diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/faq')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/faq/.cvsignore | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/faq/Makefile.am | 14 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/faq/faq.html | 3800 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/faq/faq.txt | 1364 |
4 files changed, 15 insertions, 5165 deletions
diff --git a/doc/faq/.cvsignore b/doc/faq/.cvsignore index 282522db0..647d53c1d 100644 --- a/doc/faq/.cvsignore +++ b/doc/faq/.cvsignore @@ -1,2 +1,4 @@ Makefile Makefile.in +faq.html +faq.txt diff --git a/doc/faq/Makefile.am b/doc/faq/Makefile.am index ba3ebd15c..1e6fe0142 100644 --- a/doc/faq/Makefile.am +++ b/doc/faq/Makefile.am @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ include $(top_srcdir)/misc/Makefile.common -EXTRA_DIST = $(docs_DOCS) README faq.sgml +EXTRA_DIST = README faq.sgml docs_DOCS = faq.html faq.txt docdir = $(prefix)/share/doc/xine/faq @@ -28,12 +28,24 @@ uninstall-local: docs: $(docs_DOCS) +dist-hook: + @make fail_if_missing=yes docs + cp $(docs_DOCS) $(distdir) + faq.html: faq.sgml @if test "$(SGMLTOOLS)" != "no"; then \ $(SGMLTOOLS) -b onehtml faq.sgml; \ + else if test "$(fail_if_missing)" = "yes"; then \ + echo "Please install sgmltools-lite."; \ + exit 1; \ + fi; \ fi faq.txt: faq.sgml @if test "$(SGMLTOOLS)" != "no"; then \ $(SGMLTOOLS) -b txt faq.sgml; \ + else if test "$(fail_if_missing)" = "yes"; then \ + echo "Please install sgmltools-lite."; \ + exit 1; \ + fi; \ fi diff --git a/doc/faq/faq.html b/doc/faq/faq.html deleted file mode 100644 index 91e33a987..000000000 --- a/doc/faq/faq.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3800 +0,0 @@ -<HTML -><HEAD -><TITLE ->The xine engine FAQ</TITLE -><META -NAME="GENERATOR" -CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"></HEAD -><BODY -CLASS="BOOK" -><DIV -CLASS="BOOK" -><A -NAME="AEN1" -></A -><DIV -CLASS="TITLEPAGE" -><H1 -CLASS="TITLE" -><A -NAME="AEN2" -></A ->The xine engine FAQ</H1 -><P -CLASS="COPYRIGHT" ->Copyright © 2001-2003 the xine project team</P -><HR></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="TOC" -><DL -><DT -><B ->Table of Contents</B -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AEN8" -></A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#GENERAL" ->General questions about xine and this document</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#ABOUT" ->What is the xine engine?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#SCOPE" ->What's the aim and scope of this text?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#WHERETOGETHELP" ->My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#PRONOUNCE" ->How do I pronounce "xine"?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#MODULES" ->What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, ... modules in cvs for?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#CVS" ->Where and how do I get the latest development version?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#BINARIES" ->Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -><DT -><A -HREF="#BUILDING" ->Building and installing xine from source</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#BUILDREQUIREMENTS" ->What do I need to compile everything properly?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AEN66" ->How do I compile xine?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#RPMBUILD" ->Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui)</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#CFLAGS" ->Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#ATHLONFLAGS" ->Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon™) available? Can I build them?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AEN151" ->Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib)</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AEN169" ->Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/...)</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#NONROOTBUILD" ->Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)?</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -><DT -><A -HREF="#PLAYBACK" ->Playback of various stream types</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#AEN199" ->DVD Playback with xine</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#VCDSUPPORT" ->Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#QUICKTIME" ->Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AEN253" ->Real Network files/streams</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#WMV" ->Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#DVB" ->Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#STDIN" ->How do I play streams from STDIN?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AVISUBTITLES" ->How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -><DT -><A -HREF="#RUNNING" ->Running xine</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#SPEEDUP" ->I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#SMOOTHNESS" ->Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#PORTS" ->I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... !</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#AAXINE" ->What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#CONFIGOPTIONS" ->What do all these <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.xine/config</TT -> (<TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.gxine/config</TT ->) entries mean?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#DXR3" ->Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card?</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -><DT -><A -HREF="#AUDIO" ->Audio related questions</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#AUDIODRIVERS" ->What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#COMPRESSOR" ->When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the voices!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#NOAUDIO" ->When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#SURROUNDSOUND" ->Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#SPDIF" ->What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#SBLIVESPDIF" ->Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#VOLUMECONTROL" ->Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#STUTTERING" ->Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by -2115 pts" on the console output</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#SOUNDLOSS" ->xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -><DT -><A -HREF="#VIDEO" ->Video related questions</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#NOVIDEO" ->I can hear the audio - but I don't see a picture!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#XVEXTENSION" ->How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#COLORKEY" ->Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#ASPECTRATIO" ->The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#DISCARDEDSKIPPED" ->What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#CONTRASTBRIGHTNESSSATURATION" ->My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a gray video output!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#VIDEODRIVER" ->Which is the best video driver to use?</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -><DT -><A -HREF="#ERRORS" ->Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do</A -></DT -><DD -><DL -><DT -><A -HREF="#AUDIODRIVERERR" ->Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#NOVIDEOPORTFOUND" ->"no video port found"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#UNABLETOOPENDVDDRIVE" ->"Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#STATUS0X51" ->My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#DEMUXERROR0000" ->"demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#OSSFAILED" ->"audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#THROWINGAWAYIMAGE" ->"video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#NOVIDEOPLUGINAVAILABLE" ->"No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'."</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#DECODERFAILEDTOSTART" ->"w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?"</A -></DT -><DT -><A -HREF="#XINECRASHED" ->xine just crashed on me - i didn't get any error message</A -></DT -></DL -></DD -></DL -></DD -></DL -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="ARTICLE" -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="GENERAL" -></A ->General questions about xine and this document</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="ABOUT" -></A ->What is the xine engine?</H3 -><P -> - The xine engine is a free media player engine. It comes in the form of - a shared libarary and is typically used by media player frontends - and other multimedia applications for playback of multimedia streams - such as movies, radio/tv network streams, DVDs, VCDs. - </P -><P -> Since there are several frontends for the xine library available, - this document has a problem when it comes to examples. - The two most common frontends xine-ui and gxine are mixed in command - line examples throughout this FAQ. When you use a different - frontend, some of these will not work for you. The filename of - the config file also varies amongst frontends. If you get confused, - I recommend you try with one of xine-ui or gxine. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SCOPE" -></A ->What's the aim and scope of this text?</H3 -><P -> The primary goal of this FAQ is to cover all recurring questions related - to the xine engine. Frontend specific questions are usually not covered here. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="WHERETOGETHELP" -></A ->My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help?</H3 -><P -> First of all be sure that your question is really not covered here and - that you haven't just been a bit too lazy to read through all of this - text. ;-). Also check out the documentation specific to - the frontend (e.g. <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine-ui</B -> or <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine</B -> or - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->totem</B ->). - </P -><P -> That said - you are welcome to mail to our user mailing list: - <TT -CLASS="EMAIL" -><<A -HREF="mailto:xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net" ->xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</A ->></TT -> - Please provide some info about your setup so people have a chance to - help you, e.g. include information about your audio/video hardware - and drivers you use, operating system, cpu type and some console - output/any error messages. Also include command line parameters you - have specified and information about the type of stream you're - trying to play back. Also very important is the version of xine - you're using and information about any additional plugins you - may have installed on your system. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="PRONOUNCE" -></A ->How do I pronounce "xine"?</H3 -><P -> As long as people know what you are talking about, you are free to - pronounce it the way you like, but the official pronounciation is - [ksi:n], like the name "Maxine" with the "Ma" removed. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="MODULES" -></A ->What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, ... modules in cvs for?</H3 -><P -> Some time ago xine just became too complex to be just one big program. - Therefore it was split into two major parts. - </P -><P -> xine-lib is simply speaking the engine of xine. It contains all basic plugins - and is necessary to run anything that relies on xine. (This is the part that - is covered in this FAQ.) - </P -><P -> Then there are frontends - applications that use xine. The most - common frontend is that of a media player. There are currently - two frontends being developed in the xine project, xine-ui (skinned - dvd-player style frontend directly based on xlib) and gxine, - a desktop media-player style frontend using the standard gtk widget set - and comes with a mozilla browser plugin. - External projects like kaffeine, sinek and totem develop additional frontends. - In the future you will likely see more and different types of applications - being developed which will use the xine engine for video processing - and other multimedia purposes. - </P -><P -> If you simply want a media/dvd player, you'll need to install xine-lib - first and then choose and install a player frontend like xine-ui or gxine. - </P -><P -> Other modules in CVS are: <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->xine-plugin</TT -> a mozilla browser plugin - for streaming media playback using xine, - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->xine-www</TT -> the - xine project website sources. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="CVS" -></A ->Where and how do I get the latest development version?</H3 -><P -> Be advised that end-users should stick to the official xine releases. - CVS is only intended for developers and for others who know why they use it. - </P -><P -> To check out xine-modules from CVS, first do this: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine login</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - The password is empty, just press Enter. - </P -><P -> Then, to check out individual modules (e.g. <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->xine-lib</TT ->, - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->gxine</TT -> or <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->xine-ui</TT ->): - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine co <modulename></B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="BINARIES" -></A ->Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?</H3 -><P -> The xine project does not provide pre-compiled binaries for legal - reasons (some parts of xine may be covered by patents in some countries). - Some OS projects/vendors (e.g. debian, freebsd, ...) offer binaries - for their distributions - please contact them for further info. - You can also find links to third parties providing xine RPMs on - the xine homepage at - <A -HREF="http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases" -TARGET="_top" ->http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases</A ->. - </P -><P -> See the next section of this FAQ for instructions on how to build xine - from source. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><HR><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="BUILDING" -></A ->Building and installing xine from source</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="BUILDREQUIREMENTS" -></A ->What do I need to compile everything properly?</H3 -><P -> First of all an official and stable release of gcc. Also be aware - that patched gcc versions may break parts of xine and are therefore - not supported by the xine project. - </P -><P -> Furthermore you'll have to use GNU make to compile xine. On most GNU/Linux - systems "make" is GNU make - on other platforms use "gmake" instead. - Also, zlib is required (including the appropriate header files, which are - often found in a package called zlib-devel or similar.) - </P -><P -> If you want to compile xine from CVS, you'll need to have the autobuild tools - installed (automake, autoconf and libtool - in recent versions). - </P -><P -> Frontends might need additional libraries, e.g. for gxine you'll need to have - GTK installed. Make sure you have not only the shared libraries themselves - but also the header files (often packaged seperately as so-called -dev packages) - on your system. - </P -><P -> Some plugins that come with the xine engine need additional libraries (otherwise - they will not be built). For example, libogg and libvorbis (plus their include files) - are needed for ogg/vorbis support. Most notably, if you want to see any video - on your X11 desktop (and that's what you're here for, isn't it?), you need the - XFree developer packages as well. - </P -><P -> Don't worry about this too much right now, xine's <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->configure</B -> - (see below) will check for all the stuff needed and will tell you what's missing - (which means that you should check the output it produces carefully ;) ). - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AEN66" -></A ->How do I compile xine?