</LI>

<LI><B>ATI cards:</B> <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.14">Vidix driver</A> is
  provided for the following cards:
  <B>Radeon</B>, <B>Rage128</B>, <B>Mach64</B> (Rage XL/Mobility, Xpert98).
  Also see the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.A.2">ATI cards
  section</A> of the TV-out documentation, to know if you card's TV-out is
  supported under Linux/MPlayer.</LI>

<LI><B>S3 cards:</B> the Savage and Virge/DX chips have hardware acceleration. Use as
new XFree86 version as possible, older drivers are buggy. Savage chips
have problems with YV12 display, see <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.2.2">S3 Xv
section</A> for details. Older, Trio cards have no, or slow hardware
support.</LI>

<LI><B>nVidia cards:</B> very bad choice for video playing (nVidia has
<A HREF="users_against_developers.html#nvidia">different opinion</A>!).
nVidia's cards have very cheap and bad
quality chips. Moreover, <U>the built-in nVidia driver in XFree86 doesn't
contain support for hardware YUV acceleration for all nVidia cards!</U>
You have to download nVidia's closed-source drivers from nVidia.com. See
details in <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.2.3">nVidia Xv driver</A> section.</LI>

<LI><B>3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3</B>: a Vidix driver is provided
  (pm3_vid). Please see the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.15">Vidix
  instructions</A>.</LI>

<LI><B>other cards:</B> none of the above?
  <UL>
    <LI>Try if the XFree86 driver (and your card) supports hardware
      acceleration. See the <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.2">Xv section</A> for
      details.</LI>
    <LI>If it doesn't, then your card's video features aren't supported under your OS:(<BR>
      If it does hardware scaling under Windows, it doesn't mean it will do the same
      under Linux or other OS, it depends on the drivers! Most manufacturers don't
      make Linux drivers nor release chip specs - so you're unlucky if using their cards.
      See next section:
    </LI>

<B>by software</B> (use the option -zoom, but i warn you: this is slooow!),
or changing to a smaller video mode, for
example to 352x288. If you don't have YUV acceleration, this latter method is
the recommended one. Throughout <B>MPlayer</B>, <U>this behavior can
be switched on by using the <CODE>-vm</CODE> option</U> and with
the following drivers:
</P>

<UL>
  <LI><B>using</B> XFree86: see details in
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.3">DGA driver</A> and
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.13">X11 driver</A> sections. DGA is
    recommended! Also try DGA via SDL, sometimes it's better.</LI>
  <LI><B>not using</B> XFree86: try the drivers in the following order:
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.12">vesa</A>,
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.6">fbdev</A>,
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.5">svgalib</A>,
    <A HREF="video.html#2.3.1.11">aalib</A>.</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>SOUND CARDS</B></P>

<UL>
<LI><B>Soundblaster Live!:</B> with this card you can use 4 or 6 (<B>5.1</B>)
channels AC3 decoding instead of 2. Read the
<A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.2.1">Software AC3 decoding</A> section.
For hardware AC3 passthrough you MUST use ALSA 0.9 oss emulation!</LI>

<LI><B>C-Media with SP/DIF out:</B> hardware AC3 passthrough is possible
  with these cards, see
  <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.2.2">Hardware AC3 decoding</A> section.</LI>

<LI><B>other cards'</B> features aren't supported by <B>MPlayer</B>.
  <U>It's very recommended to read the <A HREF="sound.html#2.3.2">sound card
  section</A>!</U>
</UL>

<P><B>FEATURES</B></P>

<UL>

</PRE>

<P>At this point, <B>MPlayer</B> is ready to use. The directory
<CODE>$PREFIX/share/mplayer</CODE> contains the <CODE>codecs.conf</CODE>
file, which is used to tell the program all the codecs and their capabilities.
This file should always be kept uptodate together with the main binary!<BR>
Check if you have codecs.conf in your home directory (~/.mplayer/codecs.conf)
left from old MPlayer versions, and remove it!</P>

<P><B>Debian users</B> can build a .deb package for themselves, it's very
simple. Just exec <CODE>fakeroot debian/rules binary</CODE> in <B>MPlayer</B>'s

<P>
<B>VobSub subtitles</B><BR> 
VobSub subtitles consist of a big (some megabytes) .SUB file, and optional 
.IDX and/or .IFO files.<BR>
Usage: if you have files like <CODE>sample.sub</CODE>, <CODE>sample.ifo</CODE>,
<CODE>sample.idx</CODE> - you have to pass the <CODE>-vobsub sample -vobsubid
&lt;id&gt;</CODE> options (optionally with pathname, of course). The
<CODE>-vobsubid</CODE> option is like <CODE>-sid</CODE> for DVDs, you can
choose between subtitle tracks (languages) with it.</P>

