'q' in the mlbviewer window should close out mplayer for you.

Okay, so we may have to recompile mplayer but before we do, let's see what does work for you.

Do you have any video files that work just fine with mplayer? If so, try this:

Quit mplayer right when the timer starts running so we don't have pages of timer output in the mplayer-works.log. Now post the contents of mplayer-works.log here.

Next let's see what specifically isn't going well with the baseball stream.

This will just record the stream using rtmpdump. Record about 5 or 10 seconds, then press Ctrl-C to kill it.

Again, 'q' or 'Ctrl-C' this as soon as the timer starts running and post the contents of the mplayer-notworking.log file here.

It's nothing to do with the beta release. You can try to find the -dev package for openssl:

If you see something like openssl-dev or openssl-devel, install that with apt-get.

If you don't see a -dev package, building from source will install the header files that rtmpdump is trying to find and not finding them.

Often, Linux distributions do not install the -dev packages (the header files) to try to save on disk space. That comes back to bite you when you try to build something from source that expects to find those files.

Cool - everything is working now. I just deleted the usr/local/bin version, installed rtmpdump, and I was watching baseball. Took about 60 seconds from start to finish to fix my problem.

I think my problem was that I got confused reading through the combination of the readme and install files provided with the source and the various fixes recommended in this thread. I think every user new user should be directed to this recent addition to the thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3943407

hhhmmmm, when i play a avi in mplayer the same thing happens, no video, but the audio is there. i get: Fatal Error! Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.


so i completely removed mplayer, and reninstalled, and still no video. then i changed the config back to video_player=mplayer, and the skinny video came back. for some reason i then changed the speed from 800 to 1200 and now is has the proper screen resolution. but i can't do full screen. can mlbviewer do full screen? i maximize but the video size stays the same with a big black background

There haven't been any 1800k streams (that I've seen) for any games for about four days. They must be having problems with them in some fashion. 1200k stream has the same vertical resolution, but the horizontal resolution is smaller and I think it gets compressed a tad bit more, but it still looks good. YOu can use the 'p' key to cycle through the bit rates or set speed=1200 in ~/.mlb/config

Okay, that's the rtmpdump output but what I want to see is the mplayer output. So that rtmpdump dropped a file called 14-264014-2010-04-20.mp4 (or something like that.)

So do this:

Quit after the timer appears and post the mplayer.log output here.

Also, what video card are you using?

thanks for the help, the only issue now i have is getting it to display fullscreen if it can. i edited my previous post to tell you what i did to get it to work. i changed speed from 800 to 1200. don't know why that worked

What I think is happening is that it is using the x11 video output which doesn't scale and doesn't take full advantage of the video card. This is why I want to see all the mplayer (not rtmpdump) messages that appear when you try to play a video file. The soapevent.py script lets you record the stream to disk. (Though rtmpdump is buggy when it's not feeding its stream directly to mplayer and thus, the scripts in the test directory are there merely for debugging problems like this.)

Seeing all the mplayer messages without the rtmpdump output getting in the way will help me confirm the settings mplayer is using and will allow me to decide what next steps to take.

Also, knowing what video card you are using, I can help you in getting the Xv video output driver working which would allow you to do true full-screen. It will still be letterboxed if you don't have a widescreen monitor, but that's better than being completely boxed in a black background.

You can also try the video tuning instructions on the mplayer website. It's pretty meaty but it doesn't look too hard to follow along.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/MPlayer.html#video

Since you do have both audio and video (albeit probably using the x11 output) and your mplayer does have the xv output already built in (from the -vo help command earlier), I see no reason to have to rebuild mplayer. That's the good news. But now we have to find out why mplayer isn't able to use xv.

I suspect Ubunutu didn't set up your video card with everything Xv needs.

Try these commands:

ok. i don't know where to put the avi file so i can run that command (replacing somevideo.avi with the avi on my computer)

i did the last thing you suggested and got this:
reefis@ubuntu:~$ dpkg --get-selections | grep xv
libxcb-xv0 install
libxv-dev install
libxv1 install
libxvidcore4 install
libxvmc1 install
reefis@ubuntu:~$ grep XVideo /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(II) Loading extension XVideo
(II) Loading extension XVideo-MotionCompensation

Alright good to know that it wasn't me doing something wrong. Thanks again, even without NexDef its way better than what I've been used to using for MLB.tv since my linux conversion a few years ago. Thanks

Are we still telling people to compile mplayer from source? I'm on Ubuntu (10.4 beta) and the stock mplayer plays everything just fine. I suspect the same is probably true for most recent distributions as well. Have others been having trouble with stock mplayer packages?

Also, since we are seeing an influx of new users (yay!) and the season is still young, might it be time to get a dedicated mlbviewer support/discussion forum?

Lastly, I finally got audio re-streaming to Android working. I thought I could just dump the audio to a local mp3 and point the stock player at it. It works, but it only plays as much of the file as existed at the time of the connection. So it doesn't "keep up" with the file as it grows. Are we still keeping such tricks to ourselves?

I'm trying to avoid re-compilation of mplayer for new users. I think we've learned quite a bit over the last year and a half to debug mplayer problems before we recommend re-compilation.

I'm awfully comfortable with this linuxquestions forum. It's nice to have a one-stop shop for answering questions rather than having to post the same answers on three or four or more separate threads. Yes, I do end up repeating myself a lot because it's too unreasonable to ask anyone to go back more than a page or two, but that's the cost of convenience to me. You guys can always post to the Sourceforge forums. Which reminds me, I need to update the sourceforge for what we have so far since we are getting new users. (yay!)

As for Android, I recommend reading the Apple Live Streaming spec. I know you told me Android doesn't support it, but maybe you could build a similar solution, e.g. a proxy server that one end downloads the stream from mlb.com and on the phone facing end, it sets up a stream. I don't know how to do this and if you figure it out, it's probably still a good idea to keep it on the down-low.

As long as I've got your ear (eyes), can you take a look at reefis' problem? It seems like both his mplayer and his Xorg has Xvideo but for some reason mplayer refuses to use it.

So what I think is going on is that mplayer is compiled with Xv (the video output that would allow proper fullscreen) and your X server has the XVideo extension loaded. But for some reason, mplayer is not able to use it.

So let's back up and repeat the mplayer steps to get an mplayer log (not an rtmpdump log) to see what mplayer is saying.

[code]
$ cd mlbviewer-svn
$ test/soapevent.py 14-264036-2010-04-22
[code]

Ctrl-C this after about 5 seconds.

Now in the same directory (mlbviewer-svn):

'q' this right after the counter appears.

Now post mplayer.log here.

Has anyone got NexDef working with archived games using the official flash player? I still can't get NexDef to work at all with the official flash player. I have had a little success with some code I'm working on, but only with live games.

If you have it working, please do the following:

1. Take a Wireshark trace (you may have to turn off promiscuous mode if you are using a wifi interface.)
2. In the filter, enter "http"
3. "Save As" and save only the "Displayed" Packet Range. Name it something useful like nexdef.pcap.
4. Send that pcap file to my yahoo account (grep yahoo README)

Thanks!