Xine Misbehavior in KDE4/13.0
 

Xine does not seem to play nice in KDE4. When I try to fast-forward, either with the keyboard (Up arrow) or mouse (in the controller), Xine often does not restore to normal playing speed when pressing Enter or using the mouse in the controller.

Or Xine finally returns to normal speed but only after a delay of 30 seconds or more.

I am using a recompiled version to support LIRC, but I temporarily reverted to the stock version and saw the same behavior.

As another check, I temporarily renamed my .kde directory and restarted KDE. Same behavior.

Anybody else confirm this behavior?

Thanks.

I can confirm this. To me it happens, for example, in pekwm or openbox too, so this
shouldn't be kde's fault.

Thanks much. Then the problem must be associated with the underlying 13.0. I never had this problem in 12.2.

Anybody have an idea which related files/libraries might be the culprit?

In fact, I observed this behavior some time ago (on slack 12.2). Just now tried to play with
Xine and I couldn't replay the problem. Of course, that may be a coincidence, because it
seems to happen quite rare. To me, it seems the problem lies in Xine itself (or maybe xine-ui - try gxine?).

There's a bugfix release of gxine (0.5.904).
Maybe your bug is fixed there as well.

I just use mplayer, always had trouble with xine.

:) I'm the opposite. I often had trouble with MPlayer and almost never with Xine. Although I use mencoder to record TV shows through my tuner card.

I just tested with 12.2 from my office machine. This time I snatched the videos through the network, where the files are located on my HTPC. Theoretically that could add some latency with playing the files. I played a DVD ISO and a TV recording (AVI). No problems with either file pressing the Up arrow to fast-forward and then pressing Enter to resume normal speed. Or pressing the Down arrow for slow motion.

No problems with the mouse either.

With my HTPC I'm multi-booting with 13.0 and several other distros, including 12.2. (All of that except 13.0 one day will disappear, but right now those additional systems provide me a way to help troubleshoot HTPC issues.) I rebooted the HTPC into 12.2 and again played the same files with Xine. Again, no such problems with either the mouse or keyboard.

The problem does not happen in 13.0 with the pause or slow motion functions. Only fast-forward.

Using the verbose command line option did not reveal anything to me and I compared verbose results to running in 12.2. :scratch:

I used upgradepkg to replace the 13.0 xine-lib package compiled for i686 with the 12.2 package compiled for i486. Same runaway results. However, I have noticed that when I fast-forward by only one increment rather than two then Xine is more likely to return to normal speed. But not always. In 13.0, running at double fast-forward speed always results in the runaway problem.

I have a ton of problems with Xine-ui and Gxine. Neither program has ever worked as expected for me. Xine-ui has issues with the right-click context menu running in full screen, has crashed Plasma, does not properly support subtitles (and on and on and on) Gxine happens to crash often for me, always has.

Other lib-xine applications (Dragon/Kaffeine) do not have these issues - besides the common lib-xine bugs - shoddy subtitle support, lack of proper XvMC support. These are all DE/WM independent, across multiple Slackware versions, as well as other distros.

I agree with wadsworth, mplayer is the way to go.

I wrote that Xine has almost always worked for me. ;) As I wrote, no such problems with 12.2 --- or previous Slackware releases.

I think you're using the increment/decrement frame playback speed buttons in Xine. To return the frame playback speed to normal, use the opposite: so if you press up once to fast forward, press down once to get normal playback. This probably doesn't do what you want, as it's the equivalent of a fast motion/slow motion button, not ffwd/rewind like you'd expect.

My suggestion is to map your lircrc so ffwd goes forward 5 seconds and rwd goes backward 5 seconds and set the repeat value to 1 (so you can hold down the button and continue ffwd/rwd). This definitely isn't the most ideal solution; however I haven't found a better way yet.

Problem with mplayer: spotty menu navigation support. The cursor always shows up transparent, and mplayer gets confused by multiple nested menus. Hopefully they've gotten it up to speed as of the latest release. I've had mplayer crash on me with certain DVDs (especially TV episode DVDs).