<P>
<B>Other subtitles</B><BR>
The other formats consist of a single text file containing timing, placement
and text information.<BR>
Usage: if you have a file like <CODE>sample.txt</CODE>, you have to pass 
the option <CODE>-sub sample.txt</CODE> (optionally with pathname, of course). 
</P>

<P>
<B>Adjusting subtitle timing and placement</B><BR>

<CODE>-subdelay &lt;sec&gt;</CODE>: Delays subtitles by &lt;sec&gt; seconds. Can be negative.<BR>
<CODE>-subfps &lt;rate&gt;</CODE>: Specify frame/sec rate of subtitle file (float number)<BR>
<CODE>-subpos &lt;0 - 100&gt;</CODE>: Specify the position of subtitles.<BR>
</P>
<P>
If you experience a growing delay between the movie and the subtitles when using a MicroDVD
subtitle file, most likely the frame rate of the movie and the subtitle file are different.<BR>
Please note that the MicroDVD subtitle format uses absolute frame numbers for its

<P>About DVD subtitles, read the <A HREF="cd-dvd.html#4.2">DVD section</A>.</P>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> introduces a new subtitle format called <B>MPsub</B>.
It was designed by me (Gabucino). Basically its main feature is being
<I>dynamically</I> time-based (although it has frame-based mode too). Example (from
<A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/tech/mpsub.sub">DOCS/tech/mpsub.sub</A>):
</P>

<P><CODE><I>
# first number  : wait this much after previous subtitle disappeared<BR>
# second number : display the current subtitle for this many seconds<BR>

(note: you must have HSI RAW plugin too, see URL below)</LI>
</UL>

<P>After that, UNZIP the file you downloaded to <CODE>~/.mplayer</CODE> or
<CODE>$PREFIX/share/mplayer</CODE>. Then rename or symlink one of them to
<CODE>font</CODE> (like: <CODE>ln -s ~/.mplayer/arial-24
~/.mplayer/font</CODE>). Now you have to see a timer at the upper left corner
of the movie (switch it off with the "o" key).</P>

<P>OSD has 3 states: (switch with 'o')</P>
<UL>

<P><A NAME=2.6.16><B>2.6.16.  Rectangle</B></A></P>

<P><B><U>Description</U></B>:</P>

<P>Draws a rectangle of the requested width and height at the designated
  coordinates over the image.  Useful to get visual feedback for the parameters
  of <CODE>-vop crop</CODE> before applying them.</P>

<P><B><U>Usage</U></B>:</P>

<LI>DOWN</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>Mouse</B></P>

<P>Note: mouse is only supported under X</P>

<UL>
<LI>MOUSE_BTN0 (Left button)</LI>
<LI>MOUSE_BTN1 (Right button)</LI>
<LI>MOUSE_BTN2 (Middle button)</LI>

<LI>MOUSE_BTN9</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>Joystick</B></P>

<P>Note: joystick support must be enabled at compile time</P>

<UL>
<LI>JOY_RIGHT or JOY_AXIS0_PLUS</LI>
<LI>JOY_LEFT or JOY_AXIS0_MINUS</LI>
<LI>JOY_UP or JOY_AXIS1_MINUS</LI>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> can play files from network, using the HTTP or MMS protocol.</P>

<P>Playing goes by simply using adding the URL to the command line. <B>MPlayer</B>
also honors the http_proxy environment variable, and uses proxy if available.
Proxy usage can also be forced:</P>

<P><CODE>mplayer http_proxy://proxy.micorsops.com:3128/http://micorsops.com:80/stream.asf</CODE></P>

<P><B>MPlayer</B> can read from stdin (NOT named pipes). This can be for example
used to play from FTP:</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -</CODE></P>

<P>Note: It is recommended to enable the cache when playing from the network:</P>

<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -cache 8192 -</CODE></P>


<P><B><A NAME=4></A>4. <A HREF="faq.html">FAQ section</A></B></P>

<LI>and about matroxfb-TVout stuff.</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI>MPlayer &amp; DVB card users:<BR>
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb">http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-dvb</A>
<P>Things related to the hardware decoder card called DVB. (NOT DXR3!)</P>
</LI>
<LI>MPlayer CVS-log: <BR>
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cvslog">http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-cvslog</A>
<P>Send only questions about CVS changes here.
(if you don't understand why a change is required or you've better fix or you've