view DOCS/xml/en/history.xml @ 13961:2946cbf097b5

DivX is MPEG4, so let's call it MPEG4 to avoid confusion.

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<!-- $Revision$ -->
<!-- FIXME: history really should be in the appendix -->
<sect1 id="history">
<title>History</title>

<blockquote><para>
This began a year ago...  I have tried lots of players under Linux
(<application>mtv</application>, <application>xmps</application>,
<application>dvdview</application>, <application>livid/oms</application>,
<application>videolan</application>, <application>xine</application>,
<application>xanim</application>, <application>avifile</application>,
<application>xmmp</application>) but they all have some problem. Mostly with
special files or with audio/video sync. Most of them are unable to play both
MPEG1, MPEG2 and AVI (DivX) files. Many players have image quality or speed
problems too. So I've decided to write/modify one...
</para></blockquote><para>A'rpi, 2001</para>

<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>mpg12play</application> v0.1-v0.3</emphasis>: Sep 22-25, 2000
  </para>
  <para>The first try, hacked together in a half hour!  I've used libmpeg3
  from <ulink url="http://www.heroinewarrior.com"/> up to the version 0.3, but
  there were image quality and speed problems with it.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>mpg12play</application> v0.5-v0.87</emphasis>: Sep 28-Oct 20, 2000
  </para><para>MPEG codec replaced with DVDview by Dirk Farin, it was a
  great stuff, but it was slow and was written in C++ (A'rpi hates C++!!!)
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>mpg12play</application> v0.9-v0.95pre5</emphasis>: Oct 21-Nov 2, 2000
  </para><para>MPEG codec was libmpeg2 (mpeg2dec) by Aaron Holtzman and
  Michel Lespinasse.  It's great, optimized very fast C code with perfect
  image quality and 100% MPEG standard conformance.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> v0.3-v0.9</emphasis>: Nov 18-Dec 4, 2000
  </para><para>It was a pack of two programs: mpg12play v0.95pre6 and my
  new simple AVI player 'avip' based on avifile's Win32 DLL loader.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> v0.10</emphasis>: Jan 1, 2001
  </para><para>The MPEG and AVI player in a single binary!
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> v0.11pre series</emphasis>:
  </para><para>Some new developers joined and since 0.11 the <application>MPlayer</application>
  project is a team-work! Added ASF file support, and OpenDivX
  (see <ulink url="http://www.projectmayo.com"/>) en/decoding.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> v0.17a "The IdegCounter"</emphasis> Apr 27, 2001
  </para><para>The release version of the 0.11pre after 4 months of heavy
  development!  Try it, and be amazed! Thousands of new features added...
  and of course old code was improved too, bugs removed etc.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.18 "The BugCounter"</emphasis> Jul 9, 2001
  </para><para>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!
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.50 "The Faszom(C)ounter"</emphasis> Oct 8, 2001
  </para><para>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!
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.60 "The RTFMCounter"</emphasis> Jan 3, 2002
  </para><para>MOV/VIVO/RM/FLI/NUV fileformats support, native CRAM, Cinepak,
  ADPCM codecs, and support for XAnim's binary codecs; DVD subtitles support,
  first release of <application>MEncoder</application>, TV grabbing, cache,
  liba52, countless fixes.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.90pre10 "The BirthdayCounter"</emphasis> Nov 11, 2002
  </para><para> Although this is not a release, I am going to mention it because it
  came out 2 years after <application>MPlayer</application> v0.01.
  Happy birthday, <application>MPlayer</application>!
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.90rc1 "The CodecCounter"</emphasis> Dec 7, 2002
  </para><para>Again not a release, but after adding Sorenson 3 (QuickTime)
  and Windows Media 9 support, <application>MPlayer</application> is the
  world's first movie player with support for all known video formats!
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.90 "The CounterCounter"</emphasis> Apr 6, 2003
  </para><para>After more than 1 year, we finally concluded that the code was indeed
    stable again, and ready to be published as a release. Unfortunately we
    forgot even to increase the version number, and other annoying bugs went
    in, so get ready for...
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 0.91</emphasis> Aug 13, 2003
  </para><para>The above mentioned and lot of other bugs have been fixed.
    This is the latest stable version.
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 1.0pre1 "Development on the beach"</emphasis> Sep 1, 2003
  </para><para>Although this is not a stable release, I am going to mention
    it because it is the first pre version of the 1.0 series of <application>MPlayer</application>
    and it is intended to help the <emphasis>big bug hunting party</emphasis>.
    This is a huge step forward!
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <emphasis role="bold"><application>MPlayer</application> 1.0</emphasis> date yet unknown
  </para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</sect1>