</H3 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="SIMPLEBUILDINSTR" -></A ->Simple build instructions for beginners</H4 -><P -> Download the latest xine-lib and gxine/xine-ui tarballs, then follow - these instruction. To unpack a tarball, use: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->tar xfvz tarballname.tar.gz</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> The following instructions will install xine in <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/local</TT -> - where it will be visible for all users. You need root privileges to do this on most systems. - </P -><P -> After unpacking xine-lib, issue: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make install</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Make sure your <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/etc/ld.so.conf</TT -> contains - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/local/lib</TT -> and continue with: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ldconfig</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Now unpack your frontend (gxine or xine-ui or ...), then: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make install</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="COMPLETEBUILDINSTR" -></A ->Complete build instructions</H4 -><P -> The build process is the same for all of the xine modules. - </P -><P -> You have to start with xine-lib. If built and installed successfully, you - can continue with the frontend(s). - </P -><P -> If you have installed xine-lib to a non-standard prefix, make sure - that you have <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->$prefix/bin</TT -> in your PATH and that your linker finds - libs in <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->$prefix/lib</TT -> - otherwise trying to build modules that - rely on xine-lib will fail with configure complaining about not - finding certain parts of libxine. Using bash you can do something like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->export PATH="$prefix/bin:$PATH"</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$prefix/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - to make sure libxine can be found by the frontend(s). - </P -><P -> Last but not least. Here the build instructions. As stated earlier, - those are the same for every xine module. - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./autogen.sh</B -> [-> *only* if you checked your sources out of CVS] - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make install</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="RPMBUILD" -></A ->Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui)</H3 -><P -> Basically you will only have to issue one command, if you have just - downloaded a source tarball from our web site: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->rpm -ta <THE_NAME_OF_YOUR_SOURCE_TAR_BALL></B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> This will start the binary and source RPM building. After compiling is - finished, a binary rpm is placed in your rpm binary directory which is - something like <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/src/RPM/RPMS/<YOUR_ARCHITECTURE></TT -> - and a source RPM is written to your rpm source dir - (e.g. <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/src/RPM/SRPMS</TT ->). - </P -><P -> In case that you have a fresh CVS checkout, you will need to do the - following first in order to get a tarball release out of it which you - can later use with the <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->rpm -ta</B -> command above: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./autogen.sh && make clean && make dist</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> In any case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install - xine-lib first before you can proceed with xine-ui. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="CFLAGS" -></A ->Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?</H3 -><P -> Yes, you can do so by setting the CFLAGS variable and then running - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->configure</B -> again. You can even pass them to - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->configure</B -> directly. Example: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure CFLAGS="-march=i686"</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Other user variables <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->configure</B -> respects are: - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->CC</B -> to specify the compiler executable - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->CPP</B -> to specify the C preprocessor executable - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->LD</B -> to specify the linker executable - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->CPPFLAGS</B -> to pass additional include paths or other - preprocessor options - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->LDFLAGS</B -> to pass additional library paths or other - linker options - </P -></LI -></UL -> - </P -><P -> An example combining some of these would look like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure CC="/opt/intel/bin/icc" LD="/opt/intel/bin/xild" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/dvdnav" LDFLAGS="-L/home/guenter/xine_libs"</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="ATHLONFLAGS" -></A ->Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon™) available? Can I build them?</H3 -><P -> If you have a recent gcc you can try to compile "more" k7 support in (esp. - better instruction scheduling). If the configure script should fail to - detect your processor/gcc correctly, try passing the canonical system name for - your machine to configure with the <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->--host</B -> option, e.g. - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure --host=k7-pc-linux-gnu</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AEN151" -></A ->Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib)</H3 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="DOESNTCOMPILE" -></A ->The package doesn't compile at all!</H4 -><P -> In order to be able to compile xine-lib, you need (amongst other things) - the zlib compression library plus the appropriate headers, which are - often found in a package called zlib-devel or similar. - </P -><P -> Read again carefully the output <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure</B -> - produced and/or compiler warnings and error reports, they often contain - helpful information to find out what's going on. If you're stuck here - and decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list, - make sure you include these outputs. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="XVPLUGINFAILSTOBUILD" -></A ->The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile!</H4 -><P -> If you want to have Xv support compiled in, make sure you either have - a shared Xv library on your system, e.g. - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ls /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv*</B -> - should give you some .so libs, like this: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.a - /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so - /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so.1</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Alternatively you need to have libtool 1.4 or newer installed, then - libXv.a is sufficient. Otherwise you can create the shared versions yourself: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ld --whole-archive -shared -o libXv.so.1 libXv.a</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ln -s libXv.so.1 libXv.so</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ldconfig</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Now you should be ready to build the Xv video-out plugin on your system. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AEN169" -></A ->Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/...)</H3 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="XINELIBNOTFOUND" -></A ->I have installed xine-lib but the frontend complains about not finding it!</H4 -><P -> First of all take a closer look at the compilation instructions above again. - You will probably find your answer there right away. - </P -><P -> As stated there (there again that hint *grin*), make sure that you - have <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->$prefix/bin</TT -> in your path and that your - linker is able to find libraries installed in <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->$prefix/lib</TT -> - By the way, $prefix is where you installed your xine-lib to earlier - (yes, installing xine-lib with <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make install</B -> would be a good - idea before trying to compile the frontend ;) ). - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="NONROOTBUILD" -></A ->Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)?</H3 -><P -> Sure. First set up a subdir where you install your private software, eg. - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->mkdir ~/xine</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Then you have to set a few environment variables - it's probably a good - idea to add this to your <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.bashrc</TT -> (or somewhere similar): - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->export PATH="$HOME/xine/bin:$PATH"</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/xine/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Now you can unpack tarballs e.g. in <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/xine/src</TT -> - (<B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->mkdir ~/xine/src</B -> if necessary) and do a - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine</B -> - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make install</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> You also need to tell frontends using xine-lib, where to find it: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine --with-xine-prefix=$HOME/xine</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><HR><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="PLAYBACK" -></A ->Playback of various stream types</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AEN199" -></A ->DVD Playback with xine</H3 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="DVDPLAYBACK" -></A ->How do I play back DVDs with xine?</H4 -><P -> Newer xine (1.0.x) releases come with a full-featured - DVD plugin that should be able to handle any unencrypted, - non-locked DVD with full menu navigation support. No external - plugins are required anymore here. - </P -><P -> To get DVD playback working, first make sure you have - a symlink <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/dvd</TT -> pointing to your - DVD device on your system. For example, if your DVD drive - is the master ide drive on the second IDE channel, - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/dvd</TT -> should point to - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/hdc</TT ->. Please note that if you - are using the ide-scsi emulation on your system, it is - likely that your DVD drive got mapped to a scsi device - node even though it is an ide drive. In that case first - check out you boot/kernel logs (or run <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->cdrecord -scanbus</B ->) - to find out which device it got mapped to and set the - symlink accordingly (should be something like <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/scd0</TT ->, - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/scd1</TT ->, ... in that case). - Also make sure you (as a user) have sufficient (read and write) permissions - on your DVD drive. This could mean you either have to change the device - permissions or add your user to a special group - (e.g. <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->addgroup cdrom username</B ->), - depending on your setup and/or distribution. - </P -><P -> It is highly recommended to switch DMA mode on for your DVD drive - (without it even very recent machines will have trouble producing - smooth video output). Use a command like - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->hdparm -d 1 <device></B -> - on your DVD device. Please note that even if you're using ide-scsi - you will have to set the dma flag on the ide device node (e.g. - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/hdc</TT ->), not the mapped <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/scd</TT -> - scsi device. - </P -><P -> To be able to play back encrypted DVDs you need to have - libdvdcss installed on your system (please check if this is legal where - you live). If you do not understand what the term "encrypted DVD" means - here: As a rule of thumb, every DVD you have to pay money for is most - likely encrypted. - </P -><P -> To make matters worse, apart from encryption, there is another obstacle - to take: the region code. The DVD authorities decided to divide the world - into eight geographical regions. Have a look at - <A -HREF="http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/RegionMap.pdf" -TARGET="_top" ->http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/RegionMap.pdf</A -> - if you want to know which number has been assigned to your country. It is - now their idea, that you shall only play DVDs, which have been produced - for your region. If you take a DVD off the shelf in your local store, - you should find a little globe-like icon which shows the region code the - disc is for. - </P -><P -> Newer (post-2000) DVD drives (so-called RPC-2 drives) check the DVD - region, which means they'll prevent you from playing back DVDs that have - a different region code from what the drive is set up for. Some drives - come with a factory setting of region 0 so they can play back - any DVD until a region code is set. Others refuse to play any DVD at all - until they are told a region. The easiest way to handle this is to use - the regionset utility from - <A -HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415" -TARGET="_top" -> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415 - </A ->. - </P -><P -> Once you have everything set up, try something like - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine dvd:/</B -> or <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -p dvd:/</B -> - to start dvd playback. Some frontend also offer so-called autoplay - buttons or menu entries that start dvd playback immediately. - </P -><P -> Important: do not try to mount the DVD. Just insert it and hit the DVD autoplay - button or start xine from the command line. - </P -><P -> If things do not work as expected, try running the <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine-check</B -> - shellscript that comes with xine to see if this gives you further hints on - what could be wrong. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="DVDLONGWAIT" -></A ->DVD playback works, but it takes a long time until playback starts</H4 -><P -> This points to a region code problem. Some versions of libdvdcss can play - back DVDs from other regions than the RPC-2 DVD drive is set up for, - but this usually means a cryptographic attack (which takes time) has - to be used to access the DVD. - </P -><P -> You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here: - <A -HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415" -TARGET="_top" -> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415 - </A ->. - </P -><P -> Warning: Please be aware that the number of region code changes in RPC-2 - drives is limited (usually about 5 times), after that your drive will - stay locked to the region you last set it up for. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="REGIONSET" -></A ->I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region!</H4 -><P -> You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here: - <A -HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415" -TARGET="_top" -> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415 - </A ->. - </P -><P -> Warning: Please be aware that the number of region code changes in RPC-2 - drives is limited (usually about 5 times), after that your drive will - stay locked to the region you last set it up for. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="VCDSUPPORT" -></A ->Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i?</H3 -><P -> xine supports VCD and SVCD playback out-of-the box. Similar to DVDs, - make sure you have a <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/dev/cdrom</TT -> alias pointing - to your CDROM drive which you will use to play back the (S)VCD. - </P -><P -> At the moment, CD-i formats are not supported by xine. - </P -><P -> Do not try to mount the (S)VCD. Simply insert it into your CDROM drive - and hit the VCD autoplay button or start something like - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine vcd:/</B -> or <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine vcd:/</B -> - from the command line. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="QUICKTIME" -></A ->Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine?