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Quicktime Under Linux With MPlayer 267

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wouldn't-it-be-nice dept.
Sark writes: "The latest version of the controversial MPlayer program for Linux supports Quicktime .mov files with the latest codecs. Apart from the closed source program Crossover, this is the first open source program that seems to work. Check out the Mplayer homepage for more info." According to formats page, Sorenson Quicktime is still not gonna happen any time soon.
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Quicktime Under Linux With MPlayer More

Quicktime Under Linux With MPlayer

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  • Argg, sorrenson is the one codec that we all really want and still no opensource way to use it... Oh well, atleast we have crossover.

    • Re:No sorrenson? =( (Score:2, Interesting)

      by prismatic ( 301711 )
      what i'm curious of, is this:

      avifile [sourceforge.net] uses some wine source to utilize win32 dll's to play stuff like windows media video. what prevents them from adding the windows dll for sorenson to it?

      i've unfortunately been too lazy to fire off an e-mail and ask them how difficult it would be to add it to the project, else i'd think of doing it myself (unfortunately, i'm not a kung foo master yet ... in fact, i'm almost inept as a programmer ... but i'll whine about that later).

      speaking of which, has anybody else thought of this as a possible solution?

  • huh? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ankit ( 70020 )
    huh!?
    Whats the point?

    [shamelessly lifted from a post in a different article]
    Quicktime is a wrapper format for a number of codecs, just like AVI. An actual Quicktime file is almost invariably encoded in the Sorenson file format, which is is exclusively licensed to Apple. MPlayer can probably never play this format!

  • Xanim Supports Quicktime (Score:5, Informative)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:06AM (#2751759) Homepage Journal
    Xanim's supported Quicktime .mov files forever, just not the Sorensen codec. Of course, many of Xanim's modules don't have source code available either, due to IP issues. Also, its mpeg capabilities are questionable at best. Since I got the DSL line in, I usually just look for mpegs anyway and play them with gtv or plaympeg.

  • MPlayer + Quicktime = schweeetttt (Score:4, Informative)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:09AM (#2751769) Homepage
    I have to say MPlayer and the folks working on it have done a great job, It is really nice stuff, although I think the project would benifift from a refined build process, building it with all the dependencies can be a bit of fun the first time around, divx, dvd, blah blah blah. I dont know if there is a simpole method of doing this with all the complie options.

    I really love the GCC 2.96 RedHat warning, if you havent built it yet, HEED that warning.

    Is there no chance the RIAA et al can shut this down being out of hungary? I hope not its becoming a wonderful piece of software.

    Congrats to the guys making MPlayer happen !!
    • hmmm, I compiled 0.50 some weeks ago with gcc 2.96 (I think the warning is a bit overblown, having to do a --ignore-gcc-whatever *and* having to type 'yeah, gcc 2.96 sucks' or something seems a bit redundant) and it's been working just fine...

      While I do not doubt that gcc 2.96 has bugs, in my experience it's not worse than most gcc versions I used during the years, and much better than quite some of them, especially in C++.

      I also did a bit of google-ing about this warning in mplayer, and AFAIK some people were a bit angry that 2.96 has been singled out (probably just because it's a RH release) I wonder if the reasons for so prominently warning people about 2.96 are at least in part political...

      • I subscribed to the mailing list for a while, and the reason it got singled out is because every couple of days someone would complain that mplayer didn't compile. And the reason for that? Because they were using gcc 2.96.

        Who reads warnings from 'configure'? That's right, not many people at all. So having the luser type in a statement that they know what they are doing is far better than letting them "click-thru" something you can be sure they didn't read.

    • <rant&gt

      Uhmm... While I'm trying not to troll here, why on earth would the RIAA/[MPPA] try and shut this down? Does it allow piracy? No. (Well, I suppose you could use quicktime for pirated films, but I can't think why you'd want to)

      Does it infringe anyone's intellectual property? Not as far as I can tell, mplayer most of it's codec modules as seperate .dlls. (I suppose if apple has a patent on the quicktime format as a whole, they could come after mplayer, but that seems unlikely, and it certainly would'nt involve the RIAA/MPAA).

      I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen someone on slashdot make some misinformed comment about the RIAA/MPAA/DMCA, they seem to be considered as the generic bad guys, who will spoil ALL your fun, even if it's not in any way related to them.

