GMplayer won't play movies because it can't open a device

TheOneAndOnlySM · 01-02-2004, 12:40 PM

i am using kernel 2.6.0 and just installed (g)mplayer 0.92

mplayer itself can play movies fine, but when i load gmplayer (i tried both the Blue and Neutron themes) and try to play a movie, i get an error about vid out, saying that /dev/mga_vid could not be opened

that device exists, it has 777 permissions, but gmplayer still woudln't use it
i even tried using gmplayer as root, still not luck

any help appreciated!

DrOzz · 01-02-2004, 01:04 PM

there is stuff in the mplayer video docs about that...
go here and see if you have any luck with this...
and it seems to me that it only deals with matrox video cards, but you can double check that...or maybe your card is a matrox..

actually before i hit the submit button i came across this:

Quote:

open: No such device
Couldn't open /dev/mga_vid
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device!

is that what your seeing?
if so did you try a different output device?

for example a command such as mplayer -vo x11 movie.avi ... check out mplayer --help and see the rest of options..

acid_kewpie · 01-02-2004, 02:07 PM

to me this jsut screams that you compiled this from source on an rpm based distribution. you must recompikle it after installing the Xfree86-devel package.

this is happening because all the normal outputs, xv, xover, x11, sdl etc... are not availbale as you had not installed the devel packages which would enable them to be built.

TheOneAndOnlySM · 01-02-2004, 02:08 PM

my card is not a matrox, so i guess that i will need to change output devices

ya, and that is the error i am seeing

i am going to reboot back into linux and try to change my output device.. wait, how do i go about doing that? now i really feel stupid

thx in advance.

*edit: just saw acid_kewpie's post... okay, i guess i'll try changing video drivers and if that doesn't work, i'll install the developement package

shanenin · 01-02-2004, 02:17 PM

in the gui it is under preferences/ video

TheOneAndOnlySM · 01-02-2004, 03:20 PM

oh good grief, such a simple fix!

ya, rightclicking in the gui screen gives a menu from which i could select preferences
in there, under the video tab, i just selected the x11 driver and all was well!

thx everyone

acid_kewpie · 01-02-2004, 04:21 PM

x11 is a POOR output, it is very cpu intensive and generally a resource hog, use xv instead.

TheOneAndOnlySM · 01-02-2004, 07:13 PM

x11 wasn't that bad on my system, but thanks for the tip