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Mplayer Revisited
Joe Barr writes "It's been two years since I first wrote about Mplayer. Maybe the fury of the developers/community reaction to the fact that I dared to criticize them for their treatment of users kept me away. Whatever. Now Mplayer has a pre1 version of release 1.0 out there and it's time for another look." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
"I know it's illegal, but could you add DVD Support?"
"Why won't it Play DVD's?"
"I can't watch my DVD"
That's enough to make me cynical.
Actually I really like diversity so having both xine and mplayer as separate projects is a very good thing.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
I've managed to compile and successfully run GNUMach and GNU/Hurd from CVS. I know my way around building code. But mplayer is still a pain in the ass. Seriously. And when I read the forums, I didn't dare ask a question. The developers' attitudes represent one of the most valid criticisms of the Free Software world -- support is fleeting.
As for using the software, it works pretty well, and has steadily improved. But I don't build it anymore -- I use the unofficial debian packages, and they work pretty much flawlessly.
Doesn't the author understand how the Linux/OSS community works, or what? Its not the devs' job to make shiny installation druids that you can click through. That's what distros are for. If you want to compile software, be prepared to do your homework. If not wait for the
Gimme a break.
Much amused.
But I cannot say I agree. I find it refreshing that a development team develops a high end program that requires some seriousness of people to use. It is becoming a widespread myth that free software developers are little Tele-tubbie-happy people just sitting on their asses coding for hundreds of idiots that luckilly flock to their mailing lists.
MPlayer is a fantastic program (along with other fantastic media programs running on Linux & Co) so many users want it to work for them. And I think that the MPlayer core team acknowledge that but when you for time number 796 get an email reading 'I problem compiling, Please help!!! Is it bug?' with no log or dump... well the coding gets sour. So I can understand that criticism is difficult to take. Especially when it seems as unfounded as the first review.
All interpreted languages are abstractions over Lisp
This guy's article is self congratulatory and self seeking. I don't care what run-ins he's had with the developers in the past.
A terrible review where he actually admits to not really checking it out fully, but still manages to come to the self-affirming conclusion that he was right all along, and takes the opportunity to take a personal jab at the project.
The only thing I learnt from this article is that the writer is bitter, and lacks tact.
The problem I heard about MPlayer was that it illegaly contained DivX code that was under a proprietary license.
Last time I checked was two months ago and MPlayer was still in violation of DivX copyrights. No distro can distribute it as the developer releases it. This is the real problem. This pushes it from Free Software to "cracked warez".
(SuSE, and maybe others, do distribute it but they rip out the illegal code, so it's missing a few codecs. Debian will also be shipping a stripped, legal version soon.)
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
You're kidding, right? The only people who should be making any effort to make the end user experience "care free" in the way you describe are the commercial distros. Nobody makes this kind bullshit argument in any other field of endeavor. Do you ever see suggestions that Target should only carry one brand of toothpaste because consumers would find it too difficult to choose between Colgate and Crest? Hell, there's even a whole category of product devoted to people who can't make up their minds: the Variety Pack!
I do not have a signature
Won't this seem daunting to the end user (labelled automatically as stupid), having two different applications, with individual libraries, for doing the exact same thing.
No. Xine should be installed on systems intended for non-techie end users. Mplayer is not a particularly great choice for non-techies. A'rpi is very much opposed to the idea of binary distributions (since it means that things may run slightly slower on a given system), and Mplayer can support so many things that to set up everything required for full support during a build can take a long time. It's less bad than building GNOME or KDE, but it's definitely not an "rpm -Uvh" either.
That being said, I use mplayer exclusively, and love it to death. It's keyboard controllable, can be used without one of those godawful "fake media player" UIs, is faster than anything else in existence, and has support for just about every interface and codec under the sun (that Open Source folks can get their hands on or reverse engineer). Those of you not familiar with Barr and A'rpi (the lead mplayer developer for a long time) should be aware that the two intensely dislike each other, and have flamed each other for ages. Regardless of how good Barr is in most areas (and this review seems pretty reasonable, saying that "mplayer ain't a great choice for Linux newbies", which is definitely true), keep in mind that he's quite likely to have some bias, as A'rpi does when talking about Barr on the mplayer website. I take both with a big, big grain of salt.
Perhaps some collaboration between MPlayer and Xine should occur.
It does. Of course, it's full of people flaming each other for not giving sufficient credit, but the two projects have shared a *ton* of code in the past, and is the only reason either of them are as good as they are.
May we never see th
His argument:
"I am a user savvy enough to be running linux. I am bright enough to fix problems. And yet, it was not easy for me to install this application. Therefore, it will be even harder for somebody who is new to Linux."
Your argument:
"What an idiot! He should have read the acoryphal poorly laid out document! Things are easy if you do all the chores perscribed to you by developers with no talent for technical writing and different systems than you!"
My argument:
"RTFM is not a valid complaint. Windows software installs without a manual. It does not expect you to RENAME directories after installing things to get them to work. It does not expect you to KNOW what codecs you want to use and already have them downloaded. It allows somebody to do what they need to do before hacking the source code of the underlying software. Why can't linux software do this as well. Oh right. Because we're better than them."
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Won't this seem daunting to the end user ... having two different applications, with individual libraries, for doing the exact same thing.
So, you think we should all just go with one software project and kill the other? Which should we kill? Did you know that Xine did the GUI thing first? Mplayer has been the leader in figuring out how to play new formats (especially Quicktime codecs)
So if we had killed xine, would mplayer have developed a gui without competition? If we had killed mplayer, would we still be griping about not being able to watch Sorenson encoded movie trailers?
What future benefits will this competition bring?