      </rant&gt

      RIAA break your glowstick, RIAA eat your candy.
      • Actually the reason I query is , MPlayer CAN use the DeCSS lib and some other niceties theat the MPAA/RIAA consider violations of the DCMA , Sites have been forced to remove content and links to that same code, here is a program that usess, and links (In more ways than one) to that very code they would like removed from the face of the earth, no you and I both know that is impossible.....hm what to do........Hey I got it target the projects that make use of the code !,

        If you think the MPAA/RIAA are ONLY concerned about stopping piracy you are the one who is misinformed, yes it is a concern to them and a main one, its about making MONEY period and the Artists themselves know this. BEYOND piracy are ownership issues that are being fought out even no. The RIAA/MPAA is a party to this as well. CONTROL is another issue the RIAA is driven twoard, the DeCSS, (or POSSIBLE use of that code MUST be unacceptable to them) otherwise why go to the lengths in cutting links and removing code thus far ?

        That is why I was curios, if they had any legal flak as of yet or if they are even succeptable , MPlayer being in .hu realm, No need to rant I am aware of EXACTLY what the legal issues involved here are, I was mainly curious about juridiction.
        • International Intellectual Property (IIP) issues might arise when Hungary gets around to applying to join the European Union (or NATO). But the EU politicians haven't AFAIK been quite as corrupt as US congress-critters about pandering to Big Music and Hollywood, so there's some hope that they'll maintain First Sale and (noncommercial) Fair Use types of consumer media rights. The EU is fairly tough about protecting consumers' privacy rights, so one can hope the RIAA/MPAA won't prevail there. (Vivendi owning Universal is a worry, but they're in France and can't buy laws one hopes.)

          In any case, it won't matter. The horse is out of the barn already. The RIAA/MPAA can close the barn door (in the US, maybe), but they won't ever catch the horse again. To paraphrase someone's famous quote about the Internet, open source software interprets authoritarian oppression as damage... and routes around it.
    • No need to HEED the gcc 2.96 warning. --disable-gcc-checking will take care of that.
      It works fine for me on Redhat 7.1 with gcc-2.96-85. Really, they just have a problem with Redhat period, and I don't think they think much of anyone using Redhat linux. I wonder what real consequences derive from using this version of gcc. I've had no problems with mplayer.

      It's a great program once its up and running, though. Best video playback on linux.
    • I've ignored that warning for a long time and have had no problems. Intersting that it didn't get mentioned, but mplayer plays .asf and divx 3.11 movies too.
    • To the guys in this thread who have mplayer running... I downloaded and compiled .50 a while back and it compiled just fine with the gcc 3.0.1 on my RH7.2 box. (I also installed the supporting files in my home directory as the instructions say). However, when I tried to run it with a test mpeg file from the command line, the output seems to indicate that it's detecting the codec just fine, but look at the last 2 lines:

      $ mplayer test.mpg

      (about 11 lines of output snipped)

      Detected video codec: [mpeg12] drv:1 (MPEG 1 or 2)
      fbdev: Can't open /dev/fb0: No such device
      Sorry, selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.

      I would suppose this has something to do with the framebuffer? What do I need to do to get this going on a fairly stock RH install? Thanks.
      • try the mplayer -vo help for testing try

        mplayer -vo xv test.mpg

        Or check your /root/.mplayer/config (or wherever you put it) file and the video driver section try xv works generally ok.
        • Much appreciated, but I tried: mplayer -vo xv test.mpg and I get:

          MPlayer 0.50 (C) 2000-2001 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS!)

          Reading /root/.mplayer/codecs.conf: 18 audio & 40 video codecs
          font: can't open file: /root/.mplayer/font/font.desc
          font: can't open file: /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
          Playing test.mpg
          Invalid video output driver name: xv
          Use '-vo help' to get a list of available video drivers.

          (are those font files the culprit? Do I really need them if I don't have vids with subtitles?)

          so i tried: mplayer -vo help and get:

          MPlayer 0.50 (C) 2000-2001 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS!)

          Available video output drivers:
          fbdev Framebuffer Device
          null Null video output
          odivx OpenDivX AVI File writer
          pgm PGM file
          md5 MD5 sum
          mpegpes Mpeg-PES file

          so I tried: mplayer -vo fbdev test.mpg
          but still get: "fbdev: Can't open /dev/fb0: No such device" as before.

          Any suggestions?
      • mplayer -vo x11 test.mpg

        You may still have problems with audio, depending on your desktop environment. I don't know if esd poses any problems, but with KDE I have do run

        mplayer -vo x11 -ao sdl test.mpg

        If you don't have sdl and you have problems, you could always just chuck the audio with

        mplayer -vo x11 -ao null test.mpg

  • Don't Bitch at MPlayer; Blame Apple! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is APPLE's fault that only Quicktime(tm)(c)(r) can play Sorenson codec files. They are keeping it totally proprietary in a petty attempt to be relevant. Please please petition Apple to release the specs and then we will write a player for Linux!

