Re: dvd playback problems and questions
-- csj@mindgate.net <csj@mindgate.net> wrote
(on Tuesday, 07 January 2003, 05:35 PM +0800):
> On Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:31:24 -0500,
> Matthew Weier O'Phinney wrote:
> >
> > -- Jamin W. Collins <jcollins@asgardsrealm.net> wrote
> > (on Monday, 06 January 2003, 01:57 PM -0600):
> > > On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 12:42:28PM -0500, Matthew Weier O'Phinney wrote:
> > >
> > > > What dvd playing software are other debian users using?
> > > > anybody encounter any of these problems/deficiences? If so,
> > > > were you able to correct them? how?
>
> These are all the DVD players I know of: MPlayer, Xine, VLC and
> Ogle. Among them, MPlayer appears to be the most robust. If all
> you want is watch the movie, then MPlayer is the best choice. If
> you want the fancy stuff like menus and an easy way to watch the
> bonus features, Xine is the more user-friendly choice. VLC
As I mentioned in my OP, I primarily want to be able to watch DVD
special features, so menus are a must.
I've tried Ogle and Xine both. Ogle's menus seem to respond faster and
more smoothly, but the controls for the gui don't always work
(particularly the stop button...). Once I'd enabled DMA for the drive,
per another suggestion, Xine responded much better with menu controls.
> > > I tend to use Ogle, but Xine is nice too.
<snip>
> > Okay, I've got my machine back up, and I had listed the video
> > card incorrectly -- it's an S3 SuperSavage series, and I have X
> > configured to use the savage driver.
>
> FUD: This might be your problem. There's a known bug with some
> Savage cards when you use xv.
Thanks for the reminder -- I ran into this when setting the machine up
over the summer, but I'd forgotten.
> [...]
>
> > I discovered that Xine worked with the Xshm video mode, but it,
> > too, was choppy. I had trouble getting ogle to work in gui
> > mode, so I compiled and installed by hand, and that worked. The
> > video is still choppy, but less so than when I used the debian
> > package (wierd).
>
> Do you have MTRR enabled in the kernel? (Don't ask me why. I got
> this tip from lurking in the xine list.) With such a powerful CPU
> as you described in your original post, you might just manage
> smooth DVD playback using xshm. It's actually the safer
> choice. If xv works, then so should xshm.
Yep, mtrr enabled -- and, as I've posted elsewhere in the thread,
everything is *very* smooth now.
For the record, the things I needed to do to get it all working
correctly:
* disable ide-scsi on /dev/hdd. I do this by calling 'ide-cd
ignore=hdc' followed by 'ide-scsi' in /etc/modules. (/dev/hdc is a
cd burner)
* enable DMA on the dvdrom drive. I created a startup script that
calls '/sbin/hdparm -q -d1 /dev/hdd' on boot to accomplish this.
* configure Xine to use XShm instead of Xv
* configure X to utilize 16-bit instead of 24-bit depth
* verify mtrr was enabled in the kernel (stock 2.4.18-686 debian
kernel)
--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew@weierophinney.net
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