Mplayer
 

ok i think i did everything right but one thing. I loaded
w32codecs
libdvdread
libdvdcss
libmp3lame
libavcodec (ffmpeg)
divx4linux

then i loaded MPlayer-.60, now i get a error that it cant find codec.conf in the mplayer dir, is there something i need to do extra that i missed?
**EDIT**
I foudn that there is a error on the run. what does this mean?
open: No such device
Couldn't open /dev/mga_vid
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device!

*** free_stream() called ***
~thanks for all the help thus far guys

the mga_vid driver is for matrox cards, and i'd assume you're not using one. I'd suggest you recompile it manually disabling matrox support. (mine is disabled by default) also, try running it using a specific video output, such as Xvideo (add "-vo xv" to the command line) use -vo help to get a list of all valid video outputs

as for that other error, it's probably ok, it checks a few different places in turn, so you should be fine.

I had the same problem one time (missing .conf file) Now the funny thing was that I compiled mplayer on the same box with the same sources before and it worked fine then - had to download the whole thing again to get it ok - you might try that if you cant get it going.

i think i will use xine and olge for now, i dont have time to backtrack. LOL!

pah, lightweight, you'll SOOOOOOOOOOOo regret saying that as and when you do get it going. :)

i downloaded the build scripts for mplayer and i am going to use this site as my guild but i am still going to install xine an ogle just for kicks. But i know of the xine problems i ran it in red hat. it wasnt pretty.

Why do i get this when i run MPlayer i get this codec error. I loaded the ws32config, and divx4linux and when i run this divx file it gives me this. I tried to re complie everything but it seems that MPlayer hates me like so many other apps i dont know how to run correctly. LOL!
***********************
root@router:~# mplayer RT.avi


MPlayer 0.60-2.95.3 (C) 2000-2002 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS!)

CPU vendor name: AuthenticAMD max cpuid level: 1
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon TB Thunderbird (Type: 6, Stepping: 2)
extended cpuid-level: 6
CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with features: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx
Reading /root/.mplayer/codecs.conf: 26 audio & 70 video codecs
Font /root/.mplayer/font/font.desc loaded successfully! (206 chars)
Using Linux's hardware RTC timing (1024Hz)
Playing RT.avi
Not an URL!
Detected AVI file format!
MainAVIHeader.dwFlags: (272) HAS_INDEX IS_INTERLEAVED
VIDEO: [DIV3] 640x336 24bpp 23.98 fps 866.9 kbps (105.8 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:3 fourcc:0x33564944 size:640x336 fps:23.98 ftime:=0.0417
Detected audio codec: [mp3] drv:1 (MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
mp3lib: Processor ID: 642
mp3lib: Using AMD 3dnow-dsp(k7)! optimized decore.
AUDIO: srate=44100 chans=2 bps=2 sfmt=0x10 ratio: 16000->176400
Detected video codec: [divx] drv:2 prio:0 (DivX ;-) (MS MPEG-4 v3))
Support for win32 codecs disabled, or unavailable on non-x86 platforms!
FATAL: Couldn't initialize video codec :(
*** free_stream() called ***

Exiting... (End of file)
root@router:~#
********************
Now i will tell ya this much i installed it with a no cpu check this time per the last error instructions.

The Quick Solution
 

I'm using Redhat 7.2 I simply typed:

mplayer -vo sdl filename.divx

To force the output to the SDL engine. If you don't have SDL, then you can use:
mplayer -vo x11 filename.divx

Type
mplayer -vo help

for a list of output types.

--TwinkieStix

Just curious....
WHich output type is recommended? (When it comes to quality, speed ++)

judging by the error message you compiled and installed mplayer before you copied the win32 codecs to /usr/lib/win32

it really helps to have the win32 codecs (all you really ever will need) in the appropriate directory before ./configuring mplayer. also in the src dir of mplayer do:

cp etc/codecs.conf ~/.mplayer

(after doing ./configure && make && make install of course)

also justa side note:

xine isnt that bad either but Mplayer RULEZ

PEACE

best output generally would be XV i think. X11 uses full software processing and is pretty slow. SDL is quite versatile but doesn't scale well as it is done with external libraries which MPlayer is not able to interact with as much as would be desirable. outside of X i always use vesa, neater and cleaner then fbdev or the others, but i've not looked at performance. check 'top' when you run different video outputs. using xv i get about 22% cpu usage, while X11 uses about 40% if i remember right.