    • Re:Don't Bitch at MPlayer; Blame Apple! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gabebear ( 251933 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:33AM (#2751853) Homepage Journal
      Apple has released the specs for almost every aspect of the Quicktime (.mov) standard. They rarely write their own codecs though.

      The Sorenson codec is owned by Sorenson [sorenson.com] and Apple pays for it. If you want to get a legal player for a non-Win/Mac platform someone will either have to
      1. reverse engineer the codec(legally questionable and hard)
      2. write a wrapper that uses another OSs Code (crossover does this)
      3. legally licence the code and release a player (anyone?)
      4. actually get sorsen to let people have their source(or detailed specs) somehow.

      the best thing to do is just start using a codec that already lets people have their source and is on par with the best VP3 [vp3.com]
      • > 4. actually get sorsen to let people have
        > their source(or detailed specs) somehow.

        ...which conveniently ignores the fact that Apple remains the sole exclusive licensee of the "spec" in question. Apple is firmly in control of this situation, regardless of what excuses might be made for them.
      • 5. Have a widespread linux video player with a decent codec plugin architecture and hope that Sorenson/Apple write a binary only plugin.
      • 3. legally licence the code and release a player (anyone?)
        4. actually get sorsen to let people

        These two are actually the same problem: Apple pays Sorenson for an exclusive license to the codec. If it isn't Quicktime, it can't use Sorenson.

        Thus, the options are either convince Apple to release Quicktime for *nix (Quicktime for OS X runs way up in the Cocoa/Aqua layers, not down in BSD, so it doesn't count), or convince content producers to use another codec (MPEG4, some day).
      • The Sorenson codec is owned by Sorenson and Apple pays for it. If you want to get a legal player for a non-Win/Mac platform someone will either have to

        reverse engineer the codec(legally questionable and hard)

        Try ILLEGAL. You can reverse engineer things protected by copyright, but you cannot reverse engineer patented algorithms.

        2. write a wrapper that uses another OSs Code (crossover does this)

        Of questionable legality.

        3. legally licence the code and release a player (anyone?)

        This ignores the real issue. Apple has exclusive licensing to the Sorenson codec. Steve Jobs will NEVER allow a linux player, and this patent has over a decade before it expires. Both Apple and Microsoft want to keep other OSs out of the home/desktop market. Banning streaming media from them is part of the plan. You can expect the next moves from Microsoft will be changing to WMF 2.0 (also patented), and then lease the servers dirt cheap to take over the market from Real and Quicktime.

        None of this helps open source users, because the battlefield requires patented protection just to play. And Media Players will only exist for viable desktop market, and linux doesn't matter enough yet. At least Real is backed by AOL, so there is a chance Real will become the de facto standard. But I doubt it. Microsoft can give away WMF servers with the amount of profit they make, and flood the server market with WMF. At that point it is all over.

  • Controversial? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KingKire64 ( 321470 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:13AM (#2751781) Homepage Journal
    Why r these guys controversal? I read up on their site, they are trying to do the best they can to make a good movie app for linux... should they not include features b/c they are not fully opensource?? Dont let you politics about open/closed source keep linux out of the video world.
    • Read the FAQ on there site. They do not come across as the most helpful people on the planet...

      • Some of the questions in the FAQ do come across as a bit testy, yes. However, this is understandable, because the person who wrote it (Gabucino) is the one who gets ALL the newbie questions. So, yes, he can get annoyed ;) However, everyone I've ever talked to on the mailing list is consistently friendly and helpful.

        The only reason that anyone could really call MPlayer controversial is because they had some lisencing issues a while back, because of incompatible lisences in (if I remember right) the OpenDivX portion of the program.

    • Politics? Licensing is licensing, not politics. Using other people's code released under the GPL in a way which violates GPL is no more politics than pirating the latest Microsoft operating system is.

    • Re:Controversial? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LarsWestergren ( 9033 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @01:27PM (#2752468) Homepage Journal
      This review should give you a few hints.

      "The MPlayer gang seems to relish nothing more than belittling their users and reminding them of just how little they know about Linux and computing in general. I don't know about the rest of you, but I suffer enough of that on my own. I do not need any outside assistance to reinforce that point of view.

