mplayer videos appear scrambled on opensuse 11.3
 

Hi
I am running opensuse 11.3 on my HP laptop.

Whenever i try to play videos with mplayer, my monitor just goes scrambled at the top and the video window also doesn't appear. I'm using KDE as my desktop manager but the problem was there even when i used gnome.
However surprisingly when i play videos before the desktop is loaded (i login from the console), they play well.

I am using an ATI graphics card on the computer. I herd linux always had problems with ATI cards. Is the graphics driver not configured or buggy? I'm using ATI's own propeitary driver.
Other softwares too which rely on grahics like blender and second life viewer do not seem to function properly. Blender ocassionaly gets scrambled when i try to minimize and maximize it, and when i use second life viewer i see black waves like things moving around on the window.

I checked for the /etc/X11/xorg.conf but there is none, instead there is /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d directory which has files like
10-evdev.conf
20-synaptics.conf
50-device.conf
50-screen.conf
90-keytable.conf
11-mouse.conf
20-wacom.conf
50-monitor.conf
50-vmmouse.conf

I also have compiz running properly on my system.

Tell us exactly what goes wrong with the picture. Describe it to us.

I have a a HP laptop with ati graphics too, but that isn't giving the needed information. WHICH graphics chip?
Try these commands and post the output

lspci |grep VGA
glxinfo |grep render

also try mplayer -vo help. You'll get a list and work through them. I think it defaults to xvid, but opengl and sdl are possibilities

Thanks for the reply,

Exactly when i type in
#mplayer [video name]
in the foreground i see few lines flickering on the upper portion of the screen, whereas in the background terminal output stays fine (shows no errors).

The graphics card is an ATI Raedon HD 5650.

outputs for the commands are as...

linux-fabx:~ # lspci |grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Redwood [Radeon HD 5600 Series]

linux-fabx:~ # glxinfo |grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5600/5700 Series
GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color,


On typing mplayer -vo help

linux-fabx:~ # mplayer -vo help
MPlayer SVN-r32519-snapshot-4.5 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
Available video output drivers:
fbdev Framebuffer Device
fbdev2 Framebuffer Device
v4l2 V4L2 MPEG Video Decoder Output
cvidix console VIDIX
null Null video output
mpegpes MPEG-PES to DVB card
yuv4mpeg yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools
png PNG file
tga Targa output
pnm PPM/PGM/PGMYUV file
md5sum md5sum of each frame

I dont know anything about audio video decoders. Another thing i forgot to mention before is that videos run fine on other players like totem.

# mplayer -vo help

That looks like you don't have the mplayer codecs installed. There's an essential codecs pack on mplayerhq.hu which you should grab.

All right thanks
So your saying there is nothing wrong with the graphics?

And what about blender and all not working well?

The only movable video outputs you have are v4l & fbdev, both of which are crap. You need X11 (Xvideo) and opengl, and preferably sdl as well as dga.

dec@genius:~$ mplayer -vo help
MPlayer 20100218-4.4.3 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
Available video output drivers:
xv X11/Xv
x11 X11 ( XImage/Shm )
xover General X11 driver for overlay capable video output drivers
gl X11 (OpenGL)
gl2 X11 (OpenGL) - multiple textures version
matrixview MatrixView (OpenGL)
dga DGA ( Direct Graphic Access V2.0 )
sdl SDL YUV/RGB/BGR renderer (SDL v1.1.7+ only!)
fbdev Framebuffer Device
fbdev2 Framebuffer Device
svga SVGAlib
aa AAlib
caca libcaca
v4l2 V4L2 MPEG Video Decoder Output
xvidix X11 (VIDIX)
cvidix console VIDIX
null Null video output
mpegpes MPEG-PES to DVB card
yuv4mpeg yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools
png PNG file
jpeg JPEG file
gif89a animated GIF output
tga Targa output
pnm PPM/PGM/PGMYUV file
md5sum md5sum of each frame
dec@genius:~$ ls /usr/lib/codecs
AvidQTAVUICodec.qtx README iac25_32.ax msh261.drv tvqdec.dll vssh264dec.dll wmvdmod.dll
BeHereiVideo.qtx VDODEC32.dll icmw_32.dll msms001.vwp vdowave.drv vsshdsd.dll wnvwinx.dll
CLRVIDDC.DLL ViVD2.dll ir41_32.dll msscds32.ax vid_3ivX.xa* vsslight.dll wvc1dmod.dll
CtWbJpg.DLL acelpdec.ax ir50_32.dll nsrt2432.acm vivog723.acm vsswlt.dll xanlib.dll
DECVW_32.DLL alf2cd.acm ivvideo.dll qpeg32.dll voxmsdec.ax wma9dmod.dll
LCMW2.dll aslcodec_dshow.dll jp2avi.dll qtmlClient.dll vp4vfw.dll wmadmod.dll
LCODCCMW2E.dll clrviddd.dll lhacm.acm rt32dcmp.dll vp6vfw.dll wmsdmod.dll
QuickTime.qts cook.so* lsvxdec.dll sipr.so.6.0* vp7vfw.dll wmspdmod.dll
QuickTimeEssentials.qtx drvc.so* m3jp2k32.dll tokf.so.6.0* vssh264.dll wmv9dmod.dll
QuickTimeInternetExtras.qtx dspr.so.6.0* mi-sc4.acm tokr.so.6.0* vssh264core.dll wmvadvd.dll