The best one so far seems to be the mythvideo internal player, but sometimes movies crash and some movies don't work at all. I believe it's related to libdvdcss not handling the decryption, which all of the open-source players depend on. It's also the only one that does chapter previous correctly in movies. Every other one I've tried: xine, mplayer, vlc, have not been able to go back to previous chapters except for chapter 1. I get a libdvdnav error: chapter skip previous failed and it just goes back to the beginning of the chapter, not the previous chapter.

Sadly, I've had troubles with every media player I've tried. I've tried VLC, and just clicking on the button for the root menu didn't work right, so I gave up on that one right away. Xine has the most features, but it crashes occasionally. Also, sometimes when I play a movie the first time I get pixelation. The second time it works correctly. Not sure why.

Kaffeine seems like it is a lot more stable than Xine (even though it uses it as the backend); I was not able to get it working last time I tried in Slackware 12.2.

I think the biggest roadblock for linux players is decryption. I'm not sure, but I believe libdvdcss has not been worked on since 2007, yet they keep coming up with screwy ways to encrypt movies. I was seriously considering powerdvd for linux until I found out it doesn't do Blu-rays and doesn't have remote support. I'm not sure what the ideal solution is here.

I have tried that too. :) Sometimes works in 13.0, sometimes not. No such problems in 12.2 --- works all the time. As does pressing Enter.

Odd. Works here. :scratch: Pressing the Page Up or Page Down keys move forward and backwards with each chapter.

In 12.2 I was using both Kaffeine and Xine. Xine always got tangled watching TV live and would automatically move to the next station in the playlist rather than just buffer the delays. Kaffeine never did that therefore I always watched TV with Kaffeine. OTOH, I much prefer the Xine DVD-like controller to watch DVDs and DVD ISOs.

Unfortunately for me now, Kaffeine is very much in beta for KDE 4. I have tried the beta version and the app is not ready for prime time. As Xine doesn't buffer live TV very well, I have been using SMPlayer to watch TV on the computer. SMPlayer also is beta but for TV watching seems stable for me.

I agree. For all the accolades I have read about MPlayer, I always then read in the same article how MPlayer does not do menus well. This seems to remain the case. Recently I recompiled SMPlayer --- a front-end for MPlayer, to support menus and the result was awful. Xine and Kaffeine handle menus very well. Dragon Player seems to handle menus too. Yet Dragon Player --- intentionally I think, is a very simple media player with no bells and whistles.

My primary viewing front-end has become XBMC. Very well designed. Has yet to crash or act weird. Yet I want flexibility with my HTPC, hence the dissapointment with Xine not fast-forwarding correctly in 13.0.

The previous chapter problem was on my Debian HTPC: now I wonder if they just didn't build it right...I never had problems before with that in Slackware either.

Haven't tried Dragon Player: may have to try it one of these days.

XBMC sounds interesting and the skins look nice...how do you rate it compared to myth? Can you watch TV with it too?

Comes with the stock KDE 4.

I have yet to use MythTV. On my to-do list. XBMC supports any MythTV backend. In effect acting like a MythTV front-end. That is my plan. I like XBMC a lot and when a get to that phase of my HTPC project, I hopefully will have a MythTV backend for recording and XBMC for viewing.

I haven't tried to watch TV through XBMC. Looks like the idea is on the road map however.

Hmm. Initially I had not thought about watching TV with my HTPC as I would have the TV. :) OTOH, as I have a second tuner card, installed in my office machine, I suppose I could use XBMC for watching TV there. But that might be overkill for me. I can already watch TV with Kaffeine. I don't need a fancy interface with my office machine. Mostly if I watch TV on the office machine I do so in the background. When I want to watch full-blown TV or a movie then the couch is the place for me, and there I want a nice interface. :D

That's why I need mythtv then, as I need something that will capture TV inputs, change channels, get guide data, etc. I looked on the main web site and didn't see anything about that. Thanks for the info.

When I get the time, I might have to revisit my HTPC and try the latest Slackware on it.