      Naturally, I was drawn to the project like a moth to a flame. Bring it on, I thought. Whatever it takes, I'll get it installed. I won't be asking that infantile band of RTFM-spewing bozos who maintain it for help, either. My own hardheadedness is probably the only reason I sit here today with MPlayer installed, with a custom GUI skin enabled no less, barely more than a full day after I started."

      http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=620307 [idg.net]
      • Xine can now do DivX, OpenDivX, DVD, MPEG 1/2, Windows Media Video 8 and 8, and most of the formats MPlayer can. So can Avifile. They're open source, Mplayer isn't - read their documentation sometime, specifically the part on packaging. And no, not just the codecs, but the project itself.
        Non-Sorenson Quicktime in only useful for people making movies under Linux.

        Many people put in a bloody large amount of time and effort into getting newcomers to the platform. Telling someone they're an idiot because they don't know how ldconfig works undoes that hard work and pisses me off. Its possible to answer newbiew questions withotu being a fuckwit, but the mplayer team would rather serve their own egos. Especially if mplayer was packaged like most Linux programs (the mplayer team forbid this) the postinstaller would do that anyway.

        Ogle, Xine and Avifile are also more well designed, with most options avaliable via the GUI and command line switches rather than compile time options.

        The MPlayer team have also yet to respond to Bero's response [bero.org] re: their GCC 2.96 claims, leaving something on their web page which has seemingly been proven to be technically false.

        Furthermore, telling me in captial letters that MY SYSTEM IS TO SLOW TO PLAY THIS MOVIE when I'm fairly sure a 900 Mhz Athlon with 640MB of RAM is capable of playing a VGA res DivX is worth a laugh or two.

        When there's a billion better players out there which don't go out of their way to be rude to people and Open Source licensing, why use Mplayer?

  • Xanim has done this for a while... (Score:5, Informative)

    by null_session ( 137073 ) <benNO@SPAMhouseofwebb.com> on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:14AM (#2751784) Homepage
    'Taco's real up on things, can't you tell? I've been playing .mov files (not the sorenson codec) for quite a while now using xanim. Try http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/home.html

  • Apart from the closed source program Crossover, this is the first open source program that seems to work. (My emph. No further comment.)

    • Crossover is in fact partially closed source, but it's based on wine which is open source. And in fact all the closed-source bit provides (so I've heard) is an easy configurator - it should be possible to play Sorenson QuickTime movies on Linux using wine already, without bothering to buy crossover.

      Of course MPlayer is not the "first open source program that seems to work" with Quicktime, that's completely laughable nonsense, as others have pointed out.

  • Where are the Debian packages? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:16AM (#2751788) Homepage

    You know, if Linux video software would come as Debian packages, I would be really happy. Currently, if I want anything with avifile or something, I need to compile it myself - and I don't want to mess with the source because avifile API isn't exactly solid yet and source that compiled yesterday doesn't work today. Linux video support Isn't Here, dammit.

    The mplayer author seems to be aware of the Marillat's unofficial .debs... and now whines that people are violating his "thou shalt not distribute Binaries" lisence.

    I don't want to compile the package myself. I want binaries.

    Source-only distribution is fine, as long as you let somebody make the pre-built binaries available so that we lazy bastards can use the program. I know I can compile mplayer if I'm positively motivated, but I know my mother couldn't.

    This is why I'm considering using VideoLanClient instead of mplayer - at least it's under GPL and I'm able to get "official" Debian packages for it.

    • I don't want to compile the package myself. I want binaries.
      Then why on earth are you running Linux?!

      --
      Mod me down
      • Then why on earth are you running Linux?!

        Obviously you've never built mplayer... or used Slackware 3.2 where I needed to build everything interesting from source if I didn't want to use year-old stuff. You kids have Stow to manage /usr/local, back in the day we needed to spend a day to nuke something installed to /usr/local - and we liked it! =)

        You know, the fact that I can just say "apt-get install whatever" to get my favorite software is a Good Thing. Don't get me wrong - I just wished to say that I hate duplicate work, installing pre-alpha-grade development libraries, and working with package source dependencies.

        Zillions of people out there download, build and install mplayer from source - while downloading prebuilt binaries would be much nicer and more convinient for everyone.

        I know, Real Men build the whole system from scratch. Those people are real artists. Now, would you please get me a distribution aimed for mortals?

        • Even if someone built binary packages, Debian would never distribute them. OpenDivX is open-source, but it is not under a GPL-compatible license. That means distributing a product that has linked OpenDivX to GPL code (like the rest of Mplayer) is a violation of the GPL.

          Also, Mplayer configures itself based on what libraries you have installed on your system (ffmpeg, OpenDivX, SDL, win32 codecs, etc). Including all these libraries would be redundant, including none would build an Mplayer that can't play movies ( which would be worthless). This could be overcome if Mplayer built video decoders as plugins that could be loaded at run-time, but it doesn't.

