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Media Movies

Xine Gets Native Sorenson3 Decoding 301

Posted by timothy from the one-less-thing-to-gripe-about dept.
gooofy writes "Freshly (im)ported from ffmpeg, xine 1-beta12 finally has native support for Sorenson SVQ3 video. This means that you're finally able to watch the latest quicktime trailers on any xine supported hardware platform, not just on x86. Other goodies in this release include support for ogg/theora, playback of cd/dvd over the network, improved handling of mpeg-2 files (resyncing) and many detail improvements."
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Xine Gets Native Sorenson3 Decoding More

Xine Gets Native Sorenson3 Decoding

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  • Applaude for 2 reasons (Score:4, Informative)

    by AlabamaMike ( 657318 ) * on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:04PM (#5933240) Journal
    1: One less reason to run a Windows platform. 2: No more annoying "don't you want to buy this" ad when you're trying to watch a new trailer.
    -A.M.

  • xine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:05PM (#5933244) Journal
    Great! Now all it needs is an interface that doesn't suck majorly. Have you tried to use their configuration dialog? What were they thinking?

    • Re:xine (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:13PM (#5933292)
      Give Totem a try if you're looking for a GTK+ (2.x) interface. Much nicer than the normal XINE interface :).

      • Re:xine (Score:3, Informative)

        by Compenguin ( 175952 )
        I tried totem but i had issues with some file formats that regular xine handeled fine and the only soultion i got was run gnome-mime-data from cvs

    • Re:xine (Score:5, Informative)

      by Newtonian_p ( 412461 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:17PM (#5933313) Homepage
      Actually, xine is split into 2 components: xine-gui and xine-lib. If you do not like the xine-gui, you could look for alternate guis but keep the xine-lib part (and therefore the native Sorenson 3 support).

      One alternate gui I know is Kxine [sourceforge.net], a kde/qt based gui for xine. I think it looks nice [sourceforge.net].

      • Re:xine (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:07AM (#5934239) Journal
        Looks like KXine hasn't been touched in over half a year. KPlayer and KMplayer, on the other hand, seem to be progressing nicely. I won't be happy until some backend issues are fixed, though, like smooth seeking/rewind/fastforward and single frame advance/rewind. Seems like no linux media player is interested in tackling these issues. Quicktime is the only player that gets it right. But it is windows/macos only and has annoying advertisements and Flash-like "features". I want my movie player to just play movies, not be a "media center" where "media" is defined as "whatever stuff AOL/Time Warner/Disney/Sony/etc. want you to be paying for today".

        • Re:xine (Score:3, Informative)

          by David McBride ( 183571 )
          The author of KXine, a friend of mine, is currently busy doing his finals and individual project for his Masters degree. Updates are likely to be slow-coming for the next few months or so. :-)

  • My question (Score:4, Funny)

    by ABetterRoss ( 216217 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:07PM (#5933256) Homepage Journal
    Does it work on OS X?

    Oh wait... I've got quicktime. Sorry.

  • x86 (Score:5, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:10PM (#5933276) Homepage Journal
    This means that you're finally able to watch the latest quicktime trailers on any xine supported hardware platform, not just on x86.

    Yes, all those macos-on-ppc people are having so much trouble with that.

  • Mplayer uses ffmpeg (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Newtonian_p ( 412461 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:12PM (#5933282) Homepage
    I know that Mplayer comes with ffmpeg and uses it as its divx/mpeg1/2/4 deconding engine

    Could droping in its source tree the new version ffmpeg in lieu of the one that comes with it make Mplayer support native Sorenson 3 too? Or would some additionnal modifications be needed in the Mplayer source?

    • Re:Mplayer uses ffmpeg (Score:5, Informative)

      by glitch! ( 57276 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:34PM (#5933396)
      Could droping in its source tree the new version ffmpeg in lieu of the one that comes with it make Mplayer support native Sorenson 3 too?

      Yep, if your code uses the libavcodec call av_register_all(), then when you use av_find_stream_info(), it will "just work". I tried yesterday's libavcodec out of CVS on the Quicktime Animatrix movie, and the video quality was pretty good. Pity about not having the QDesign audio codec, though...
    • Check the Mplayer website [mplayerhq.hu], the Mplayer project no longer has a leader. Its not certain if the project will survive.