To the users, I say: Try them both and stick to the one you like. This doesn't require genius or even much intelligence. If you can't get mplayer working, then xine. If you'd rather not deal with a GUI, then mplayer. (personally, I hate hunting through a list of files for the video I want, when I could just run mplayer -fs filename.avi and get full screen goodness straight from the start without having to move widgets out of the way or get them behind the video window.)
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
want a dvd? You need to use the "dvd" URL
dvd://title#
But this syntax
dvd://title#/chapter#
Doesn't work, you need this:
dvd://title# -chapter chapter#
Which is more typing than: -dvd title# -chapter chapter#
And filters for -vop are applied IN REVERSE ORDER.
How about this malarky:
-vop detc=dr=1:ar=0,denoise3d
commas distribute over colon, colon over equals, except for the first equals that shows a filter has options.
urrggghh...
Oh, and the syntax is horrible just in general. Some options only take effect when they come before or after certain things, certain ones depend on other options in weird ways (video filters, codecs, and -fps/-ofps hell).
Still, I love mplayer. Who am I kidding. I just way too much time trying to figure out how to do things I KNOW should work, I just can't get a handle on it.
ecasound, while having also having an insanely rich command line, is more logical.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
In other words, spread all resources as thin as possible instead of making one big kick-ass killer app. All in the name of idealist "diversity."
You assume that adding more people to this project will automatically make it a bigger, better "killer app". That is not at all obvious, given what we know about human nature.
All that matters is net output. That's it.
All that matters to *you* is net output. You can hardly fault the developers for not seeing it that way. They are happy to contribute their efforts to improving media playback on linux, and have made enormous progress in that regard. Beyond that, they really don't owe anything to you or the rest of the community. But you speak as though they were salaried employees!
Cheers,
Mouser
Hey, it's the overly critical guy again. I really think you might just be a great, great troll. Either that or just really frustrating. Anyways...response:
For one, groups don't always just get along...I really don't think the xine guys and the mplayer guys would like to just drop everything and work together - both sides have thrown a couple of potshots too many - they don't like each other.
Secondly - competition increases output. It's one of those crazy things about life that two competing groups seem to get farther than only one alone.
Third - more people on a project does not (neccesarily) more code make - adding more developers means you have to merge maintainers, and "people in charge" - etc - it has to be very well organized to get O(n) increase in production... You can't just throw people from well-defined, properly working groups together...it doesn't work! Good people can be left out (and unused)...
Fifth - mplayer and xine do share some libs. I'm almost positive that xine is using some of mplayer's win32 code, but i'm not sure - but the logical thing is that they are both open, and why wouldn't one project "borrow" code from another, if it was great. Emulation is the sincerest form of praise - I think that's how that goes.
Mplayer is a great project, xine - last I checked - was...decent. I think seperately you get _more_ output - and thus having two seperate groups is better for you. *shrug*.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Well first of all, UT2k3 used the Loki installer. They didnt even make it.
Second, Mplayer is compiled from source, its not binary. Doing binary would take away so many benefits that you get with Mplayer. I
can play a dvd and Mplayer uses 5-15% of my cpu. Divx is 3-4% and playing ogg/mp3 is 1% at most. Mplayer takes practically *no* system resources to run. Ive turned a crappy 133mhz into a network jukebox. WIth my own experiences with Xine, its very unstable. The gui that people love so much in xine is what causes it to lock up 9 times out of 10. So ill take Mplayer.
But when it comes down to it, use what you want, i really dont care.
75% of all statistics are made up!
It makes sense to review a pre-release, particularly if the review turns out to be nearly entirely favorable. Since his issue with the mplayer before was that it wasn't sufficiently polished for an end user to install, and the difference between a stable 0.n release and a 1.n release is normally assumed to be whether it had gotten to the point of being generally useable, it makes sense for him to look at whether it seems likely that 1.0 will meet this criterion.
And it turns out that he finds it satisfactory (evidentally he didn't trigger any of the bugs you've found); he has some notes about the documentation (there's one important thing, and 50 little things to check), the install (it complains about 50 things that don't matter, but they don't prevent it from working), and setting it up (the scripts put some things in the wrong place). His notes look like things that actually ought to get fixed just before 1.0 comes out.
It's also interesting to note that he seems not to be upset at the developers any more, and actually amused by their mention of him in the documentation.
But for a media player, i found Xine to be better than both. It supports all the formats that mplayer supports, it also has a browser plugin, but it handles DVDs a lot better. In fact, the DVD menus and stuff like that works exactly as with a standalone DVD player.
Actually, it doesn't seem to support all the same formats that mplayer does. For one thing, mplayer uses win32 codecs to play some of the formats it plays. I think they both use liblavac for divx playing, and they both play all of my .avi files (I have some commercial proprietary stuff in windows that won't play most of my .avi files, but mplayer and xine in Linux play them with no problems). Xine doesn't play .asf files, but mplayer does. And I've a few mpg's that mysteriously don't play on xine.
My main bitch about xine is how it renders the movies. For some reason, mplayer renders much more sharply and clearly than xine. Doesn't make sense to me, unless one is optimizing the display for my slow hardware and the other isn't, or one is trying harder to scale up without getting blocky and the other isn't.
Like what I said? You might like my music
See? You get a program that does what each one of the seperate programs do best, and only one install routine.
Um, isn't the UNIX philosophy having a bunch of small applications that each only do one thing, and do it really well?
Now.. what if all three groups combined their resources and put the best parts of each into one GOOD program?
YOu say that, but we've already seen this crap in action. How much better has Internet Explorer gotten since Microsoft dominated the web browser? How much better has outlook express gotten since microsoft dominated email clients? We've seen very little improvement in many applications that exist as the sole application in its environment that does what it does (sole means > 90% users). Instead, they stagnate, without improvement. Is this what you want to have happen to free software?
Like what I said? You might like my music