          Lastly, all the decoding and video output is optimized at compile time for MMX, 3D-now, SSE or whatever CPU-specific speedups it detects. If the build host has an Intel chip and you have an AMD, the player would crash and burn on your machine. This could probably be overcome by adding CPU-detection code, but including a different version of every decoder for every CPU would add unnecessary bloat.
      • Perhaps he wants a stable, free, fast, and secure system? I work with code all day, and I really don't want to go home a compile code. I didn't really mind it years ago, but coding isn't nearly as fun as playing with my kids.
    • Mplayer is using some libraries whose licence forbids binary distribution. They are working on replacing these, but until then you won't have binaries of the thing.

      /Janne

    • Re:Where are the Debian packages? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ankit ( 70020 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:24AM (#2751813) Homepage Journal
      There are a few reasons behind that. Firstly, MPlayer has many options with regard to what kind of output it should use. These are bese selected during compilation.
      Secondly, to be really useful, MPlayer requires several dlls, and codecs. These codecs either come from the windows dlls, or from closed source projects like the DivX(tm) MPEG-4 Codec.
      Distribution of these is prevented by their license. There are just links to them on the mplayer page. It is best if you compile mplayer yourself.

      Also, as a christmas gift, teach your mother the "./configure; make; make install" trick ;)
      • try

        ./configure && make && make install

        next time. that way, if configure dies, make doesn't try to run. and if make dies, make install doesn't try to run. you'll be happier.

      • Hell, if you're feeling saucy, you might even teach her how to make perfect debian packages out of the MPlayer source. It's really very easy, especially since they've been kind enough to provide the scripts...

        fakeroot debian/rules binary

        One command. Yes, it really is that simple

      • Better yet, teach her to do 'fakeroot debian/rules binary'. This will do everything for you and create a nice deb-package ready to install.
      • There are a few reasons behind that. Firstly, MPlayer has many options with regard to what kind of output it should use. These are bese selected during compilation.

        GFair enough, but that's an architecture problem that the team should hopefully fix soon.

        Secondly, to be really useful, MPlayer requires several dlls, and codecs. These codecs either come from the windows dlls, or from closed source projects like the DivX(tm) MPEG-4 Codec.

        So? Many (read most) Linux players do this: Avifile, Xine, etc. They can still be packaged - stick freshrpms.net in your sources.list on your redhat box and APT away. They just separate the DLLs from the software if necessary.

        Unlike the Open Source players, though, Mplayer uses non Open Source code in its actual binaries apparently. So yeah, ignore the web page claiming its open source and read this Mplayer therefore does not meet the Open Source Definition or the Free Software Freedoms list and shouldn't bother claiming to be Open Source. [mplayerhq.hu]
    • If you read the FAQ file it tells you that at this point making banaries if legal would be almost impossible. During compile gcc checks out all kinds of things on your machine processor type what proccessor extensions are supported etc. With out these comppile time options checked the program will crash. And yes they could keep 30 different compiled binarys on the site but that would be just a pain in the ass. And BTW they are looking for a programmer to help with making this a runtime issue instead of a compile time issue, but right now the compile time option saves alot of processor overhead during runtime.

    • Re:Where are the Debian packages? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      apt-get install aviplay.

      mplayer is illegal to use in binary form, and will likely always be that because of the stupidity of it's authors.
      • Illegal to distribute, maybe, but not to use. Remember, the GPL doesn't apply until you start distributing the software.

        Aviplay is tied to the (binary only) win32 codecs. Anyone who really cares about the politics of licensing would find that an unacceptable solution too.
      • Illegal to use in binary form?

        Sheesh. I guess you'll have to build a C
        interpreter. (Is it even possible to run
        C as an interpreted language? I have to
        think about this.)
    • There exist unoffical debian packages of mplayer. This is from my /etc/apt/sources.list:

      deb http://marillat.free.fr/ stable main

    • Xine (Score:3, Informative)

      by ~-zman-~ ( 99011 )
      There are packages for xine in unstable and you can play all kinds of formats. There is a list here:

      xine.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]