      • Re:mplayer leaderless (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rufus211 ( 221883 ) <rufus-slashdotNO@SPAMhackish.org> on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:13AM (#5934269) Homepage
        You could not possibly be more wrong. The current generation mplayer (G1) will probably die soon, but there still is work going on. A'rpi, who was the driving force behind mplayer, has decided to start a complete rewrite from the base up, for now called mplayer G2 (yeah, mplayer has a thing with bad names). From what I've been reading, it seems to be going fairly well. Check out the current status on the (all of week-old) mailing list here:
        http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-g2-de v/
    • It works without any problem:

      $ mplayer nice_trick_640_dl.mov

      MPlayer dev-CVS-030512-09:12-2.95.3 (C) 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS)

      Playing nice_trick_640_dl.mov
      Cache fill: 0,00% (0 bytes) QuickTime/MOV file format detected.
      -
      MOV track #0: 70 chunks, 516 samples
      MOV: Found unknown movie atom SMI (21)!
      Image size: 640 x 350 (24 bpp)
      Display size: 640 x 350
      Fourcc: SVQ3 Codec: 'Sorenson Video 3'
      -
      MOV track #1: 82 chunks, 741 samples
      Audio bits: 16 chans: 2 rate: 44100
      Audio extra header: len=103 fcc=0x

  • yeah but does it embed in a browser? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:13PM (#5933291) Journal
    Most movie trailers and stuff that i'd need quicktime for are embeded in webpages. It's a pain in the ass sometimes to find the url for the file you want and download it so you can play it.

    • Re:yeah but does it embed in a browser? (Score:5, Informative)

      by bogie ( 31020 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:30PM (#5933373) Journal
      Mplayer with the Mplayer plugin usually does a pretty decent job with that. Maybe its not 100%, but when the big two web media companies(Microsoft, Apple) are trying to block you from entering their markets its not always a trival task.

      http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/

      btw screw you apple and microsoft for not providing media players for linux.

    • Re:yeah but does it embed in a browser? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Darf Bobo ( 88863 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:31PM (#5933381)
      In mozilla you can use 'View Page Info' and choose the 'Media' tab. URLs for video, etc have the 'Embed' type. Just pass the URL to mplayer if you have the bandwidth.
    • The vast majority I've seen embedded in webpages in the last, oh, 6 months or so, finally allow you to save the quicktime movie to your harddrive.

      I think they finally realized that bandwidth costs real money when you make people download something over and over again. :)

      Normally, you just let the Quicktime fully load, then you can 'Save as Quicktime Movie'.

      Yay.
    • How about this: why doesn't somebody make a movie player browser plugin that, instead of playing the movie in the browser window, which is just about the second stupidest thing I've ever seen, pops up a dialog box with the options "save to disk" and "play in fullscreen mode", which are the only two things I ever want to do with a movie I find on the web.

  • Mplayer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:15PM (#5933302)
    Will mplayer be able to take advantage of these native sorensen codecs also? While mplayer plays quicktime files, they are not native and they aren't great, (specifically once you play 1 mplayer will crash if you attempt to play a second). Also, I am pretyt hooked on mplayer by now.
    • Both of xine and MPlayer use FFmpeg, which now supports native SVQ3 decoding. Ever since this weekend my CVS version of MPlayer has been able to play SVQ3 natively.

  • More important (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 )
    All this is great I'm sure, but I reckon a lot people are never going to use Xine while it ships as a zillion RPMs with mind boggling configuration options and other intimidating features.


    And I thought getting codecs and random AVIs to work on Windows was bad...

    • Re:More important (Score:5, Informative)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:14PM (#5933521)
      Install apt-get for rpm, or configure urpmi, or just get debian, or emerge. Then do one of the following: apt-get install xine urpmi.install xine emerge xine Wait, you now have xine. Xine has long since been packaged well enough by third parties to make install a snap.
    • I totally agree. I've spent the last 4 hours trying to compile Xine, hunt down missing libraries, manually edit path settings, and halfway through I started to forget what I was even trying to compile.

      You have to admit, installation wizards in Windows are a lot easier and reliable than trying to compile something yourself under linux.

      Hmm... mabye I should have gone the RPM route, but those were not listed first on the Xine page.

  • Who, and how? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CoughDropAddict ( 40792 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:23PM (#5933342) Homepage
    Who are these guys? I'm amazed at what they're pulling off, encoding and decoding all these proprietary formats. This isn't the kind of stuff that some bored college student can churn out on a lazy Sunday afternoon. And how do they manage to decode a format like Sorenson that isn't even publically documented (AFAIK)?

    • Re:Who, and how? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:32PM (#5933387)
      Reverse engineering the format is the interesting part. Hiding from the patent lawyers is the exciting part.

