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Mplayer doesnt play video

Hi, Ive got Kanotix 2007 RC6 "Thorhammer" installed in VMPlayer with WINXP (NTFS) as guest. Mplayer refuses to play any type of video....it registers instead “Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device”. VLAN player has no problem with same files. I would like Mplayer as standard, Ive heard it can play Real files and almost anything else....huh! So off I went to Mplayer site and downloaded and unzipped appropriate codecs to /usr/local/lib/codecs/...no change.
Kaffeine player plays same AVI files but way out of synch with too many lost frames.
Also, MP3 files play ok but volume is way down compared to Windows. Im missing out on something here, Im brand new to Linux and its command structure and I need somebodys help...please?

Quote:

Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device

This is the big clue. MPlayer supports many video_out modes. Obviously the default here is not working. So try the following:

In a terminal:

Code:

mplayer -vo help

This will give you a list of available vo devices. As an example, this is what happens when I use the above command:

Code:

MPlayer dev-SVN-r24796-4.2.2 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU        T7600  @ 2.33GHz (Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 6)

CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1

Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2

 Available video output drivers:

        x11    X11 ( XImage/Shm )

        xover  General X11 driver for overlay capable video output drivers

        gl      X11 (OpenGL)

        gl2    X11 (OpenGL) - multiple textures version

        null    Null video output

        mpegpes Mpeg-PES file

        yuv4mpeg        yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools

My MPlayer is custom compiled and I removed alot of the unnecessary vo modes, so you will probably see alot more modes available.

What you now need to do is find a video_out mode that works.

To do so you need to try some of the modes listed by your MPlayer, it is best to start from the top.

Again in a terminal:

Code:

mplayer -vo x11 somevideofile.avi

and so forth replacing x11 with next vo mode etc. Go through your list until you find one that works.

Once you have (hopefully) found one that works, you need to add that mode to your mplayer config file.

Let's say the video mode "gl2" works. Open up ~/.mplayer/config with an editor and add the line "vo=gl2".

After that you should be set.

Of course if none of the modes work then you may have. some other complications brought about by the VM. Unfortunately I don't have the experience here and can't help much.

Thanks for the help. As Im new to console I decided it might be easier to simply install a new mplayer (tar.gz form) from official site. Ive followed all instructions carefully,carried out instructions "make...." etc. Now the thing sits comfortably in /root/mplayer, I cant open it and console doesnt recognise "mplayer" command. What now?

o.k., for a normal .deb-package install in Kanotix I need to know if its standard procedure that one has to check contents of config files.I thought Kanotix was supposed to be user-friendly? And for "stray" software does Kanotix have any type of clean-up facility?

In case anybody has a similar problem with Mplayer, I am reliably informed from other sources of following....Kanotix has Amarak, Xine, Kaffeine, Xawtw and VDR for video formats as default. One or more of the default players above could be on the same port as Mplayer thus blocking mplayer when it tries to play. This is most definitely the likely cause of the problem.