</H3 -><P -> Quicktime is just a system layer (container format) which can contain various - different audio and video formats. The system layer itself is fully supported - in xine. However, some quicktime audio/video codecs are not natively supported yet. - Luckily, if you are using a x86 compatible machine (any recent PC hardware should do) - you can install and use the original Quicktime DLLs and watch most streams - (trailers) that can be downloaded from the net. - </P -><P -> Possibly the most convenient way to get the Quicktime DLLs is to download - them from the mplayer website - <A -HREF="http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/" -TARGET="_top" -> http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ - </A ->. - The package is called "QuickTime6 DLLs". Unpack it and move everything you find - inside to <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/lib/win32</TT -> (actually you can place them - anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your homedirectory, but then you'll - have to set <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->codec.win32_path</I -></TT -> in your - xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be - able to watch Quicktime trailers. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AEN253" -></A ->Real Network files/streams</H3 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="REALFILEPLAYBACK" -></A ->Can I watch Real (.rm, .ram) files using xine?</H4 -><P -> The situation with real files and streams is pretty similar to the situation - with Quicktime Streams (see above). The newer real audio and video formats - are only supported by using binary-only codecs which are available from - real networks but are not included in xine. - </P -><P -> One way to get these codecs is to download and install RealPlayer from - RealNetworks, for example in <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/local/RealPlayer8</TT -> or - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/opt/RealPlayer8</TT ->. If you installed it in one of these - places, xine should automatically find and use the real binary codecs. - If it doesn't work, try to find out the exact path to where the real codecs - are installed on your system (look for a file named <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->rv30.so.6.0</TT -> - which should reside in a directory called <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->Codecs</TT -> in the - directory where you have installed RealPlayer in) and set - <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->codec.real_codecs_path</I -></TT -> in your xine config file - accordingly. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="REALNETWORKSTREAMS" -></A ->What about (live) network streams (pnm://, rtsp:// style urls)?</H4 -><P -> xine supports both pnm and rtsp streaming. However, digging out the actual - pnm/rtsp url can be tricky as they're often packed into heavy JavaScript and - HTML code on most websites. You can either use a combination of your - browser's "save source" function and wget or use a xine browser plugin - (currently the gxine frontend comes with a simple mozilla plugin, - for example). When you decided to dig out the url by hand don't get fooled - by the many redirectors that are often placed around the actual url. - Use wget to download any http://-style urls and use less to look inside - the downloaded .ra/.ram files where you will find the actual pnm/rtsp - url which can be opened using xine. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="WMV" -></A ->Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?</H3 -><P -> While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias) - is fully supported in xine, for newer windows media 9 based streams - you'll need to install windows binary codecs (.DLLs). - </P -><P -> Possibly the most convenient way to get the windows DLLs is to download - them from the mplayer website - <A -HREF="http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/" -TARGET="_top" -> http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ - </A ->. - The package is called "Win32 Codecpack". Unpack it and move everything you find - inside to <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/lib/win32</TT -> (actually you can place them - anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your homedirectory, but then you'll - have to set <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->codec.win32_path</I -></TT -> in your - xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be - able to watch windows media streams. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="DVB" -></A ->Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine?</H3 -><P -> At the time of this writing DVB support is a very new and experimental - feature in xine. The number of supported cards is pretty limited at the moment. - See <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->doc/README.dvb</TT -> (in the xine-lib tarball) for details. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="STDIN" -></A ->How do I play streams from STDIN?</H3 -><P -> Use something like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->cat stream.mpg | gxine stdin:/</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AVISUBTITLES" -></A ->How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?</H3 -><P -> In xine 0.9.13 this used to be: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine foo.avi%bar.sub</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Latest xine-lib modules (1-beta3 or newer) support external subtitles - for any media file, not only AVI. In order to use it you can pass a - special MRL construction like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine test.mpg#subtitle:file.sub</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - The external subtitles support can also be used by any xine - frontend. Currently, just xine-ui implements this feature with a - subtitle selection dialog. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><HR><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="RUNNING" -></A ->Running xine</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SPEEDUP" -></A ->I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do?</H3 -><P -> Your hardware might be too slow for xine. Make sure you turn on all - speed optimizing options. A few things you should check (in order of - importance): - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P -> First of all, run the <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine-check</B -> script included in xine - package (probably already installed in your system). - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine-check</B -> will report several of the most common problems - listed here. Sample output from xine-check: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine-check</B -> - Please be patient, this script may take a while to run... - [ good ] you're using Linux, doing specific tests - [ good ] looks like you have a /proc filesystem mounted. - [ good ] You seem to have a reasonable kernel version (2.4.18) - [ good ] intel compatible processor, checking MTRR support - [ good ] you have MTRR support and there are some ranges set. - [ good ] found the player at /usr/local/bin/xine - [ good ] /usr/local/bin/xine is in your PATH - [ good ] found /usr/local/bin/xine-config in your PATH - [ good ] plugin directory /usr/local/lib/xine/plugins exists. - [ good ] found input plugins - [ good ] found demux plugins - [ good ] found decoder plugins - [ good ] found video_out plugins - [ good ] found audio_out plugins - [ good ] skin directory /usr/local/share/xine/skins exists. - [ good ] found logo in /usr/local/share/xine/skins - [ good ] I even found some skins. - [ good ] /dev/cdrom points to /dev/hdc - [ good ] /dev/dvd points to /dev/hdc - [ good ] DMA is enabled for your DVD drive - [ good ] found xvinfo: X-Video Extension version 2.2 - [ good ] your Xv extension supports YUV overlays (improves MPEG performance) - [ good ] your Xv extension supports packed YUV overlays - [ good ] Xv ports: YUY2 YV12 I420 UYVY</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Try to use the Xv driver, it greatly improves performance and quality - because your graphics card does image scaling and colorspace conversion. The - <A -HREF="#VIDEO" ->video section</A -> contains important information - about several Xv drivers. - </P -><P -> If Xv cannot be used for some reason, make sure your display is set up - to 16bpp, not 24 or higher (reduces memory bandwith). Some Xv drivers - may also have better performance with 16bpp. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Make sure the hard drive (or cdrom/dvd drive) which supplies the - video data is in DMA mode (if supported). - </P -><P -> On most linux-based systems, you can use hdparm to check this: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->hdparm /dev/hda</B -> - [...] - using_dma = 1 (on) - [...]</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> You can enable DMA mode with the following command: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->hdparm -d1 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - In some cases where this fails it helps to specify the dma mode - to use, for example: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->hdparm -d1 -X 66 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - In RedHat 8.0 an additional entry in /etc/modules.conf - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> options ide-cd dma=1</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - should help (reboot for this change to take effect). - </P -><P -> More information about this may be found here: - <A -HREF="http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html" -TARGET="_top" -> http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html - </A ->. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Use a recent kernel which is optimized for your hardware. Old kernels - may lack support for accelerated instructions like SSE, for example. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Close other applications (use a tool like "top" to find out - what applications are using up CPU power). Programs that update the - system clock like ntp should also be disabled. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Enable MTRR support in your kernel. If you are still using XFree 3.x, - you'll have to tell the kernel yourself where the graphics memory is. - You'll find details about that in the linux dvd howto. - </P -><P -> If you're using XFree 4.x, enabling MTRR support in your kernel should - be enough (use a recent kernel!). - </P -><P -> Try a <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->cat /proc/mtrr</B -> - if the file exists and you find an entry - corresponding to the amount of graphics memory you have, everything - should be fine. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Have your X-server (usually XFree86) running with higher priority. - Most recent linux distributions (like RedHat 8.0 or Mandrake 9.0) should - do that for you, improving not only xine but desktop responsiveness - in general. - </P -><P -> Use the "top" utility and verify under the "NI" column if - the X process has a negative value, this indicates a higher priority. - See "The X Window User HOWTO - Performance considerations" for - further instructions - <A -HREF="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html" -TARGET="_top" -> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html - </A ->. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Use the latest or a known-good gcc version and build an optimized xine-lib for - your architecture. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Besides boosting X-server priority, sometimes it's possible to avoid - discarding frames by making xine itself higher priority. This is not - a recommended pratice since it will require to run xine as root, - but you may give it a try if you want: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->nice --5 xine</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> xine needs high speed memory access which depends on your chip set. - Make sure you enable all speed-improving options. - </P -><P -> Especially the via apollo pro chipset is known to be quite weird, - (most of all on my gigabyte board). If you can't configure the ram - access thoroughly using the bios you might want to try some really - nasty tricks, as explained on (for example): - <A -HREF="http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp" -TARGET="_top" -> http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp - </A -> - </P -><P -> This website centers around a windows-tool to tweak the chipset, you - can do the same on FreeBSD with <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->pciconf</B ->. - On some linux distributions there are similar tools. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> a nice performance tuning tool can be found here: - <A -HREF="http://powertweak.sourceforge.net" -TARGET="_top" ->http://powertweak.sourceforge.net</A -> - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Set up and use raw devices for DVD access. Please note that the - actual performance gain during playback is very small if any, but - since raw devices are bypassing the kernel's buffer cache, Linux - will not try to cache the DVDs you play. This would not be useful, - because xine does its own caching and you usually play DVDs - sequentially, which means you won't reuse anything from the cache. - But the problem would be that Linux throws everything out of the - cache that might be in there. - </P -><P -> Raw devices should be available in linux kernel 2.4.x and there are - patches for older kernels available from: - <A -HREF="ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/" -TARGET="_top" -> ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/ - </A -> - </P -><P -> To use raw devices, first connect a free raw device to your dvd - device, use something like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->raw /dev/raw1 /dev/dvd</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> Then create a link named "rdvd" pointing to that raw device: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ln -s raw1 /dev/rdvd</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> For slow / high-latency dvd drives it might help to increase - the number of video buffers xine allocates. Try setting - <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->video.num_buffers:500</I -></TT -> - to a higher value (e.g. 1000 or 2500). - </P -></LI -></UL -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SMOOTHNESS" -></A ->Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth!</H3 -><P -> Video output can be further improved by tuning your linux kernel: - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P -> Set HZ to 1000 in - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/param.h</TT -> - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Try applying scheduler patches, especially the O(1) and the preemptive - patches have proven useful at the time of this writing (spring 2003). - </P -></LI -></UL -> - Linux 2.5/2.6 will probably have these improvements out of the box. - </P -><P -> Miguel Freitas has written a nice - <A -HREF="http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/~miguel/multimedia_sim/" -TARGET="_top" -> article about his kernel multimedia experiments - </A ->. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="PORTS" -></A ->I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... !</H3 -><P -> Check out the the corresponding README files in the directory <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->xine-lib/doc</TT ->. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AAXINE" -></A ->What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?</H3 -><P -> aalib is an ascii art library. xine comes with an aalib video output - plugin so you can watch movies in your xterm, on the console or on your - old vt100 - very cool ;> ... another nice option is to preview movies - on a remote server in your shell over ssh. - </P -><P -> To use it make sure you have aalib installed correctly before you - configure/build xine-lib and xine-ui. In addition to the <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine</B -> binary a - binary named <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->aaxine</B -> should get built and installed. You can then use - something like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->aaxine foo.mpg</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - to use aalib video output. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="CONFIGOPTIONS" -></A ->What do all these <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.xine/config</TT -> (<TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.gxine/config</TT ->) entries mean?</H3 -><P -> You can find information about them in - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->xine-lib/doc/README.config_en</TT ->. - Frontends may register additional config entries, you may find out more about - them in their documentation. Also the comments in the config file might - help. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="DXR3" -></A ->Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card?