    • Re:Who, and how? (Score:5, Funny)

      by fireman sam ( 662213 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:34PM (#5933397) Homepage Journal
      I think they may be using SCO proprietry code to get to an enterprise level so quickly. Call in the laywers!
      • Yes they are going from a tricycle to let's say a Ferrari Barchetta(I know what it really is, but I'm trying to be creative and unoriginal). It use to have a unfunctional GUI and now it has....oh wait.
    • This isn't the kind of stuff that some bored college student can churn out on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

      You seem to be forgetting your history... :)

    • All of the major codecs that ffmpeg/libavcodec can decode are based on mpeg4 (well, except ms mpeg4 v1/2/3 which doesn't quite meet the mpeg4 spec), so it's really far less work than you make it out to be. It's just a matter of tweaking their mpeg4 codec to deal with the idiosyncracies whatever mpeg4 codec the video uses.

      Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but from what I can pull up from sorenson's site, SVQ3 also appears to be an MPEG4 codec.

      Of course, this is not to belittle what the ffmpeg guys have don
    • Fabrice Bellard is one of the most elite hacker-guru people I know. He's not only responsible for FFmpeg, but also the QEMU emulator, which will eventually let you run x86 Linux binaries on other CPU architectures (including Wine). He knows his stuff, let's put it that way.

  • But the important question... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ca1v1n ( 135902 ) <snook.guanotronic@com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:25PM (#5933355)
    Will it play the audio on the trailer for The Matrix Reloaded?
    • You're gonna have to just download the whole movie using BitTorrent to see and hear those scenes...
      Sorry.

    • Re:But the important question... (Score:4, Informative)

      by vivek7006 ( 585218 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @11:02PM (#5933996) Homepage
      Yes it will ....

      I had downloaded the matrix reloaded trailer but could not get the adio working for mplayer. Someone on slashdot suggested to download and install faad2 libraries, but I could never get mplayer to play the audio in the matrix reloaded trailer.

      But the good news is that with this new version of xine, you can play the matrix reloaded trailer with full audio support. Its cool!! especially because you cannot play it in fullscreen mode in win2k using quicktime (It only allows to double the image size, but no full sceen mode).

      BTW installation was a breeze. Just downlaod the lib and ui source and do the following for both of them. ./confure
      make
      make install

  • How does it do on progressive DVD benchmarks? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Apparently, there is a lot of complexity to correctly showing interlaced video on on non-interlaced screens (like computer monitors).

    Does any one know how it ranks on progressive DVD benchmarks?

    This benchmark has lots of screen shots of correct and bad behavior: DVD Benchmark [hometheaterhifi.com]

  • What has xine done (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fefe ( 6964 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:44PM (#5933431) Homepage
    to get all this free publicity? The ffmpeg and xvid people do all the hard codec work and the mplayer people support every codec, container format and play even severely broken files, setting new records for tweakability to get it to excel even in really bad circumstances (it can play DVD in real-time on my EPIA-M 9000, using software AC-3 with stereo downmix; go ahead and read all the reviews that say it can't be done even under Windows where they have hardware MPEG-2 acceleration and use an external S/PDIF decoder).

    xine is always lagging behind. Their main "innovation" is that unintuitive and ugly GUI. WTF were they thinking when they created a GUI that is unusable without all those tool-tips?

    I have no idea whom the xine people had to bribe to get all this slashdot exposure, because it sure as hell didn't earn it on technical merit.

    • Re:What has xine done (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I agree.
      Even though even ffmpeg technically did not create the decoder. An Anonymous submitted the patch. Of course everyone in the world would submit something like this as anonymous because of copyright and patent issues.

      But again. great as xine is, the article is kinda a plug. Makes me wish i had submitted my own 2 cent's three days ago when the SVQ3 code was submitted to the ffmpeg list.

      So i just think that we need to aplaud above all the anonymous person who has cracked this baby and then ffmpeg for

    • Re:What has xine done (Score:4, Informative)

      by vlad_petric ( 94134 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @10:10PM (#5933759) Homepage
      For one, they have an audio/video sync code that works fine with the crappy soundcard drivers that linux has (see mplayer article on freshmeat [freshmeat.net]).

      Trust me, once you watch starwars 2 on mplayer and the flying cars (Jedi council window) are like Queen Elizabeth's guards (i.e. they don't go smoothly at all) you switch to xine immediately. (yeah, I know -autosync. Hasn't improved much on my system). Don't get me wrong, mplayer is great - just not on my system. And I'm not going to pay 34$ to get commercial oss drivers.

