Talk:MPlayer

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[edit] Windows?

Err.. from what I can find out from the manual and website, MPlayer really is Linux-only. Yes, it can work under Cygwin, but so do a lot of other Linux programs. -- Harry 15:50, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Most definitely not. You can create native Windows MPlayer binaries with MinGW. It also runs under Mac OS X and most Unix variants. DonDiego 14:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But MPlayer includes a video output driver for DirectX and an audio output driver for native Windows audio. So if the program is compiled under Windows with Cygwin or Mingw, it behaves like a native Windows command line program and doesn't require a running X server (unlike most other graphical Linux programs running under Windows/Cygwin). Also, if you only want run MPlayer on Windows, you don't have to have Cygwin or Mingw installed. AxelBoldt 21:49, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ah.. OK. I'll stick with Winamp then ;) -- Harry 16:08, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Legal Status?

I would like to see a discussion of the legal status of MPlayer. The Debian project does not include MPlayer because in the past they believed it violated the licenses of some of its components (now believed resolved). They also cite patent concerns. See [1], [2] and [3]. --ChrisRuvolo 21:09, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is answered at The Debian and mplayer FAQ which includes it has been in Debian since "Oct 2006. It may be part of the next release Debian 4.0 (codename "etch")" Previously "there were problems with copyright and patents (according to this summary of the history)" with references Foolswisdom 07:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
MPlayer is part of Etch, the latest Debian release.--DonDiego 09:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

How can MPlayer play DVDs? Isn't it illegal to distribute DVD codecs like that?

[edit] Codec Lists

I've just added most of the codecs that the MPlayer team thinks are most important, but the video codec list seems a bit long; suggestions on whether it should be changed, or what should be culled from the list? --Dave2 21:39, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To be frank, I think the table looks quite ugly, apart from being incomplete. Since MPlayer supports more multimedia formats than any other player, I think it is best characterized as such. All the other multimedia players have free form lists in their description, so there is no need to make MPlayer different. A new article with a comparison of codec support by different multimedia players would be interesting, similar to the comparison of media players. DonDiego 09:47, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)
I'm split on whether a freeform list is better or not. On the one hand, it's more compact, but on the other hand it does make it a bit cluttered IMO. I don't feel that it can be completely scrapped, just leaving the page on mplayerhq.hu, as that would leave out wikification. --Dave2 12:35, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The correct solution is this: stop lying to users just because 99 % of people don't want to understand the difference between software and a format, or specification and implementation. A list of supported formats should only list supported formats and not names of the most famous software products that create audio/video in supported formats. For example, when MPlayer supports MPEG-4 ASP video, the correct way is listing only MPEG-4 ASP as the supported video compression, not "3ivx, DivX and Xvid" which are company/brand/product names (and furthermore not listing FFmpeg MPEG-4 just because it's not as famous as DivX and Xvid even though MPlayer supports video encoded with it, too). —J. M. 22:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image mangling

The screen shot on the right and the list of formats at the top of the page for MPlayer get stacked on top of each other. This occours at 800x600 display mode.

[edit] Other kind of Mplayer

I was looking for information on the former gaming service Mplayer. I can do a new article on this, but there should be a link to it, or this page should be made a disambig page. Flyerhell 10:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MPlayer now uses Subversion

Might be worth updating MPlayer, MEncoder, and FFmpeg articles to reflect that. They finished transition on June 1, 2006. -Matt 23:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] list of windows frontends

a section in the article that would be most apreciated (at least by me) since alternatives to MPUI definitely exist. So far to my knowledge there is MPF (mplayer frontend) and rulesplayer but i feel we need more before making this list. Anyone know of any others?

I use a win32 version based on mingw32 (the link to the project is available on the official website), it allows the same skinned UI that MPlayer has on linux. In fact you can even change the default skin to those available on the official website - although not all functionalities will be available through the interface.
Download the "Precompiled Mplayer win32 GUI binaries" in the projects website, it's in 7zip.
Why this version and mplayer itself is not more popular on windows, escapes me, it is truly an underrated killer app.--MrBlonde 16:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
the related projects page of mplayerhq.hu has the list of win32 mplayer guis. Compn 16:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear - FFMPEG or MPlayer?

Is the DLL loader part of MPlayer or FFMPEG? The way the relevant text is worded is unclear. Also, coverage of the bundled w32codecs would be interesting in its own right. 74.138.55.7 01:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It's part of MPlayer. Most of the open source codecs are part of ffmpeg. For those codecs not supported by ffmpeg or other open source libraries, it uses the DLL loader. How do you think this should be worded? --Mcoder 03:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] System requirements for MPlayer in Windows

The MPlayer site does not tell you the windows system requirements, but this site (which seems to be selling freeware!) http://www.virtualsoftware.com/ProdPage.cfm?ProdID=1930 says: Min Processor: 486, Min RAM: 8 MB, 605 Kb only Disk Space, Sound Card

After going through the list comparing media players for Windows, Mplayer The KMPlayer and VLC came out as best. But VLC requires XP. Havnt found out about The KMPlayer yet. MPlayer and The KMC just can't be bothered to tell potential new users what the system requirements are.

Probably because no one can tell. →AzaToth 20:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not that they are not bothered; there are no definite system requirements. MPlayer does not rely on any Windows feature. If you are persistent enough, you'd likely be able to compile it for DOS. To get closer to your point, one of the developers stated this here: "MPlayer is the most efficient player available. I can watch almost all movies smoothly on my 500MHz K6-III." But if you want to play four-to-eight XVID video streams in parallel in a VJ set, you'll prefer an Athlon64 2G+. So hardware requirements depend on what you want to play. Kuteni 20:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Its hard to explain system requirements, since each codec requires a different minimum speed. I've ran mplayer on a win95 p160 for mp3s. I've used it for playing vcds (mpeg1 video) on a p233. Playing dvds (mpeg2 video) works on a celeron 400mhz win98/2k. 640x480 h264 runs on an athlon 900mhz with win2k. i dont know the min requirements for 720p hdtv h264, but they are at least 1.8ghz. and 1080 h264 no idea. feel free to incorporate this into the article if you can word/table it properly. --65.29.97.246 (talk) 22:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)