    • From the documentation:
      6.1. Debian packaging


      To build the package, get the cvs version, or .tgz and uncompress it, and cd into programs directory:

      cd main
      fakeroot debian/rules binary
      If your machine is fast enough to view AVIs without skipping, it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to compile a .deb.
    • apt-cache search mplayer
      mplayer - The Ultimate Movie Player

      apt-cache show mplayer
      Package: mplayer
      Status: install ok installed
      Priority: optional
      Section: misc
      Installed-Size: 2540
      Maintainer: Dariush Pietrzak
      Version: 0.50-1
      Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.4-4), libglib1.2 (>= 1.2.0), libgtk1.2 (>= 1.2.10-2.1), libncurses5 (>= 5.2.20010310-1), libpng2 (>= 1.0.12), libsdl1.2debian, libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 (>= 1:2.95.4-0.010810), xlibs (>> 4.1.0), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.3), debconf, libconfhelper-perl
      Description: The Ultimate Movie Player
      MPlayer is a movie player for Un*x. It plays most MPEG, AVI and ASF files,
      supported by many native and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VCD, DVD and even
      DivX movies with MPlayer.
      .
      MPlayer supports a wide range of output drivers: X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL,
      SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, GGI, SDL . You can use SDL and thus all the SDL
      drivers. Same goes for GGI.
      There are some low-level card-specific drivers (e.g. Matrox). Most of the
      drivers support either software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy
      movies in full screen mode.
      .Package: mplayer
      Status: install ok installed
      Priority: optional
      Section: misc
      Installed-Size: 2540
      Maintainer: Dariush Pietrzak
      Version: 0.50-1
      Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.4-4), libglib1.2 (>= 1.2.0), libgtk1.2 (>= 1.2.10-2.1), libncurses5 (>= 5.2.20010310-1), libpng2 (>= 1.0.12), libsdl1.2debian, libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 (>= 1:2.95.4-0.010810), xlibs (>> 4.1.0), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.3), debconf, libconfhelper-perl
      Description: The Ultimate Movie Player
      MPlayer is a movie player for Un*x. It plays most MPEG, AVI and ASF files,
      supported by many native and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VCD, DVD and even
      DivX movies with MPlayer.
      .
      MPlayer supports a wide range of output drivers: X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL,
      SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, GGI, SDL . You can use SDL and thus all the SDL
      drivers. Same goes for GGI.
      There are some low-level card-specific drivers (e.g. Matrox). Most of the
      drivers support either software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy
      movies in full screen mode.
      .
      MPlayer has nice, big antialiased shaded subtitles (7 supported types!)
      with Hungarian, English, Cyrillic, Czech and Korean fonts, and OSD.

      It works for me atleast. Im using unstable.
      MPlayer has nice, big antialiased shaded subtitles (7 supported types!)
      with Hungarian, English, Cyrillic, Czech and Korean fonts, and OSD.

  • Controversial? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by leereyno ( 32197 )
    What exactly is supposed to be so controversial about this program? I've been using it for a month and a half now and I think it is great. The addition of quicktime support means fewer reboots into windows just to watch some silly movie or another. As for the sorenson business, I'd like to think that eventually MPEG-4 (DiVX) will overtake whatever hold this compression codec has. Open standards tend to win out over proprietary ones, even when the proprietary one is technically superior. Just look at what happened with Betamax vs. VHS.

    Lee

    • Re:Controversial? (Score:4, Informative)

      by selmer ( 37218 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:22AM (#2751809) Homepage
      One of the things that's controversial about the mplayer people is their approach to support. Read this linuxworld article [linuxworld.com] if you want to know all about it.

      The short version:"They're a bunch of arrogant elitist bastards". (The article's opinion, I've never tried to install mplayer).

      • They pretty much are. For example, they constantly remind you (in less than polite ways) that GCC 2.96 is unsupported. Then, they discourage people from distributing binaries so people will be forced to compile it themselves.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I must disagree. Mplayer is great. All the features needed, even more. Recording from TV never was so easy as now, with mencoder. Mplayer really shines with it documentation. Every aspect of possible use is explained, with examples. Mplayer does not lack of 'on-line help'. Everytime something goes bad, tips appear: like 'use -idx to force index creation', '-framedrop may help' and so on. The zilions of configuration options made mplayer suitable for any use. I was able to bring video in sync with audio with mplayer. It just easy as reading docs and using few runtime switches.
        And the attitude. Well, they have correct attitude. Instead of writing thousand times the same things, they wrote they once, and the are giving RTFM tips for everyone. That's is good! Documentation is for reading.
        If you have problem - look ina FAQ, read documentation, grep documentation. You will find answer. And, damn, the source is readable. I solved one of my problem with reading source.
        Mplayer is really great project (although iconv from cp1250 to latin2 still doesn't work :).

      • You know, I never read the article that is cited here. I did some research on my own about 2 months ago, when I was looking for a video player for my new Linux boxes. And I came to a conclusion that appears to be roughly similar to what people are saying about this article: in short, the MPlayer developers are rude, condescending, and foul-mouthed. I think that is their right. They made it, they can do/say whatever they want about it. But I also think it is legitimate for people to then say "I don't want to associate with these people." And why should you have to, when there is an excellent alternative [sourceforge.net] that also plays Quicktime video (sans Sorenson), and comes in RPM format [puc-rio.br] for SuSE, Red Hat, and Mandrake. So you can get an equally-good player, with more courteous developers to back it up, and with no need to compile unless you enjoy that sort of thing. This is market competition at work, and it appears to me that Xine may be a winning alternative.