    • Re:What has xine done (Score:4, Insightful)

      by uhmmmm ( 512629 ) <.uhmmmm. .at. .gmail.com.> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @10:18PM (#5933793) Homepage
      IIRC the native decoder for Sorenson video 1 was from xine, and ffmpeg imported it from them, so it's not entirely one-sided.
  • Wait, isn't this breaking the law? Why the hell are we encouraging people to break the law?

    Wouldn't it simply be better to encourage people to NOT use the Sorensen codec? I mean, it's not as if you die if you don't get to watch The Matrix advertisements, you know?

    • Re:Illegal? (Score:3, Funny)

      by mythr ( 260723 )
      It's only breaking the law in countries where idiocy is encouraged in leaders. That means you're safe... Um... So, um... yeah, it probably is. :/

    • Re:Illegal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by greenrd ( 47933 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:41PM (#5933615) Homepage
      In some countries, no reverse engineering is legal. Even in the United States, reverse engineering for "interoperability purposes" is legal. So yes, this is legal. (Assuming that they haven't stolen any code.)

      • Patents (Score:2, Interesting)

        by yerricde ( 125198 )

        Even in the United States, reverse engineering for "interoperability purposes" is legal.

        Not if the end result is unauthorized distribution of an implementation of a patented invention; then, it's called "patent infringement". Or do you claim that Sorenson owns no valid patents on methods used in its codec?

      • Re:Illegal? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by evilviper ( 135110 )
        Interestingly enough, this WOULD be legal, if it weren't released under the GPL...

        The GPL says you can't redistribute the program if it has any restrictions, just as patents covering it. So, if you are in some location (such as the USA) where these video codecs are patented, it would be a violation of the GPL to release any changes, or even to redistribute the package...

  • whining about no official linux quicktime player (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:25PM (#5933562)
    "btw screw you apple and microsoft for not providing media players for linux"

    Says the PFY as he fires up MPlayer(having downloaded the illegally-distributed Windows DLLs from the mplayer authors) to watch The Matrix trailer. I seem to be saying this a lot on slashdot lately, but, get a grip!

    Linux has half a percent of the desktop market. Apple, with MacOS, has something like 4-5%, I think? Maybe 8% tops? Why exactly -should- Apple give a hoot about Linux? They're not THAT big a company, and they're busy as hell(have you stopped to think about how many software products they now produce? OSX, OSX Server, Quicktime Streaming Server, Quicktime, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and Final Cut Pro, iDVD and DVD Studio Pro, iCal/iSync...the list is ENORMOUS.) They don't, quite frankly, have the time to screw around with, essentially, something that can't even be called "competition"(Apple's products have always represented the complete antithesis of Linux - coherence, ease of use, simplicity, elegance...)

    I've owned Macs for years, and no-official-quicktime-or-wmp-player doesn't bother me. Why? Because there are clever(if sometimes annoying) people out there who figure out how to do it themselves. While Apple hasn't released a player, their normally vicious legal department has, by its lack of action, practically applauded mplayer for using the quicktime-for-windows DLLs. Apple's not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, basically. They get their cake(quicktime support on linux for those who really want it) and they get to eat it too(nothing to develop, maintain, or even support). Besides, the DLLs are getting used the same way a Windows application would use them- about the only thing Apple could get the mplayer guys on would be distributing the DLLs alone and without license.

    You say, "oh, but Apple just doesn't care enough". Apple cares about lots of little things, including people making themes that look like Aqua. Their legal department has no qualms about making a mountain out of a molehill if something displeases them(this is actually one of the things I hate about Apple the most- their legal department head is a total psycho-policy-bitch, completely the wrong thing for a cute-and-cuddly computer company. Lady, get a job at MS or something, you may be making a hit in the legal world, but you're pissing off thousands of Apple customers and techies with every move you make.)

    • Re:whining about no official linux quicktime playe (Score:4, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @04:17AM (#5935045)
      Says the PFY as he fires up MPlayer(having downloaded the illegally-distributed Windows DLLs from the mplayer authors)

      Um, they aren't illegally distributed. Apple themselves distribute them for free - they'd be hard pressed to argue in court that while it's OK for random multimedia CDs and websites to redistribute QuickTime, it's not ok for the MPlayer guys to do it.

      Linux has half a percent of the desktop market. Apple, with MacOS, has something like 4-5%, I think?

      Er, what? You need to get a handle on statistics dude! Nobody knows how big the market share of Linux is, but it's easily 2-3% - companies like IDC say this, not some random joe off the net. Apples market share has been declining steadily for some time now, go read OSNews, they have reported on it several times, and it's now hovering slightly above 2%. So you're smoking some serious stuff if you think MacOS is a long way in front of Linux in terms of market share - it may even be the other way around .

