MPlayer 1.0 rc6 +SuSE 9.2 Pro.

[Yaroslav Fedevych]

There is quite a bunch of dependencies which Mplayer has. For example, it relies upon libpng, ogg, libvorbis, ... Which means you have to get devel-packages for all of that. I always install those packages for myself, so that the whole compile thing was ./configure && make && make install and go drink some coffee.

Moreover, who knows what crap can be inside those 2.6 kernels (well, it's all about broken ioctl's).

Besides, I do not remember if GUI has gone bugs in 0.91 or in 1.0pre0. I just remember that it's particularly broken. Please try to invoke mplayer on your command line like:

mplayer -vo x11 path/to/movie

and tell what it barks when/if it dies. (If you want to plat a VCD, tell it vcd://track_number, analogously with DVD).

That said, I'd just like to emphasize that having MPlayer installed from binaries is a Wrong Thing. You should better download the sources and compile them (having ogg, theora, lame, vorbis (yeah the packages are separate IIRC), libpng and a bunch of other devel-packages installed). I've always had trouble when I messed with binary-only MPlayer installations.

[Sergiy Kudryk]

To play DVD designed for special region (encrypted)
you should install libdvdcss.

If you have continous problems with video & audio syncronization while watching DVD with xine - probabaly you DVD disk
(media surface) is corrupted.

I have no problems with Xine & MPEG-2/MPEG-4 (DVD, SVCD, DVB, ..) streams for years.

[Peter Odoruk]

Oh, guys, for me, as a linux beginner, it is a little bit complicated. I will do all that stuff later on because i don't know how to compile source packages.

For now, i would like to ask you few questions.

First, which 'Xine' player is easier to download, because there are many Xine players? For example, there are Xine-ui players, GXine players etc.

Second, what is 'timidity' and how to start it. I would like to do something to the 'Kaffeine' media player i have so far. I mentioned about 'Kaffeine' player earlier.

Thanks, guys, for your helping me. It's pleasure to talk to you.  
I'll keep in touch with you.

[Yaroslav Fedevych]

Don't really know. Xine-UI is probably the most standard one. All of them are basically the same thing but in different wrappers. (They require xine libraries to be installed, xine-libs).

Timidity++ is a software MIDI synthesizer. Probably the best among free ones. For normal operation, it requires some sound banks (Soundfonts are OK, I use them) or Gravis Ultrasound patches (I used to have them, but then I have downloaded soundfonts which were of much better quality). It is either called from command line, or it can be started as ALSA MIDI sequencing server. However, keep in mind it consumes *gobs* of CPU and will eventually slow down other tasks. Or you'll get chunky sound. man timidity explains how to invoke Timidity++ in detail, and man 5 timidity.cfg explains how to tell Timidity++ where your instrument data reside.

Because Timidity++ is so CPU consuming, many people use it primarily as MIDI-->WAV converter.

One more thing: I have noticed Timidity++ needs /dev/dsp to get started (even if you output everything to a file). Most probably it's a bug but it is there now; you won't be able to launch Timidity++ while some other program plays sounds, thus locking /dev/dsp.

[tech]

O.K. You need:
1: Library for decoding encrypted DVDs:
http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.8/libdvdcss-1.2.8.tar.gz
2: Library for generic DVD reading:
http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/dist/libdvdread-0.9.4.tar.gz
3: Xine-lib:
http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/xine/xine-lib-1.0.tar.gz
4: GUI frontend:
http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/xine/xine-ui-0.99.3.tar.gz

Make a subdirectory in your home directory:
mkdir ~/packages
Download the pachages listed above, save them in your packages/
check the /dev directory for /dev/dvd  and /dev/cdrom (I know SuSE uses sometimes different naming conventions and mounting directories, you should know better your system). On mine (Slackaware), I've got:

nabis@dstar> which gcc make       <--- checking for compiler first
/usr/bin/gcc
/usr/bin/make
nabis@dstar>su
root@dstar> ls -l /dev/cdrom /dev/dvd
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            8 Apr  3  2004 /dev/cdrom -> /dev/hdd
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root      root           8 Apr  5  2004 /dev/dvd -> /dev/hdc
                                           ^^^ the group is root
root@dstar> ls -l  /dev/hdd /dev/hdc
brw-rw----    1 root     disk      22,   0 Jun  9  2002 /dev/hdd
brw-rw----    1 root     disk      22,   0 Jun  9  2002 /dev/hdc
                                      ^^^means the group is disk

Add yourself to "disk"  and "root" group  (by editing /etc/group):

root@dstar> vim /etc/group
disk::6:root,adm,nabis
lp::7:lp                  ^^^ added my user
mem::8:
~
~
:wq

Make sure you have /usr/local/lib listed in /etc/ld.so.conf:

root@dstar> man ldconfig
root@dstar> cat /etc/ld.so.conf
(I you DON'T see the "/usr/local/lib" line, do the following, pay attention to ">>" redirector, DO NOT use just ">" ):
root@dstar> echo '/usr/local/lib' >> /etc/ld.so.conf

The Compilation:

root@dstar> exit
nabis@dstar> cd ~/packages
nabis@dstar> tar xvzf libdvdcss-1.2.8.tar.gz
nabis@dstar> tar xvzf libdvdread-0.9.4.tar.gz
nabis@dstar> tar xvzf xine-lib-1.0.tar.gz
nabis@dstar> tar xvzf xine-ui-0.99.3.tar.gz
nabis@dstar> cd libdvdcss-1.2.8
nabis@dstar> less INSTALL
nabis@dstar> ./configure --help | less        <-- read the configuration options 
(The compilation options you enter like this, for example:  ./configure --with-gtk=yes  --disable-alsa  . But mostly the configure
script will find the stuff it needs.)
nabis@dstar> ./configure 
nabis@dstar> make 
nabis@dstar> su
root@dstar> make install
root@dstar> /sbin/ldconfig -v

Repeat the compilation steps for libdvdread-0.9.4 and  xine-lib-1.0.
Same goes for xine-ui-0.99.3, except you don't have to run ldconfig (as far as I remember).

As a general rule try to read the INSTALL file before compiling anything.
If you get eny errors, post them here, just the last few lines about missing something (not the whole compilation output )

If you compile averything succesfuly (rare cases ) star xine as a regular user
nabis@dstar> xine

[Peter Odoruk]

OK, guys, i will follow your advice.