</H3 -><P -> While xine's focus is clearly on software decoding, the dxr3 is supported. - </P -><P -> You can find more information about using xine with the dxr3 - <A -HREF="http://www.amalthea.de/xine/" -TARGET="_top" ->here</A -> - (also covers how to do tv output using the dxr3). - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><HR><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="AUDIO" -></A ->Audio related questions</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AUDIODRIVERS" -></A ->What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd?</H3 -><P -> Currently xine support audio output via OSS (kernel audio drivers), - ALSA 0.9.x (ALSA 0.5.x is no longer supported), arts (KDE's sound daemon) - and esound (esd, gnome's sound daemon - not recommended because it has - serious issues with a/v sync). - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="COMPRESSOR" -></A ->When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the voices!</H3 -><P -> Congratulations, you seem to have an original movie audio track there. - </P -><P -> Uhm. So you don't like it. Well, there are two things you can do: - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P -> You can enable xine's audio compressor. Most frontends have - a settings window and in that you'll find a slider for the - compressor setting. The values are percent values, so a - slider setting of 200 means that xine will double the volume - of silent parts of the movie (loud parts stay the same). - </P -><P -> If your frontend does not have such a compression slider, - you can pass the value with the MRL: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="90%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine dvd:/#compression:150</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> If you have a dolby digital (AC3) soundtrack, you can try - to enable liba52's dynamic range compression setting - <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->codec.a52_dynrng:1</I -></TT -> - in your xine config file (or use some gui config dialog). - </P -></LI -></UL -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="NOAUDIO" -></A ->When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!</H3 -><P -> If this happens with any video, first try a different audio driver - (<B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -A oss</B ->, <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -A arts</B ->, - <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -A alsa</B -> ...). - </P -><P -> If this problem only occurs with one specific stream, maybe switching to - a different audio channel (using the gui) helps. Some DVD streams have - audio on strange channels. - </P -><P -> If all this doesn't help, maybe you're missing an audio codec or you found - a bug. If you decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list, - make sure to include all console output xine produced and also clearly - state what type of stream you tried to play back or, even better, make - a test stream available somewhere for developers to download and try. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SURROUNDSOUND" -></A ->Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?</H3 -><P -> Yep, it can do that using OSS or ALSA drivers, provided that the driver - supports it. On startup xine tells you what modes are supported by your - audio driver, e.g: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> audio_alsa_out : supported modes are mono stereo (4-channel not enabled in xine config) (5-channel not enabled in xine config) (5.1-channel not enabled in xine config) (a/52 and DTS pass-through not enabled in xine config)</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> On this machine 4-channel surround would be possible. However, since xine - cannot detect if there are actually speakers connected to the additional - channels, you'll have to activate that feature manually. - </P -><P -> You can do this either in the config dialog while xine is running (press - the config button on the xine panel and go to the AUDIO tab) or have it - the complicated way by editing the config file yourself which is located - in your home directory in <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->.gxine</TT -> or <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->.xine</TT ->: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> audio.four_channel:1 - audio.five_channel:1 - audio.five_lfe_channel:0</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SPDIF" -></A ->What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?</H3 -><P -> xine can do that too. Pretty much the same story as for 4-/5-channel - surround (see above). You can either use the config dialog or edit - the config file (<TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.xine/config</TT -> or <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.gxine/config</TT ->) - yourself: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> audio.a52_pass_through:1</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SBLIVESPDIF" -></A ->Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers</H3 -><P -> The following explains how to get the above configuration - going with xine. Some parts of it may applicable to other - configurations (cards that use the EMU10k1 chip) as well. - </P -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="AEN439" -></A ->Requirements</H4 -><P -></P -><OL -TYPE="1" -><LI -><P ->xine-lib >= 1.x.x</P -></LI -><LI -><P ->OSS driver</P -></LI -><LI -><P ->an external decoder</P -></LI -><LI -><P ->a cable to connect the SBLive to the external decoder</P -></LI -></OL -><P -> The configuration described was tested using a Soundblaster live 5.1 (rev 7) - with a Yamaha DSP-AX620 external decoder. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="AEN451" -></A ->Retrieving the driver</H4 -><P -> The OSS driver is maintained by creative and can be downloaded at - <A -HREF="http://opensource.creative.com/" -TARGET="_top" ->http://opensource.creative.com/</A ->. - The driver package contains documentation on how to install it. - Besides that I'd like to add the following notes. - </P -><P -> In order to compile and install these drivers, you need a valid kernel - configuration file. For RedHat Linux's pre-compiled kernels these - configuration files can be found in - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/src/linux/configs</TT ->. - After you've located the correct config file for your kernel, - you need to copy it to <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/src/linux/.config</TT -> - For example, when you run the 2.4.18-i686 kernel do : - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->cp /usr/src/linux/configs/kernel-2.4.18-i686.config /usr/src/linux/.config</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - Make sure that the emu10k1 module that is currently installed is - not loaded. To unload the modules: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->/sbin/modprobe -rv emu10k1.o ac97_codec.o</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - If this mentions that the device is busy, some program is - using the driver. Some example could be a mixer application - or sound daemon like artsd. You'll need to close down the - applications before continuing. - At success it should print something like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> # delete emu10k1 - # delete ac97_codec - # delete soundcore</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - Run make in the directory where you unpacked the driver and follow the - instructions printed at the end of each step. - The last step should be: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->make install-tools</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - As the README of the driver package mentions the SPDIF AC3 - output doesn't work by default. In the directory - <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->utils/scripts</TT -> an <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->emu10k1.conf</TT -> - file can be found which need to be placed in the default - installation directory (<TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/usr/local/etc</TT ->). - After this the <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->emu10k1.conf</TT -> needs to be modified. - The following settings worked fine for me (I don't use the analog - outputs of the card): - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> CARD_IS_5_1=yes - USE_DIGITAL_OUTPUT=yes - ENABLE_TONE_CONTROL=yes - AC3PASSTHROUGH=yes - ENABLE_LIVEDRIVE_IR=no - INVERT_REAR=no - MULTICHANNEL=yes - ROUTE_ALL_TO_SUB=no - ANALOG_FRONT_BOOST=no - SURROUND=no - PROLOGIC=no - ENABLE_CD_Spdif=yes - ENABLE_OPTICAL_SPDIF=no - ENABLE_LINE2_MIC2=no - ENABLE_RCA_SPDIF=no - ENABLE_RCA_AUX=no</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - After modifying the <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->emu10k1.conf</TT ->, - you need to modify your <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->/etc/modules.conf</TT -> and - make sure the following lines are in there. - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1 - post-install emu10k1 /usr/local/etc/emu-script</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - After saving the changes to <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->modules.conf</TT ->, run - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->/sbin/depmod -a</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - Now, you're ready to load the new modules and set the correct - options for it. To load the modules run: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->/sbin/modprobe emu10k1</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="AEN478" -></A ->Setting up xine for SPDIF (AC3_passthrough) output</H4 -><P -> You can either use the config dialog of your frontend or edit - the config file (<TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.xine/config</TT ->) yourself: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> audio.a52_pass_through:1</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - In case the setting is not in the file you can add it. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT3" -><HR><H4 -CLASS="SECT3" -><A -NAME="AEN483" -></A ->The cable used for the SBLive can easily be self-made - or buy a stereo 3.5mm jack to dual RCA cable.</H4 -><P -> What you need to make the cable yourself: - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P ->stereo 3.5mm jack plug</P -></LI -><LI -><P ->RCA plug</P -></LI -><LI -><P ->shielded cable (video coax 75 Ohm will do)</P -></LI -></UL -> - Connect them as follows : - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> center pin jackplug ------|----- center pin RCA plug - GND __|__ GND</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> In order to test it use a DVD with AC3 or DTS track - start xine and select the right audio track - from user interface or start xine as: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine dvd:/1 -a 0</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - The external decoder should display something like - "Dolby Digital" in case the selected audio track contains - AC3 data or "DTS" in case the selected audio track - contains DTS data. Of course stereo audio also goes - through the SPDIF output, so the analog outputs of the - SBLive 5.1 are not needed anymore. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="VOLUMECONTROL" -></A ->Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!?</H3 -><P -> Some xine drivers do not support volume changing although the GUI - will show the volume bar. Usually this is not xine's fault: aRts C - API, for example, doesn't offer any volume property to applications. - Similarly, with ac3 pass through it is not possible to set the volume. - </P -><P -> Note that recently we added support to "simulate" volume in aRts by - changing sample values on-the-fly before delivering them to the driver. - Not as good as having access to sound card's mixer but at least users - will not complain about lacking of volume bar anymore! :) - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="STUTTERING" -></A ->Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by -2115 pts" on the console output</H3 -><P -> Might be a soundcard problem, if it only comes in longer intervals. - Your soundcard does not keep it's sampling frequency accurately - enough, which results in audio and video - getting out of sync and xine has to compensate. If you see the message - only from time to time, you might remedy it by using the resampling sync - method. You can do this by setting the configuration entry - <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->audio.av_sync_method</I -></TT -> to <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->resample</I -></TT ->. - </P -><P -> If you receive the metronom message more often, - maybe switching to different drivers (alsa to oss or vise-versa) - can help here. It has also been reported that setting the configuration - entry <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->audio.force_rate</I -></TT -> to the native sampling - rate of your soundcard (try 44100 and 48000) helps sometimes. - </P -><P -> Another, whole different possibility is that you have some background - process running which is messing with the clock (like some ntp client - - chronny, ntpd, ...). - </P -><P -> Occasional messages of "fixing sound card drift" may happen on start and - when playing a long stream (like a movie). This is normal behaviour, - nothing to worry about. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="SOUNDLOSS" -></A ->xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs</H3 -><P -> You are using the OSS audio output plugin, right? In order to keep video and audio - in sync, xine regularly queries the audio driver for the amount of delay induced by - the current length of the driver's audio buffer. Unfortunately some OSS drivers seem - to be broken because the can return strange values here. This confuses the xine audio - subsystem and makes it drop audio. - </P -><P -> You should try the various settings of the - configuration entry <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->audio.oss_sync_method</I -></TT ->. The options - <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->getodelay</I -></TT -> and <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->getoptr</I -></TT -> ask the driver and - might therefore show the problem. But chances are that only one is broken and the other - works, so you should try them both first, since they are the most accurate. - The option <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->probebuffer</I -></TT -> does not ask the driver directly but - tries to determine the buffer length from outside. This should work with any driver - and is the way to go, of the driver dependent methods fail. - <TT -CLASS="PARAMETER" -><I ->softsync</I -></TT -> is the least accurate and should be used only in - emergency situations. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><HR><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="VIDEO" -></A ->Video related questions</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="NOVIDEO" -></A ->I can hear the audio - but I don't see a picture!</H3 -><P -> Probably your hardware is simply too slow - see above for some - hints on how to speed things up. - </P -><P -> Another possibility is that you using a buggy Xv driver, see the next - question. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="XVEXTENSION" -></A ->How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?</H3 -><P -> xine will normally use Xv by default if it is available. In some cases - you might need to choose Xv playback manually (when the <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.xine/config</TT -> - file for some reason says that you want to use XShm): - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -V Xv foo.mpg</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> If this doesn't work for you, it may be possible that Xv is not present - on your system. - </P -><P -> First you need to install/use XFree 4.x. Once you got that you have to - make sure the XFree drivers you're using are supporting Xv on your - hardware. Here are some hints for individual gfx chips: - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P -> - 3Dfx: if all you get is a solid black window, upgrade at least to XFree 4.1.0 - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - ATI: if you only get "half a picture", try lowering your resolution - or bit depth, disable DRI (looks like you ran out of video RAM) - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - Trident card: If you see vertical bands jumbled, upgrade to the latest - xfree/experimental trident drivers (for the CyberBlade XP - a driver exists here: - <A -HREF="http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/" -TARGET="_top" ->http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/ </A ->) - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - nVidia: With newer GeForce cards, Xv should work with XFree 4.2.0 or - newer, for older RivaTNT cards use the binary drivers from nvidia - (of course the binary drivers work as well for GeForce cards) - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - Mach64/Rage3D (not Rage128/Radeon) cards/chips get no XVideo with - standard drivers, try - <A -HREF="http://gatos.sourceforge.net/" -TARGET="_top" ->GATOS drivers - </A -> instead - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - intel: i815 has Xv support in XFree 4.x, others unknown - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - Permedia 2/3 has Xv support in XFree 4.x - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - Savage: at least some older drivers tend to lock up the whole machine, - try the drivers available from - <A -HREF="http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html" -TARGET="_top" -> http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html - </A ->. