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Mplayer Adds Sorenson v3 To the Linux Roster

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the celebrate-good-times-come-on dept.

prmths writes "mplayer now plays sorenson V3! This is the last major format that was unplayable under linux and it has now been conquered! They also added the 2xsai algorithm for video scaling. This will let you increase the resolution of non-photo-like videos (anime/cartoons) by 2 times -- it's not a blurring algorithm -- 2xsai actually guesses edges and fills in the pixels."

16 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Well it can *almost* play sorenson! by Ed_Moyse · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the page:
    Oops... We did it again :) So you can play your favourite brand-new quicktime movie trailers with mplayer! Oops... you cannot yet... at least the code is working, and was uploaded to CVS, but it needs some hacking to get it work... (not so bad, you need some DLLs from QT5 player and sdk, and libwine from wine-20020310 and some config.h editing) - okay, we'll work on getting this more user-friendly... :) so be patient, it'll be available in next (pre)release for sure!
    1. Re:Well it can *almost* play sorenson! by 13Echo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Extract the codec pack to the specified directory. I think that it is something like "/usr/lib/Win32" or something like that.

      Download the MPlayer source from the MPlayer homepage.

      ./configure --enable-gui (optional)
      make
      make install (as root)

      Is that different than any other program that you compile yourself? It has a makefile, and it works perfectly. The only thing that you need to know is your video output, which is usually XV for nVidia and other cards like PowerVR Kyro products.

      Executing MPlayer is pretty simple

      mplayer -vo xv -ao sdl *filename*

      You can also add the -vo and -ao formats to the config file, so you never have to enter them. This is all that the documentation really covers. It is the difficult part. The video output method varies depending on your videocard, but XV is the most common.

  2. w00t! by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 5, Funny

    But mommy, why do they hurt Tux like that?

    1. Re:w00t! by pc486 · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's an insider joke by the MPlayer developers. One time a developer messed up the CVS and the punishment was to drink ten liters of coke :-). You'll see this all over the mailing lists and the CVS logs as 10l coke or sometimes 1000l coke.

  3. Advancemame by kafka93 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Advancemame, linked from this story for the Scale2x description, is a fine piece of software, and currently employed in my MAME cabinet. It's ironic, though: for my money, the scale effect really ruins the look of many arcade games, and particularly of things like pacman. While so many gamers are obsessed with getting the most out of their video cards, those interested in emulation often want the very opposite...

    It's still cool voodoo, of course.

  4. Sweet! I was waiting for this! by 13Echo · · Score: 5, Informative

    This rocks! Now I can play those Harry Potter 2 trailers for my girlfriend. The interesting thing is that I just downloaded Pre-10 last night, hoping that this codec was complete. Unfortunately, it wasn't. But the guys at MPlayer cracked the code. You rock! Thanks for making the best video player for UNIX/Linux. No thanks to Apple for being a royal pain in the butt when it comes to their video format.

    Speaking of MPlayer, has anyone tried this? It is a plugin for Mozilla that uses XV overlays and MPlayer to show movies in Mozilla. I'd imagine that it works with plugin compatible apps like Opera also. I haven't tried it yet. Can anyone offer their opinions? I am looking forward to a time when I can finally play those annoying streaming WMV videos in my browser, without having to fight with some ASX file that redirects.

  5. Re:The *real* 2xSaI site by Mitchell+Mebane · · Score: 5, Informative

    Huh? For some reason my first link messed up... anyways:

    Kreed's Homepage: 2xSaI : The advanced 2x Scale and Interpolation engine

    --

    The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
    --Aristotle
  6. There isn't much. by 13Echo · · Score: 5, Informative

    As far as I can tell, this was the last major codec that didn't work. Well, it kinda worked before, but sound was unplayable. As of yet though, I've not come across any other file that didn't play.

    Here is a codec status page: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/codecs-status.html. It is updated frequently.

    If you get MPlayer, the codec pack, and configure it for XV video output and SDL audio output on a properly accellerated system, the playback produces virtually no CPU load. It is an incredible program. I really like the fact that the GUI is completely optional, and you can just use keypresses to manipulate movie playback.

  7. Re:Sweet! I was waiting for this! by spotter · · Score: 5, Informative
    But the guys at MPlayer cracked the code

    Not really (at least IMHO) they figured out how to make use of the original DLLs. You will still need the DLL's from a QuickTime 5 installation (as well as wine acc. to the description). This is not reverse engineering the codec, just figuring out how spit encoded frames to the dll and understand the decoded frames it spits back. What was done with the previous sorenson codecs (of actually figuring out how to decode) was much more impressive (at least to me).

    They already use the "use dlls" methods for real codecs, except in that case they have the real linux .so's to use.

  8. Thanks for the info. by 13Echo · · Score: 5, Informative

    I didn't know that it existed. Here's a link that I found

    http://fredrik.hubbe.net/plugger.html

    Says that it works with Opera, so it has my attention. Does it work with streaming of WMV files?

  9. How I install mplayer by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Informative


    echo "http://mplayer.nmeos.net/ unstable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

    apt-get install mplayer-686
    apt-get install mencoder-686

    1. Re:How I install mplayer by ivan256 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just so you don't confuse the newbies, I'm sure what you meant to say was

      echo "deb http://mplayer.nmeos.net/ unstable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

      apt-get update
      apt-get install mplayer-686
      apt-get install mencoder-686

      At least that's what you say if you wanted it to work...

  10. Not the first... by Fluffy+the+Cat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the last major format that was unplayable under linux and it has now been conquered!

    Codeweavers have been willing to sell you a product that allows Quicktime playback for ages. The only real advantages the new mplayer code offers are it being integrated into a more generic media player, and it being free as in beer. You're still stuffed on non-x86 platforms.

  11. Not how copyright works by TrentC · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well. If you don't defend your copyright. You loose it. If someone gets to reverse engineer your code and you let them. Everyone can.

    I never thought I'd be the one to complain about "crack-smoking moderators" but the above statement is completely untrue.

    It is true that you have to vigorously defend your trademark lest it fall into common usage (see "Q-Tip" vs. "cotton swab", "Xerox" vs. "photocopy", et al.) but the same does not apply to copyrights. (To be fair,

    And reverse-engineering has nothing to do with copyrights, that's a patent issue. Barring any patent infringements, I am perfectly within my rights to create source code that produces an identical effect or product as yours, so long as I don't actually use any of your code in my proejct.

    You can attempt to distribute copyright source code under a license that says "you shalll not attempt to reverse-engineer this software" but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax...

    Jay (=

  12. Not truly compatible. by vegetablespork · · Score: 5, Funny
    When I play a Sorenson video with mplayer, it fails to present me with a dialog admonishing me to "Get Quicktime Pro Now!"

    Will this bug be fixed in a later release?

    --

    Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.

  13. Re:Weak - it's closed source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why? We're doing the same as every windows app supporting the quicktime format/codecs. We're using their plugins, via their SDK. Teh only difference is that the app is native linux app, while teh DLL's are windows one, and we're using libwine to connect them. It doesn't chaneg the legal status,imho.

    A'rpi