  • This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:20AM (#2751805)
    It would be news if it supported Sorenson at all. We already have a number of applications to chose from that will play non-Sorenson quicktime back, xanim being the first that I ever knew of. Quicktime for Linux project has all sorts of stuff that is non-Sorenson. Sorenson playback has always been the gotcha that matters.

    The only thing I can see is if they can use the Windows binary code to decode the Sorenson without the huge performance hit of running the entire player within a Wine context, and having the added benefit of XVideo availability for Sorenson playback. But it doesn't look like this will be the case.

    More noteworthy is the VIVO support and xanim support, the VIVO support is a first (AFAIK) under linux natively, and the xanim support really helps bridge the gap between new and old-school media playback, xanim gets a lot of those files that have been overlooked in the "new wave" of media players for linux...

    Also, another nit-pick, the crossover plugin, as such is not so much a player, but a nicely done wine modification within which the Windows Quicktime player runs... You can use the latest Wine CVS repository in much the same way (outside a browser at least).

  • Okay... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hiro Antagonist ( 310179 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:34AM (#2751854) Journal
    I can think of several programs that run under Linux/Unix which will play QuickTime .mov files -- xanim and xmms (plus the QuickTime-xmms plugin) will both play non-sorenson QuickTime files. The problem is, almost nothing worth watching (in the world of things QuickTime) is available in anything other than a Sorenson-encoded version.

    Sorenson, of course, is owned by Apple, and they are as likely to make it open-source as Microsoft is to release the next Office under the GPL.

    Now, mplayer will play .asf, .wmv, and .mpeg files with a variety of options (such as double-size and full-screen), and it will play VideoCDs quite nicely -- I have several movies that were dragged back from China on VCD that look great when run through mplayer. It's a great little video player, but it having the ability to play non-sorenson QuickTime is hardly news.

    If you want QuickTime under Linux, with the Sorenson codec, your only option is Crossover (which works quite nicely, and has given me many minutes of movie-trailer viewing bliss).

    • Re:Okay... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Junta ( 36770 )
      Of course, Sorenson is *licensed* by Apple, but not owned by...

      And Wine CVS with the Quicktime player (basically what crossover is....) is a valid, free option.. I have verified it to work (though the UI is a bit quirky on redraw, the movie displays fine)... Of course it won't embed in a browser, but works fine stand alone...

    • Re:Okay... (Score:3, Informative)

      by gabebear ( 251933 )
      Apple has released the specs for almost every aspect of the Quicktime (.mov) standard. They rarely write their own codecs though.

      The Sorenson codec is owned by Sorenson [sorenson.com] and Apple pays for it.
      • They also pay for the right to EXCLUDE everyone else from making a decoder.

        Apple effectively owns the Sorenson Codec.
    • I can think of several programs that run under Linux/Unix which will play QuickTime .mov files -- xanim and xmms (plus the QuickTime-xmms plugin) will both play non-sorenson QuickTime files. The problem is, almost nothing worth watching (in the world of things QuickTime) is available in anything other than a Sorenson-encoded version.

      Sorenson, of course, is owned by Apple, and they are as likely to make it open-source as Microsoft is to release the next Office under the GPL.

      Now, mplayer will play .asf, .wmv, and .mpeg files with a variety of options (such as double-size and full-screen), and it will play VideoCDs quite nicely -- I have several movies that were dragged back from China on VCD that look great when run through mplayer. It's a great little video player, but it having the ability to play non-sorenson QuickTime is hardly news.

      And the amusing thing is that:

      1. A large number of the codec DLLs you need to run MPlayer and play those formats are owned by Microsoft, Intel, On2.com, etc etc etc.

      2. MPlayer don't have the rights to distribute these codec DLLs in any form. Yet it's Microsoft code. (Check the win32-codecs file on their download site; look at the version info... it's all in there. They apparently stripped the copyright info from the DLLs, and that's it).

      3. They've not paid the royalties on the patents either.

      Isn't this llegal?

      Simon

  • Xine does Quicktime too (Score:3, Informative)

    by gagravarr ( 148765 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @10:38AM (#2751869) Homepage
    Xine [sourceforge.net] does Quicktime to, has done for quite some time. Doesn't do Sorenson either, but they do support win32 codecs, so dropping in the Quicktime dlls isn't impossible futher down the line.