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - SIS: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in XFree 4.x - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - Chips and Tech 6555x, 68554, 69000, 69030 have Xv support in XFree 4.x - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - NeoMagic: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree 4.x - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - SiliconMotion: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree 4.x - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> - Matrox: G200 or newer (but not Parhelia) have Xv support in XFree 4.x. - For Parhelia, use the binary only drivers available from matrox' website. - </P -></LI -></UL -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="COLORKEY" -></A ->Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!</H3 -><P -> Looks like some colors on your GUI match the colorkey Xv uses. You can - change the colorkey value to avoid this. There should be a line like: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> video.XV_COLORKEY:2110</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - in your <TT -CLASS="FILENAME" ->~/.xine/config</TT -> file where you can change the color that's used - by xine for the video overlay. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="ASPECTRATIO" -></A ->The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!</H3 -><P -> Try pressing "a" to change the aspect ratio. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="DISCARDEDSKIPPED" -></A ->What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?</H3 -><P -> Sometimes xine will output a message like that: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" -> 200 frames delivered, XX frames skipped, YY frames discarded</PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -><P -> The difference between these counters is a little subtle for the non - developer. There are two threads running in order to display video: - the decoder thread will deliver frames to the video output thread. - The later is responsible for scheduling the frames to be displayed at - the right time. - </P -><P -> If your system can't keep up with decoding requirements, decoder will - deliver overdue frames. Imagine if it finished decoding the frame - tagged for displaying at 11:30 but xine clock marks 11:31. When this - situation is detected, xine will try to skip decoding a few frames - to recover. Not every decoder may support this feature. - </P -><P -> When the frame is decoded to be shown somewhere in future but the - output thread doesn't get scheduled in time by the operating system - to complete the operation, the frame is discarded. One cause might - be the disk access operation, which may halt the system for a few - miliseconds without DMA. See performance section tips above. - </P -><P -> Note that if a decoder can't skip frames for some reason, you would - never see frames skipped (they would be all discarded). - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="CONTRASTBRIGHTNESSSATURATION" -></A ->My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a gray video output!</H3 -><P -> This frequently happens with new Xv drivers or when switching to a - different video card. Background is that different Xv drivers often - use different ranges for the contrast/brightness/saturation settings. - </P -><P -> To fix this, try opening the xine settings window and try adjusting - the sliders for contrast, brightness and saturation. - </P -><P -> Please note that some frontends save these settings in their config file - so when you have found a working combination, make sure you exit - xine cleanly so the values are saved. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="VIDEODRIVER" -></A ->Which is the best video driver to use?</H3 -><P -> xine support several video drivers for outputing the image. These will - differ on how the frames are copied to the video card memory, whether - colorspace conversion and scaling is done in software or hardware, among - other things. They may also differ on ease of use and stability. - </P -><P -> Most of the time, Xv should give the users a good trade-off between - quality, compatibility and ease of use. This is why xine tries to use - Xv by default. - </P -><P -> However some users may want to explore better the available hardware - capabilities (eg. syncing frame drawing with monitor refresh). - Also some Xv drivers contain slow copies and accessing the video card - directly may yield performance gains. - </P -><P -> Drivers that access hardware directly includes VIDIX (warning: requires - root priviledges or kernel helper) and SyncFB (requires kernel helper - Matrox only). - User may try one of those, but should be warned that with root access - they can cause the system to crash hard. The support is also limited to - a couple of graphics cards only. - </P -><P -> Graphic workstations like SGI have usually a good support for OpenGL. - In that case, using OpenGL may be a better choice than XShm. However for - most desktop systems the performance of OpenGL will be quite bad. - </P -></DIV -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT1" -><HR><H2 -CLASS="SECT1" -><A -NAME="ERRORS" -></A ->Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do</H2 -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="AUDIODRIVERERR" -></A ->Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!</H3 -><P -> You can select the audio driver using the -A option. So try: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -A null</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - If you have ALSA drivers installed, try: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -A alsa</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - If you run ESD (not recommended), try: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -A esd</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - If you run artsd, try: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->xine -A arts</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="NOVIDEOPORTFOUND" -></A ->"no video port found"</H3 -><P -> You got the Xv extension, but your video card driver doesn't support it. - First try to find a driver that does support Xv on your hardware (check - your graphics card vendor). If your driver has Xv support but you can't - get it working, try at a lower resolution (1024x768 is enough even for - anamorphic DVDs). - </P -><P -> If all that fails, you can still use plain X11/XShm: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -V XShm foo.vob</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="UNABLETOOPENDVDDRIVE" -></A ->"Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)"</H3 -><P -> You probably don't have /dev/dvd (check that). If so, simply create a - link /dev/dvd that points to your DVD device. Something like... - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->ln -s hdc /dev/dvd</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - ...should do the job. Also make sure you have read and write access on - the device the symlink points to. - See the <A -HREF="#DVDPLAYBACK" ->dvd playback section</A -> - for more information. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="STATUS0X51" -></A ->My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }"</H3 -><P -> This error can be fixed by recompiling your kernel with the option - "Use multi-mode by default" enabled in the IDE settings. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="DEMUXERROR0000" -></A ->"demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)"</H3 -><P -> Probably xine can't access your input source. Most commonly this happens - when you're trying to play locked/encrypted DVDs. Remember that xine - can't play such DVDs out-of-the box for legal reasons (see above). - </P -><P -> If it is legal where you live, you can try to install libdvdcss. Once - you have done that and re-start xine, it should automatically detect - and use it to play back encrypted DVDs. - </P -><P -> Another reason could be that your (RPC-2) DVD drive isn't set up - for the right region (see above). - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="OSSFAILED" -></A ->"audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead"</H3 -><P -> First of all, make sure that your OSS Audio drivers are working (i.e. - you can play music with other software). Maybe you're using alsa? - If so, try <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -A alsa</B -> to see if this helps. - </P -><P -> The most common reason for oss not working is that some other program is accesing - your audio device. If you're using linux, the command <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->fuser /dev/dsp</B -> - should give you the PID of the process. - </P -><P -> If you are using GNOME, chances are that this is caused by ESD. Now you - have two possibilities. Either deactivate ESD (temporarily) by right - clicking on the sound monitor applet and selecting "Place Esound in - standby" or just kill it. Then xine will use OSS audio output. The other - method is to make xine use ESD for audio output with: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -A esd</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - This may result in worse playback - exact syncronization is not possible - with esd, so using oss should be preferred. - </P -><P -> If you are using KDE, there is the possibility that the aRts sound - daemon is currently running and thus blocking your sound device. You - can check that by starting the aRts control (in your KDE menu it should - be under Multimedia). If it is running, you can either use the aRts - audio output plugin: - <TABLE -BORDER="0" -BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" -WIDTH="100%" -><TR -><TD -><PRE -CLASS="SCREEN" -> <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -A arts</B -></PRE -></TD -></TR -></TABLE -> - Or you suspend the aRts daemon by checking the appropriate option in - your aRts control. (recommended) - </P -><P -> Newer versions of arts have an auto-suspend mode - this can lead to - some nondeterministic behaviour of xine if it is set up to use - the audio device directly. Using arts is recommended in that case, - however you will loose the ability to do four/five channel audio output. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="THROWINGAWAYIMAGE" -></A ->"video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old"</H3 -><P -> This is a performance related problem. - If you have a fast computer and this message shows from time to - time playing dvd/cdrom, it's very likely that your drive is not - DMA enabled. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="NOVIDEOPLUGINAVAILABLE" -></A ->"No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'."</H3 -><P -> You have tried to play a stream using a unknown or unhandled codec. - Possibly the file uses some obscure proprietary format and no - information is available on how to decode it. - </P -><P -> If you're on an x86 platform (e.g. PC hardware) you might want to - try installing binary-only windows medial, real networks and - quicktime codecs (see above). - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="DECODERFAILEDTOSTART" -></A ->"w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?"</H3 -><P -> You probably don't have the win32 dll needed to decode this file. - </P -></DIV -><DIV -CLASS="SECT2" -><HR><H3 -CLASS="SECT2" -><A -NAME="XINECRASHED" -></A ->xine just crashed on me - i didn't get any error message</H3 -><P -> OK, yes, that shouldn't happen and you're upset. We can understand that. - But, to help you and of course to fix this, we need some information. - So, let's go through the checklist and maybe prepare a nice bug report - for the xine-user mailing list: - <P -></P -><UL -><LI -><P -> Did xine really crash (segfault) or did it hang (deadlock)? - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Can you reproduce the bug? (e.g. do you remember what you - did and when you do it again it crashes again?) - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Is that a specific media file or format which crashes xine? (Have you - tried other files types?) - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Check the console output (and include it in a bug report), maybe earlier - there is some output that points to the problem. - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Your X server just froze on you? unfortunately that's a known problem - with some chipsets and drivers (most commonly Savage chipsets) when - using Xv. You might want to try running <B -CLASS="COMMAND" ->gxine -V XShm</B -> - to see if the problem is related to the Xv driver. This will unfortunately - be much slower, as lots of things are now done in software instead of - hardware scaling/colour space conversion. - </P -><P -> Maybe at the time you read this, there's an XFree upgrade which fixes - this for the Savage driver. If that works for you, please notify the xine crew at - <TT -CLASS="EMAIL" -><<A -HREF="mailto:xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net" ->xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</A ->></TT ->, so they can update this FAQ! - </P -></LI -><LI -><P -> Even though we try to make each release as bug free as possible, xine is - still under heavy development (nice excuse, isn't it? *grin*). - </P -><P -> If you write to the xine user mailing list - <TT -CLASS="EMAIL" -><<A -HREF="mailto:xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net" ->xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</A ->></TT -> - make sure you include a the above information (when applicable) - and also some information about your machine (operating system, cpu type and - speed, gfx card, sound card, ...) and please use a meaningfull subject - line ("xine bug" is bad, "xine fails to play this quicktime trailer in fullscreen mode" - ist much better). - </P -><P -> Thanks for taking the time to help improve xine. - </P -></LI -></UL -> - </P -></DIV -></DIV -></DIV -></DIV -></BODY -></HTML ->