      They don't, quite frankly, have the time to screw around with, essentially, something that can't even be called "competition"

      Apples biggest competitor is Linux by a long, long way. It's the only OS that also appeals to the UNIX-minded user base and can be installed on Apple hardware. No, Windows basically targets a different market at this level. I suspect this is the biggest reason they aren't doing anything - if you look at their contributions to free software, they've done basically what the licenses forced them to do and no more. They're happy to use free software to further their own ends, but aren't really happy to actually take part in the community.

      their legal department head is a total psycho-policy-bitch, completely the wrong thing for a cute-and-cuddly computer company

      Apple aren't cute and cuddly, not even close. You might like to think they are, but go through and learn about their history, Jobs' working style, you clearly already know about their legal tendancies. They're a company out to make the biggest buck they can, and the "cute and cuddly" feeling is a glow projected by their fearsome marketing department, not by their actions.

    • Linux has half a percent of the desktop market. Apple, with MacOS, has something like 4-5%, I think?

      Repeating made up numbers doesn't make them true. The fact is that nobody knows how many people are using Linux. It actually seems likely to me that there are more Linux desktop users out there than there are OS X users (many of them dual-booting Windows).

      In any case, no matter what the market share is, Apple needs to realize that Linux users can cause them real problems: as this shows, the Linux commun

  • Old News (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda AT etoyoc DOT com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:58PM (#5933709) Homepage Journal
    I emerged that package 2 weeks ago for my Gentoo box. My wife was thrilled that the Maxtrix trailer seemed to play back better under Linux than XP.

    I like the new lib because it finally does full-screen DVD playback right.

  • I'm compiling now, can't wait to try it. How does it look compared to using the windoze dll's? The matrix trailer lags and skips like mad with those. Hopefully native support means smooth video playback now?

  • DVD Navigation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vandan ( 151516 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @11:10PM (#5934033) Homepage
    My favourite part of xine is the plugins for DVD nagivation.

    Personally I prefer using mplayer because it's faster and higher quality. It's also got DirectFB and Vidix drivers so I can output the signal to my TV while not in X.

    However my girlfriend isn't overly keen on typing a long list of switches to activate mplayer with the right video driver, input source, chapter and track, and xine's DVD Navigation shines in this area.

    I don't know why the mplayer developers insist that it is virutally impossible to incorporate dvd navigation into mplayer. Maybe they are right and it is really hard to do.

    Anyway I just read that xine supports Vidix and Vesa drivers, so hopefully it actually works on mine AND dvd navigation also works without X. Anyone (Radeon users pissed-off at no tv-out under X) gotten xine working in this way yet?

  • Real (Score:2)

    by isorox ( 205688 )
    So when do we get some Realplayer video & audio codecs? I'd love to save a .rm audio stream (say the BBC "Listen again" streams) as an mp3 for listening on the move, and I'd love to watch some real videos in full screen without changing to 640*480 and carefully moving the window
    • there is linux and win32 dll support for it in both mplayer AND xine. plus, they support ra, rm demuxers, as well as streaming RTSP (which bbc uses). as a matter of fact, i am using mplayer at the moment to convert .ra to mp3s...so i am not quite sure what your problem is :)

  • A few Questions (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GrimReality ( 634168 )

    Before I ask, I have to say that I did STBM --went through their webpages and looked at the stuff, FAQ, Documentation etc.

    The webpage says that it supports formats such as RealMedia, WMV7 etc. See their documentation [sourceforge.net].

    They also seem to be interested only in opensource codecs etc. See this FAQ [sourceforge.net] entry.

    Correct me if I am wrong, aren't RealMedia and WMV7 format proprietary? As far as I know, Microsoft or RealNetworks haven't released any open-source codecs of the above. Nor do they seem to have released proper

  • So, is it now possible to play a MOV file in windows media player? Or is there now a generic codec that would allow that based on what Xine has done?

    I find it very strange that quicktime doesn't let me save movies I downloaded. I found a trick though where I set my windows temp directory to a network drive, disconnect from the network, and then rename the TMP files quicktime creates. It's kind of silly that I have to do this just to save movie trailers to my computer.
  • Are there generally technical reasons to use one video encoding format over another?

    I realize that like gif vs. jpeg there will be tradeoffs in quality between various formats. However, the sheer number of codecs out there seems a bit rediculous. There are a small number of commonly used image formats (.png, .gif, .jpg, .pcx, .bmp, etc.) and a relatively small number of commonly used audio codecs (Vorbis, MP3, .wav, .voc, .au, etc.).

    Other than attempts to corner the market through proprietary software, ca

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