  • hmm (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    uhm, I've been able to play non-sorenson .movs with aktion for over two years now.. what gives?
  • MPlayer is the fastest player i have ever used. I tried a lot of others (xine is really good) but kept going back.
    Its the first player i got DVDs to play with
    and now its got QuickTime support.

    These guys kick ass, quit your bitchin, and go /confiture; make; make install it
  • Apologies for being off topic.. but everyone seems to think that you need crossover to run quicktime when wine works fine to run quicktime.
  • The sort of childish behavior which is reported to have come from this project is exactly the ammunition desired by those trying to label all of us as "fanatical zealots". In short, this project is a disgrace to the greater community.

    Let me quickly point out something: Red Hat Software has done a hell-of-a-lot more for free/OSS (and particularly Linux) than the developers in question have ever done.

  • Console-mode playback (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Steffan ( 126616 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @12:31PM (#2752266)
    One of the very useful (to me) aspects of MPlayer is that it can run console-only. This is very useful on a slow machine with a hardware decoder: I have a P5-133 with a Hollywood+ MPEG2 decoder which can actually playback video, including DVDs. Not bad for a machine that was 'slow' about four or five years ago.
  • wine to run Quicktime.. hmm now that wine will Run quicktime and mplayer does not run movies that use the Sorenson codec (which is many of them) is this really useful for Quicktime moves?

    I do like the fact that this gives Linux yet another avenue for media. This added in with xmovie, gtv, quicktime under wine, xaniam, and now mplayer. I love choices..

  • If Sorenson codec is an issue, lets all send mail to Sorenson Labs [mailto] and ask them to support Linux. At the least, release a DLL for one of the players.

  • Apple to move away from Sorenson, will support MP4 (Score:3, Informative)

    by d0n quix0te ( 304783 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @01:35PM (#2752485)
    Yes you heard it right. This seems to be good news for Linux users. According to Frank Casanova, the head honcho of Quicktime, Quicktime 6 will de-emphasise Sorenson for MPEG-4. In an interview with Creative:Mac he says

    CASANOVA: It's the center of our universe. The Sorenson video CODEC has been an integral part of QuickTime since we had QuickTime 3. Sorenson is exclusive to QuickTime, a proprietary format, that has just produced incredible quality both for download of movie trailers and real-time streaming over the Internet. They've done incredibly well. And we're going to continue working with the Sorenson guys. We're not shutting that off. And people will probably opt to use Sorenson in some cases. But certainly the center of the work we do is going to be around standards.

    Everything Apple does--from the Unix bases of OS X, to FireWire being IEEE 1394, to USB to all the various facets of what we do, from AirPort being 802.11--we want to make sure that every piece of our architecture and infrastructure are based on industry standards. QuickTime is no different. Our streaming protocols are RTP/RTSP as defined by the IETS; and now ... you'll see our file format of QuickTime is the file format for MPEG-4. As you may remember, [ISO has] selected the QuickTime format as the basis for MPEG-4. And then what we're doing is we're building our own audio and video CODEC, but based on the recipe as published by this standard body, by ISO, for ... video and audio for music and speech. There's a few different CODECs in there. And that's what we're doing going forward. And you can expect to see incredible video quality using these new MPEG-4 CODECs.

    MPEG-4 continues the lineage of the MPEG family. MPEG-1 ... was great for CD-ROM distribution. MPEG-2 ... was targeted at a much higher data rate, much higher quality, and it found its way into areas like DVD playback and for HDTV and for some of the satellite communications where bandwidth is really not constrained. But MPEG-4 is the MPEG for the Internet. It takes lower than MPEG-1 data rates and practically MPEG-2 quality and makes it available for people to stream over the Internet, which is high and to the right, exactly where you want to see this go.

    And the AAC audio component for music will likely replace MP3 as the default and brand new audio standard on the Web because I'll tell you what, ... you can do incredibly good jobs with audio at a much smaller file size and lower data rate and get even better sounding quality than MP3 is providing. I think, over time, we'll see AAC supplant MP3 as the digital audio standard. That's the direction we're headed.

    Earlier [last] week, with Real Networks announcing their support for MPEG-4, we found that to be a sudden and abrupt change in direction for them, but nonetheless a welcome one. We're really happy here at Apple, and as members of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance--the ISMA--we're really happy that Real had decided to make this change in course. Real is a big company, at least from an Internet media streaming perspective, and their stamp of approval on MPEG-4 gives the whole space more momentum.

    The rest of the interview can be found here...
    http://www.creativemac.com/2001/12_dec/features/ ap plequicktimelive0112172.htm

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