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/doc/faq/faq.txt b/doc/faq/faq.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6ac2d25d2..000000000 --- a/doc/faq/faq.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1364 +0,0 @@ -The xine engine FAQ - -Copyright © 2001-2003 the xine project team - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Table of Contents - - - General questions about xine and this document - - What is the xine engine? - What's the aim and scope of this text? - My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help? - How do I pronounce "xine"? - What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, ... modules in cvs for? - Where and how do I get the latest development version? - Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs? - - Building and installing xine from source - - What do I need to compile everything properly? - How do I compile xine? - Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui) - Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation? - Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (AthlonTM) available? Can I build - them? - Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib) - Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/...) - Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)? - - Playback of various stream types - - DVD Playback with xine - Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i? - Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine? - Real Network files/streams - Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine? - Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine? - How do I play streams from STDIN? - How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles? - - Running xine - - I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do? - Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really - smooth! - I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... ! - What is aalib? How do I use it in xine? - What do all these ~/.xine/config (~/.gxine/config) entries mean? - Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card? - - Audio related questions - - What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd? - When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume - than the voices! - When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio! - Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output? - What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder? - Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers - Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!? - Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card - drift by -2115 pts" on the console output - xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with - DVDs - - Video related questions - - I can hear the audio - but I don't see a picture! - How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need? - Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video! - The aspect ratio of the video is wrong! - What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames? - My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a gray video output! - Which is the best video driver to use? - - Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do - - Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices! - "no video port found" - "Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)" - My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady - SeekComplete Error }" - "demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)" - "audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead" - "video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old" - "No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'." - "w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?" - xine just crashed on me - i didn't get any error message - -General questions about xine and this document - -What is the xine engine? - -The xine engine is a free media player engine. It comes in the form of a shared -libarary and is typically used by media player frontends and other multimedia -applications for playback of multimedia streams such as movies, radio/tv -network streams, DVDs, VCDs. - -Since there are several frontends for the xine library available, this document -has a problem when it comes to examples. The two most common frontends xine-ui -and gxine are mixed in command line examples throughout this FAQ. When you use -a different frontend, some of these will not work for you. The filename of the -config file also varies amongst frontends. If you get confused, I recommend you -try with one of xine-ui or gxine. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What's the aim and scope of this text? - -The primary goal of this FAQ is to cover all recurring questions related to the -xine engine. Frontend specific questions are usually not covered here. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help? - -First of all be sure that your question is really not covered here and that you -haven't just been a bit too lazy to read through all of this text. ;-). Also -check out the documentation specific to the frontend (e.g. xine-ui or gxine or -totem). - -That said - you are welcome to mail to our user mailing list: < -xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net> Please provide some info about your setup so -people have a chance to help you, e.g. include information about your audio/ -video hardware and drivers you use, operating system, cpu type and some console -output/any error messages. Also include command line parameters you have -specified and information about the type of stream you're trying to play back. -Also very important is the version of xine you're using and information about -any additional plugins you may have installed on your system. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -How do I pronounce "xine"? - -As long as people know what you are talking about, you are free to pronounce it -the way you like, but the official pronounciation is [ksi:n], like the name -"Maxine" with the "Ma" removed. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, ... modules in cvs for? - -Some time ago xine just became too complex to be just one big program. -Therefore it was split into two major parts. - -xine-lib is simply speaking the engine of xine. It contains all basic plugins -and is necessary to run anything that relies on xine. (This is the part that is -covered in this FAQ.) - -Then there are frontends - applications that use xine. The most common frontend -is that of a media player. There are currently two frontends being developed in -the xine project, xine-ui (skinned dvd-player style frontend directly based on -xlib) and gxine, a desktop media-player style frontend using the standard gtk -widget set and comes with a mozilla browser plugin. External projects like -kaffeine, sinek and totem develop additional frontends. In the future you will -likely see more and different types of applications being developed which will -use the xine engine for video processing and other multimedia purposes. - -If you simply want a media/dvd player, you'll need to install xine-lib first -and then choose and install a player frontend like xine-ui or gxine. - -Other modules in CVS are: xine-plugin a mozilla browser plugin for streaming -media playback using xine, xine-www the xine project website sources. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Where and how do I get the latest development version? - -Be advised that end-users should stick to the official xine releases. CVS is -only intended for developers and for others who know why they use it. - -To check out xine-modules from CVS, first do this: - cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine login -The password is empty, just press Enter. - -Then, to check out individual modules (e.g. xine-lib, gxine or xine-ui): - cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine co <modulename> - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs? - -The xine project does not provide pre-compiled binaries for legal reasons (some -parts of xine may be covered by patents in some countries). Some OS projects/ -vendors (e.g. debian, freebsd, ...) offer binaries for their distributions - -please contact them for further info. You can also find links to third parties -providing xine RPMs on the xine homepage at http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases -. - -See the next section of this FAQ for instructions on how to build xine from -source. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Building and installing xine from source - -What do I need to compile everything properly? - -First of all an official and stable release of gcc. Also be aware that patched -gcc versions may break parts of xine and are therefore not supported by the -xine project. - -Furthermore you'll have to use GNU make to compile xine. On most GNU/Linux -systems "make" is GNU make - on other platforms use "gmake" instead. Also, zlib -is required (including the appropriate header files, which are often found in a -package called zlib-devel or similar.) - -If you want to compile xine from CVS, you'll need to have the autobuild tools -installed (automake, autoconf and libtool - in recent versions). - -Frontends might need additional libraries, e.g. for gxine you'll need to have -GTK installed. Make sure you have not only the shared libraries themselves but -also the header files (often packaged seperately as so-called -dev packages) on -your system. - -Some plugins that come with the xine engine need additional libraries -(otherwise they will not be built). For example, libogg and libvorbis (plus -their include files) are needed for ogg/vorbis support. Most notably, if you -want to see any video on your X11 desktop (and that's what you're here for, -isn't it?), you need the XFree developer packages as well. - -Don't worry about this too much right now, xine's configure (see below) will -check for all the stuff needed and will tell you what's missing (which means -that you should check the output it produces carefully ;) ). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -How do I compile xine? - -Simple build instructions for beginners - -Download the latest xine-lib and gxine/xine-ui tarballs, then follow these -instruction. To unpack a tarball, use: - tar xfvz tarballname.tar.gz - -The following instructions will install xine in /usr/local where it will be -visible for all users. You need root privileges to do this on most systems. - -After unpacking xine-lib, issue: - ./configure - make install - -Make sure your /etc/ld.so.conf contains /usr/local/lib and continue with: - ldconfig - -Now unpack your frontend (gxine or xine-ui or ...), then: - ./configure - make install - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Complete build instructions - -The build process is the same for all of the xine modules. - -You have to start with xine-lib. If built and installed successfully, you can -continue with the frontend(s). - -If you have installed xine-lib to a non-standard prefix, make sure that you -have $prefix/bin in your PATH and that your linker finds libs in $prefix/lib - -otherwise trying to build modules that rely on xine-lib will fail with -configure complaining about not finding certain parts of libxine. Using bash -you can do something like: - export PATH="$prefix/bin:$PATH" - export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$prefix/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" -to make sure libxine can be found by the frontend(s). - -Last but not least. Here the build instructions. As stated earlier, those are -the same for every xine module. - ./autogen.sh [-> *only* if you checked your sources out of CVS] - ./configure - make - make install - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui) - -Basically you will only have to issue one command, if you have just downloaded -a source tarball from our web site: - rpm -ta <THE_NAME_OF_YOUR_SOURCE_TAR_BALL> - -This will start the binary and source RPM building. After compiling is -finished, a binary rpm is placed in your rpm binary directory which is -something like /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/<YOUR_ARCHITECTURE> and a source RPM is -written to your rpm source dir (e.g. /usr/src/RPM/SRPMS). - -In case that you have a fresh CVS checkout, you will need to do the following -first in order to get a tarball release out of it which you can later use with -the rpm -ta command above: - ./autogen.sh && make clean && make dist - -In any case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install xine-lib -first before you can proceed with xine-ui. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation? - -Yes, you can do so by setting the CFLAGS variable and then running configure -again. You can even pass them to configure directly. Example: - ./configure CFLAGS="-march=i686" - -Other user variables configure respects are: - - * CC to specify the compiler executable - - * CPP to specify the C preprocessor executable - - * LD to specify the linker executable - - * CPPFLAGS to pass additional include paths or other preprocessor options - - * LDFLAGS to pass additional library paths or other linker options - -An example combining some of these would look like: - ./configure CC="/opt/intel/bin/icc" LD="/opt/intel/bin/xild" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/dvdnav" LDFLAGS="-L/home/guenter/xine_libs" - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (AthlonTM) available? Can I build them? - -If you have a recent gcc you can try to compile "more" k7 support in (esp. -better instruction scheduling). If the configure script should fail to detect -your processor/gcc correctly, try passing the canonical system name for your -machine to configure with the --host option, e.g. - ./configure --host=k7-pc-linux-gnu - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib) - -The package doesn't compile at all! - -In order to be able to compile xine-lib, you need (amongst other things) the -zlib compression library plus the appropriate headers, which are often found in -a package called zlib-devel or similar. - -Read again carefully the output ./configure produced and/or compiler warnings -and error reports, they often contain helpful information to find out what's -going on. If you're stuck here and decide to post your problem on the xine-user -mailing list, make sure you include these outputs. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile! - -If you want to have Xv support compiled in, make sure you either have a shared -Xv library on your system, e.g. ls /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv* should give you some -.so libs, like this: - /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.a - /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so - /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so.1 - -Alternatively you need to have libtool 1.4 or newer installed, then libXv.a is -sufficient. Otherwise you can create the shared versions yourself: - ld --whole-archive -shared -o libXv.so.1 libXv.a - ln -s libXv.so.1 libXv.so - ldconfig - -Now you should be ready to build the Xv video-out plugin on your system. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/...) - -I have installed xine-lib but the frontend complains about not finding it! - -First of all take a closer look at the compilation instructions above again. -You will probably find your answer there right away. - -As stated there (there again that hint *grin*), make sure that you have $prefix -/bin in your path and that your linker is able to find libraries installed in -$prefix/lib By the way, $prefix is where you installed your xine-lib to earlier -(yes, installing xine-lib with make install would be a good idea before trying -to compile the frontend ;) ). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)? - -Sure. First set up a subdir where you install your private software, eg. - mkdir ~/xine - -Then you have to set a few environment variables - it's probably a good idea to -add this to your ~/.bashrc (or somewhere similar): - export PATH="$HOME/xine/bin:$PATH" - export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/xine/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" - -Now you can unpack tarballs e.g. in ~/xine/src (mkdir ~/xine/src if necessary) -and do a - ./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine - make install - -You also need to tell frontends using xine-lib, where to find it: - ./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine --with-xine-prefix=$HOME/xine - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Playback of various stream types - -DVD Playback with xine - -How do I play back DVDs with xine? - -Newer xine (1.0.x) releases come with a full-featured DVD plugin that should be -able to handle any unencrypted, non-locked DVD with full menu navigation -support. No external plugins are required anymore here. - -To get DVD playback working, first make sure you have a symlink /dev/dvd -pointing to your DVD device on your system. For example, if your DVD drive is -the master ide drive on the second IDE channel, /dev/dvd should point to /dev/ -hdc. Please note that if you are using the ide-scsi emulation on your system, -it is likely that your DVD drive got mapped to a scsi device node even though -it is an ide drive. In that case first check out you boot/kernel logs (or run -cdrecord -scanbus) to find out which device it got mapped to and set the -symlink accordingly (should be something like /dev/scd0, /dev/scd1, ... in that -case). Also make sure you (as a user) have sufficient (read and write) -permissions on your DVD drive. This could mean you either have to change the -device permissions or add your user to a special group (e.g. addgroup cdrom -username), depending on your setup and/or distribution. - -It is highly recommended to switch DMA mode on for your DVD drive (without it -even very recent machines will have trouble producing smooth video output). Use -a command like hdparm -d 1 <device> on your DVD device. Please note that even -if you're using ide-scsi you will have to set the dma flag on the ide device -node (e.g. /dev/hdc), not the mapped /dev/scd scsi device. - -To be able to play back encrypted DVDs you need to have libdvdcss installed on -your system (please check if this is legal where you live). If you do not -understand what the term "encrypted DVD" means here: As a rule of thumb, every -DVD you have to pay money for is most likely encrypted. - -To make matters worse, apart from encryption, there is another obstacle to -take: the region code. The DVD authorities decided to divide the world into -eight geographical regions. Have a look at http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/ -RegionMap.pdf if you want to know which number has been assigned to your -country. It is now their idea, that you shall only play DVDs, which have been -produced for your region. If you take a DVD off the shelf in your local store, -you should find a little globe-like icon which shows the region code the disc -is for. - -Newer (post-2000) DVD drives (so-called RPC-2 drives) check the DVD region, -which means they'll prevent you from playing back DVDs that have a different -region code from what the drive is set up for. Some drives come with a factory -setting of region 0 so they can play back any DVD until a region code is set. -Others refuse to play any DVD at all until they are told a region. The easiest -way to handle this is to use the regionset utility from http://sourceforge.net/ -project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415 . - -Once you have everything set up, try something like gxine dvd:/ or xine -p dvd: -/ to start dvd playback. Some frontend also offer so-called autoplay buttons or -menu entries that start dvd playback immediately. - -Important: do not try to mount the DVD. Just insert it and hit the DVD autoplay -button or start xine from the command line. - -If things do not work as expected, try running the xine-check shellscript that -comes with xine to see if this gives you further hints on what could be wrong. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -DVD playback works, but it takes a long time until playback starts - -This points to a region code problem. Some versions of libdvdcss can play back -DVDs from other regions than the RPC-2 DVD drive is set up for, but this -usually means a cryptographic attack (which takes time) has to be used to -access the DVD. - -You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here: http:// -sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415 . - -Warning: Please be aware that the number of region code changes in RPC-2 drives -is limited (usually about 5 times), after that your drive will stay locked to -the region you last set it up for. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region! - -You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here: http:// -sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415 . - -Warning: Please be aware that the number of region code changes in RPC-2 drives -is limited (usually about 5 times), after that your drive will stay locked to -the region you last set it up for. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i? - -xine supports VCD and SVCD playback out-of-the box. Similar to DVDs, make sure -you have a /dev/cdrom alias pointing to your CDROM drive which you will use to -play back the (S)VCD. - -At the moment, CD-i formats are not supported by xine. - -Do not try to mount the (S)VCD. Simply insert it into your CDROM drive and hit -the VCD autoplay button or start something like gxine vcd:/ or xine vcd:/ from -the command line. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine? - -Quicktime is just a system layer (container format) which can contain various -different audio and video formats. The system layer itself is fully supported -in xine. However, some quicktime audio/video codecs are not natively supported -yet. Luckily, if you are using a x86 compatible machine (any recent PC hardware -should do) you can install and use the original Quicktime DLLs and watch most -streams (trailers) that can be downloaded from the net. - -Possibly the most convenient way to get the Quicktime DLLs is to download them -from the mplayer website http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ . -The package is called "QuickTime6 DLLs". Unpack it and move everything you find -inside to /usr/lib/win32 (actually you can place them anywhere you want, e.g. -someplace in your homedirectory, but then you'll have to set codec.win32_path -in your xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be able -to watch Quicktime trailers. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Real Network files/streams - -Can I watch Real (.rm, .ram) files using xine? - -The situation with real files and streams is pretty similar to the situation -with Quicktime Streams (see above). The newer real audio and video formats are -only supported by using binary-only codecs which are available from real -networks but are not included in xine. - -One way to get these codecs is to download and install RealPlayer from -RealNetworks, for example in /usr/local/RealPlayer8 or /opt/RealPlayer8. If you -installed it in one of these places, xine should automatically find and use the -real binary codecs. If it doesn't work, try to find out the exact path to where -the real codecs are installed on your system (look for a file named rv30.so.6.0 -which should reside in a directory called Codecs in the directory where you -have installed RealPlayer in) and set codec.real_codecs_path in your xine -config file accordingly. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What about (live) network streams (pnm://, rtsp:// style urls)? - -xine supports both pnm and rtsp streaming. However, digging out the actual pnm/ -rtsp url can be tricky as they're often packed into heavy JavaScript and HTML -code on most websites. You can either use a combination of your browser's "save -source" function and wget or use a xine browser plugin (currently the gxine -frontend comes with a simple mozilla plugin, for example). When you decided to -dig out the url by hand don't get fooled by the many redirectors that are often -placed around the actual url. Use wget to download any http://-style urls and -use less to look inside the downloaded .ra/.ram files where you will find the -actual pnm/rtsp url which can be opened using xine. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine? - -While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias) is fully -supported in xine, for newer windows media 9 based streams you'll need to -install windows binary codecs (.DLLs). - -Possibly the most convenient way to get the windows DLLs is to download them -from the mplayer website http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ . -The package is called "Win32 Codecpack". Unpack it and move everything you find -inside to /usr/lib/win32 (actually you can place them anywhere you want, e.g. -someplace in your homedirectory, but then you'll have to set codec.win32_path -in your xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be able -to watch windows media streams. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine? - -At the time of this writing DVB support is a very new and experimental feature -in xine. The number of supported cards is pretty limited at the moment. See doc -/README.dvb (in the xine-lib tarball) for details. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -How do I play streams from STDIN? - -Use something like: - cat stream.mpg | gxine stdin:/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles? - -In xine 0.9.13 this used to be: - xine foo.avi%bar.sub - -Latest xine-lib modules (1-beta3 or newer) support external subtitles for any -media file, not only AVI. In order to use it you can pass a special MRL -construction like: - xine test.mpg#subtitle:file.sub -The external subtitles support can also be used by any xine frontend. -Currently, just xine-ui implements this feature with a subtitle selection -dialog. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Running xine - -I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do? - -Your hardware might be too slow for xine. Make sure you turn on all speed -optimizing options. A few things you should check (in order of importance): - - * First of all, run the xine-check script included in xine package (probably - already installed in your system). xine-check will report several of the - most common problems listed here. Sample output from xine-check: - xine-check - Please be patient, this script may take a while to run... - [ good ] you're using Linux, doing specific tests - [ good ] looks like you have a /proc filesystem mounted. - [ good ] You seem to have a reasonable kernel version (2.4.18) - [ good ] intel compatible processor, checking MTRR support - [ good ] you have MTRR support and there are some ranges set. - [ good ] found the player at /usr/local/bin/xine - [ good ] /usr/local/bin/xine is in your PATH - [ good ] found /usr/local/bin/xine-config in your PATH - [ good ] plugin directory /usr/local/lib/xine/plugins exists. - [ good ] found input plugins - [ good ] found demux plugins - [ good ] found decoder plugins - [ good ] found video_out plugins - [ good ] found audio_out plugins - [ good ] skin directory /usr/local/share/xine/skins exists. - [ good ] found logo in /usr/local/share/xine/skins - [ good ] I even found some skins. - [ good ] /dev/cdrom points to /dev/hdc - [ good ] /dev/dvd points to /dev/hdc - [ good ] DMA is enabled for your DVD drive - [ good ] found xvinfo: X-Video Extension version 2.2 - [ good ] your Xv extension supports YUV overlays (improves MPEG performance) - [ good ] your Xv extension supports packed YUV overlays - [ good ] Xv ports: YUY2 YV12 I420 UYVY - - * Try to use the Xv driver, it greatly improves performance and quality - because your graphics card does image scaling and colorspace conversion. - The video section contains important information about several Xv drivers. - - If Xv cannot be used for some reason, make sure your display is set up to - 16bpp, not 24 or higher (reduces memory bandwith). Some Xv drivers may also - have better performance with 16bpp. - - * Make sure the hard drive (or cdrom/dvd drive) which supplies the video data - is in DMA mode (if supported). - - On most linux-based systems, you can use hdparm to check this: - hdparm /dev/hda - [...] - using_dma = 1 (on) - [...] - - You can enable DMA mode with the following command: - hdparm -d1 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data - In some cases where this fails it helps to specify the dma mode to use, for - example: - hdparm -d1 -X 66 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data - In RedHat 8.0 an additional entry in /etc/modules.conf - options ide-cd dma=1 - should help (reboot for this change to take effect). - - More information about this may be found here: http://oreilly.linux.com/pub - /a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html . - - * Use a recent kernel which is optimized for your hardware. Old kernels may - lack support for accelerated instructions like SSE, for example. - - * Close other applications (use a tool like "top" to find out what - applications are using up CPU power). Programs that update the system clock - like ntp should also be disabled. - - * Enable MTRR support in your kernel. If you are still using XFree 3.x, - you'll have to tell the kernel yourself where the graphics memory is. - You'll find details about that in the linux dvd howto. - - If you're using XFree 4.x, enabling MTRR support in your kernel should be - enough (use a recent kernel!). - - Try a cat /proc/mtrr - if the file exists and you find an entry - corresponding to the amount of graphics memory you have, everything should - be fine. - - * Have your X-server (usually XFree86) running with higher priority. Most - recent linux distributions (like RedHat 8.0 or Mandrake 9.0) should do that - for you, improving not only xine but desktop responsiveness in general. - - Use the "top" utility and verify under the "NI" column if the X process has - a negative value, this indicates a higher priority. See "The X Window User - HOWTO - Performance considerations" for further instructions http:// - www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html . - - * Use the latest or a known-good gcc version and build an optimized xine-lib - for your architecture. - - * Besides boosting X-server priority, sometimes it's possible to avoid - discarding frames by making xine itself higher priority. This is not a - recommended pratice since it will require to run xine as root, but you may - give it a try if you want: - nice --5 xine - - * xine needs high speed memory access which depends on your chip set. Make - sure you enable all speed-improving options. - - Especially the via apollo pro chipset is known to be quite weird, (most of - all on my gigabyte board). If you can't configure the ram access thoroughly - using the bios you might want to try some really nasty tricks, as explained - on (for example): http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp - - This website centers around a windows-tool to tweak the chipset, you can do - the same on FreeBSD with pciconf. On some linux distributions there are - similar tools. - - * a nice performance tuning tool can be found here: http:// - powertweak.sourceforge.net - - * Set up and use raw devices for DVD access. Please note that the actual - performance gain during playback is very small if any, but since raw - devices are bypassing the kernel's buffer cache, Linux will not try to - cache the DVDs you play. This would not be useful, because xine does its - own caching and you usually play DVDs sequentially, which means you won't - reuse anything from the cache. But the problem would be that Linux throws - everything out of the cache that might be in there. - - Raw devices should be available in linux kernel 2.4.x and there are patches - for older kernels available from: ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/ - people/sct/raw-io/ - - To use raw devices, first connect a free raw device to your dvd device, use - something like: - raw /dev/raw1 /dev/dvd - - Then create a link named "rdvd" pointing to that raw device: - ln -s raw1 /dev/rdvd - - * For slow / high-latency dvd drives it might help to increase the number of - video buffers xine allocates. Try setting video.num_buffers:500 to a higher - value (e.g. 1000 or 2500). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth! - -Video output can be further improved by tuning your linux kernel: - - * Set HZ to 1000 in /usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/param.h - - * Try applying scheduler patches, especially the O(1) and the preemptive - patches have proven useful at the time of this writing (spring 2003). - -Linux 2.5/2.6 will probably have these improvements out of the box. - -Miguel Freitas has written a nice article about his kernel multimedia -experiments . - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... ! - -Check out the the corresponding README files in the directory xine-lib/doc. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What is aalib? How do I use it in xine? - -aalib is an ascii art library. xine comes with an aalib video output plugin so -you can watch movies in your xterm, on the console or on your old vt100 - very -cool ;> ... another nice option is to preview movies on a remote server in your -shell over ssh. - -To use it make sure you have aalib installed correctly before you configure/ -build xine-lib and xine-ui. In addition to the xine binary a binary named -aaxine should get built and installed. You can then use something like: - aaxine foo.mpg -to use aalib video output. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What do all these ~/.xine/config (~/.gxine/config) entries mean? - -You can find information about them in xine-lib/doc/README.config_en. Frontends -may register additional config entries, you may find out more about them in -their documentation. Also the comments in the config file might help. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card? - -While xine's focus is clearly on software decoding, the dxr3 is supported. - -You can find more information about using xine with the dxr3 here (also covers -how to do tv output using the dxr3). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Audio related questions - -What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd? - -Currently xine support audio output via OSS (kernel audio drivers), ALSA 0.9.x -(ALSA 0.5.x is no longer supported), arts (KDE's sound daemon) and esound (esd, -gnome's sound daemon - not recommended because it has serious issues with a/v -sync). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the -voices! - -Congratulations, you seem to have an original movie audio track there. - -Uhm. So you don't like it. Well, there are two things you can do: - - * You can enable xine's audio compressor. Most frontends have a settings - window and in that you'll find a slider for the compressor setting. The - values are percent values, so a slider setting of 200 means that xine will - double the volume of silent parts of the movie (loud parts stay the same). - - If your frontend does not have such a compression slider, you can pass the - value with the MRL: - xine dvd:/#compression:150 - - * If you have a dolby digital (AC3) soundtrack, you can try to enable - liba52's dynamic range compression setting codec.a52_dynrng:1 in your xine - config file (or use some gui config dialog). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio! - -If this happens with any video, first try a different audio driver (gxine -A -oss, gxine -A arts, xine -A alsa ...). - -If this problem only occurs with one specific stream, maybe switching to a -different audio channel (using the gui) helps. Some DVD streams have audio on -strange channels. - -If all this doesn't help, maybe you're missing an audio codec or you found a -bug. If you decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list, make -sure to include all console output xine produced and also clearly state what -type of stream you tried to play back or, even better, make a test stream -available somewhere for developers to download and try. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output? - -Yep, it can do that using OSS or ALSA drivers, provided that the driver -supports it. On startup xine tells you what modes are supported by your audio -driver, e.g: - audio_alsa_out : supported modes are mono stereo (4-channel not enabled in xine config) (5-channel not enabled in xine config) (5.1-channel not enabled in xine config) (a/52 and DTS pass-through not enabled in xine config) - -On this machine 4-channel surround would be possible. However, since xine -cannot detect if there are actually speakers connected to the additional -channels, you'll have to activate that feature manually. - -You can do this either in the config dialog while xine is running (press the -config button on the xine panel and go to the AUDIO tab) or have it the -complicated way by editing the config file yourself which is located in your -home directory in .gxine or .xine: - audio.four_channel:1 - audio.five_channel:1 - audio.five_lfe_channel:0 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder? - -xine can do that too. Pretty much the same story as for 4-/5-channel surround -(see above). You can either use the config dialog or edit the config file (~ -/.xine/config or ~/.gxine/config) yourself: - audio.a52_pass_through:1 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers - -The following explains how to get the above configuration going with xine. Some -parts of it may applicable to other configurations (cards that use the EMU10k1 -chip) as well. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Requirements - - 1. xine-lib >= 1.x.x - - 2. OSS driver - - 3. an external decoder - - 4. a cable to connect the SBLive to the external decoder - -The configuration described was tested using a Soundblaster live 5.1 (rev 7) -with a Yamaha DSP-AX620 external decoder. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Retrieving the driver - -The OSS driver is maintained by creative and can be downloaded at http:// -opensource.creative.com/. The driver package contains documentation on how to -install it. Besides that I'd like to add the following notes. - -In order to compile and install these drivers, you need a valid kernel -configuration file. For RedHat Linux's pre-compiled kernels these configuration -files can be found in /usr/src/linux/configs. After you've located the correct -config file for your kernel, you need to copy it to /usr/src/linux/.config For -example, when you run the 2.4.18-i686 kernel do : - cp /usr/src/linux/configs/kernel-2.4.18-i686.config /usr/src/linux/.config -Make sure that the emu10k1 module that is currently installed is not loaded. To -unload the modules: - /sbin/modprobe -rv emu10k1.o ac97_codec.o -If this mentions that the device is busy, some program is using the driver. -Some example could be a mixer application or sound daemon like artsd. You'll -need to close down the applications before continuing. At success it should -print something like: - # delete emu10k1 - # delete ac97_codec - # delete soundcore -Run make in the directory where you unpacked the driver and follow the -instructions printed at the end of each step. The last step should be: - make install-tools -As the README of the driver package mentions the SPDIF AC3 output doesn't work -by default. In the directory utils/scripts an emu10k1.conf file can be found -which need to be placed in the default installation directory (/usr/local/etc). -After this the emu10k1.conf needs to be modified. The following settings worked -fine for me (I don't use the analog outputs of the card): - CARD_IS_5_1=yes - USE_DIGITAL_OUTPUT=yes - ENABLE_TONE_CONTROL=yes - AC3PASSTHROUGH=yes - ENABLE_LIVEDRIVE_IR=no - INVERT_REAR=no - MULTICHANNEL=yes - ROUTE_ALL_TO_SUB=no - ANALOG_FRONT_BOOST=no - SURROUND=no - PROLOGIC=no - ENABLE_CD_Spdif=yes - ENABLE_OPTICAL_SPDIF=no - ENABLE_LINE2_MIC2=no - ENABLE_RCA_SPDIF=no - ENABLE_RCA_AUX=no -After modifying the emu10k1.conf, you need to modify your /etc/modules.conf and -make sure the following lines are in there. - alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1 - post-install emu10k1 /usr/local/etc/emu-script -After saving the changes to modules.conf, run - /sbin/depmod -a -Now, you're ready to load the new modules and set the correct options for it. -To load the modules run: - /sbin/modprobe emu10k1 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Setting up xine for SPDIF (AC3_passthrough) output - -You can either use the config dialog of your frontend or edit the config file -(~/.xine/config) yourself: - audio.a52_pass_through:1 -In case the setting is not in the file you can add it. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -The cable used for the SBLive can easily be self-made or buy a stereo 3.5mm -jack to dual RCA cable. - -What you need to make the cable yourself: - - * stereo 3.5mm jack plug - - * RCA plug - - * shielded cable (video coax 75 Ohm will do) - -Connect them as follows : - center pin jackplug ------|----- center pin RCA plug - GND __|__ GND - -In order to test it use a DVD with AC3 or DTS track start xine and select the -right audio track from user interface or start xine as: - xine dvd:/1 -a 0 -The external decoder should display something like "Dolby Digital" in case the -selected audio track contains AC3 data or "DTS" in case the selected audio -track contains DTS data. Of course stereo audio also goes through the SPDIF -output, so the analog outputs of the SBLive 5.1 are not needed anymore. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!? - -Some xine drivers do not support volume changing although the GUI will show the -volume bar. Usually this is not xine's fault: aRts C API, for example, doesn't -offer any volume property to applications. Similarly, with ac3 pass through it -is not possible to set the volume. - -Note that recently we added support to "simulate" volume in aRts by changing -sample values on-the-fly before delivering them to the driver. Not as good as -having access to sound card's mixer but at least users will not complain about -lacking of volume bar anymore! :) - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by --2115 pts" on the console output - -Might be a soundcard problem, if it only comes in longer intervals. Your -soundcard does not keep it's sampling frequency accurately enough, which -results in audio and video getting out of sync and xine has to compensate. If -you see the message only from time to time, you might remedy it by using the -resampling sync method. You can do this by setting the configuration entry -audio.av_sync_method to resample. - -If you receive the metronom message more often, maybe switching to different -drivers (alsa to oss or vise-versa) can help here. It has also been reported -that setting the configuration entry audio.force_rate to the native sampling -rate of your soundcard (try 44100 and 48000) helps sometimes. - -Another, whole different possibility is that you have some background process -running which is messing with the clock (like some ntp client - chronny, ntpd, -...). - -Occasional messages of "fixing sound card drift" may happen on start and when -playing a long stream (like a movie). This is normal behaviour, nothing to -worry about. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs - -You are using the OSS audio output plugin, right? In order to keep video and -audio in sync, xine regularly queries the audio driver for the amount of delay -induced by the current length of the driver's audio buffer. Unfortunately some -OSS drivers seem to be broken because the can return strange values here. This -confuses the xine audio subsystem and makes it drop audio. - -You should try the various settings of the configuration entry -audio.oss_sync_method. The options getodelay and getoptr ask the driver and -might therefore show the problem. But chances are that only one is broken and -the other works, so you should try them both first, since they are the most -accurate. The option probebuffer does not ask the driver directly but tries to -determine the buffer length from outside. This should work with any driver and -is the way to go, of the driver dependent methods fail. softsync is the least -accurate and should be used only in emergency situations. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Video related questions - -I can hear the audio - but I don't see a picture! - -Probably your hardware is simply too slow - see above for some hints on how to -speed things up. - -Another possibility is that you using a buggy Xv driver, see the next question. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need? - -xine will normally use Xv by default if it is available. In some cases you -might need to choose Xv playback manually (when the ~/.xine/config file for -some reason says that you want to use XShm): - xine -V Xv foo.mpg - -If this doesn't work for you, it may be possible that Xv is not present on your -system. - -First you need to install/use XFree 4.x. Once you got that you have to make -sure the XFree drivers you're using are supporting Xv on your hardware. Here -are some hints for individual gfx chips: - - * 3Dfx: if all you get is a solid black window, upgrade at least to XFree - 4.1.0 - - * ATI: if you only get "half a picture", try lowering your resolution or bit - depth, disable DRI (looks like you ran out of video RAM) - - * Trident card: If you see vertical bands jumbled, upgrade to the latest - xfree/experimental trident drivers (for the CyberBlade XP a driver exists - here: http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/ ) - - * nVidia: With newer GeForce cards, Xv should work with XFree 4.2.0 or newer, - for older RivaTNT cards use the binary drivers from nvidia (of course the - binary drivers work as well for GeForce cards) - - * Mach64/Rage3D (not Rage128/Radeon) cards/chips get no XVideo with standard - drivers, try GATOS drivers instead - - * intel: i815 has Xv support in XFree 4.x, others unknown - - * Permedia 2/3 has Xv support in XFree 4.x - - * Savage: at least some older drivers tend to lock up the whole machine, try - the drivers available from http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html . - - * SIS: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in XFree 4.x - - * Chips and Tech 6555x, 68554, 69000, 69030 have Xv support in XFree 4.x - - * NeoMagic: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree - 4.x - - * SiliconMotion: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in - Xfree 4.x - - * Matrox: G200 or newer (but not Parhelia) have Xv support in XFree 4.x. For - Parhelia, use the binary only drivers available from matrox' website. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video! - -Looks like some colors on your GUI match the colorkey Xv uses. You can change -the colorkey value to avoid this. There should be a line like: - video.XV_COLORKEY:2110 -in your ~/.xine/config file where you can change the color that's used by xine -for the video overlay. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -The aspect ratio of the video is wrong! - -Try pressing "a" to change the aspect ratio. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames? - -Sometimes xine will output a message like that: - 200 frames delivered, XX frames skipped, YY frames discarded - -The difference between these counters is a little subtle for the non developer. -There are two threads running in order to display video: the decoder thread -will deliver frames to the video output thread. The later is responsible for -scheduling the frames to be displayed at the right time. - -If your system can't keep up with decoding requirements, decoder will deliver -overdue frames. Imagine if it finished decoding the frame tagged for displaying -at 11:30 but xine clock marks 11:31. When this situation is detected, xine will -try to skip decoding a few frames to recover. Not every decoder may support -this feature. - -When the frame is decoded to be shown somewhere in future but the output thread -doesn't get scheduled in time by the operating system to complete the -operation, the frame is discarded. One cause might be the disk access -operation, which may halt the system for a few miliseconds without DMA. See -performance section tips above. - -Note that if a decoder can't skip frames for some reason, you would never see -frames skipped (they would be all discarded). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a gray video output! - -This frequently happens with new Xv drivers or when switching to a different -video card. Background is that different Xv drivers often use different ranges -for the contrast/brightness/saturation settings. - -To fix this, try opening the xine settings window and try adjusting the sliders -for contrast, brightness and saturation. - -Please note that some frontends save these settings in their config file so -when you have found a working combination, make sure you exit xine cleanly so -the values are saved. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Which is the best video driver to use? - -xine support several video drivers for outputing the image. These will differ -on how the frames are copied to the video card memory, whether colorspace -conversion and scaling is done in software or hardware, among other things. -They may also differ on ease of use and stability. - -Most of the time, Xv should give the users a good trade-off between quality, -compatibility and ease of use. This is why xine tries to use Xv by default. - -However some users may want to explore better the available hardware -capabilities (eg. syncing frame drawing with monitor refresh). Also some Xv -drivers contain slow copies and accessing the video card directly may yield -performance gains. - -Drivers that access hardware directly includes VIDIX (warning: requires root -priviledges or kernel helper) and SyncFB (requires kernel helper - Matrox -only). User may try one of those, but should be warned that with root access -they can cause the system to crash hard. The support is also limited to a -couple of graphics cards only. - -Graphic workstations like SGI have usually a good support for OpenGL. In that -case, using OpenGL may be a better choice than XShm. However for most desktop -systems the performance of OpenGL will be quite bad. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do - -Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices! - -You can select the audio driver using the -A option. So try: - xine -A null -If you have ALSA drivers installed, try: - xine -A alsa -If you run ESD (not recommended), try: - xine -A esd -If you run artsd, try: - xine -A arts - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"no video port found" - -You got the Xv extension, but your video card driver doesn't support it. First -try to find a driver that does support Xv on your hardware (check your graphics -card vendor). If your driver has Xv support but you can't get it working, try -at a lower resolution (1024x768 is enough even for anamorphic DVDs). - -If all that fails, you can still use plain X11/XShm: - gxine -V XShm foo.vob - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)" - -You probably don't have /dev/dvd (check that). If so, simply create a link /dev -/dvd that points to your DVD device. Something like... - ln -s hdc /dev/dvd -...should do the job. Also make sure you have read and write access on the -device the symlink points to. See the dvd playback section for more -information. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady -SeekComplete Error }" - -This error can be fixed by recompiling your kernel with the option "Use -multi-mode by default" enabled in the IDE settings. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)" - -Probably xine can't access your input source. Most commonly this happens when -you're trying to play locked/encrypted DVDs. Remember that xine can't play such -DVDs out-of-the box for legal reasons (see above). - -If it is legal where you live, you can try to install libdvdcss. Once you have -done that and re-start xine, it should automatically detect and use it to play -back encrypted DVDs. - -Another reason could be that your (RPC-2) DVD drive isn't set up for the right -region (see above). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead" - -First of all, make sure that your OSS Audio drivers are working (i.e. you can -play music with other software). Maybe you're using alsa? If so, try gxine -A -alsa to see if this helps. - -The most common reason for oss not working is that some other program is -accesing your audio device. If you're using linux, the command fuser /dev/dsp -should give you the PID of the process. - -If you are using GNOME, chances are that this is caused by ESD. Now you have -two possibilities. Either deactivate ESD (temporarily) by right clicking on the -sound monitor applet and selecting "Place Esound in standby" or just kill it. -Then xine will use OSS audio output. The other method is to make xine use ESD -for audio output with: - gxine -A esd -This may result in worse playback - exact syncronization is not possible with -esd, so using oss should be preferred. - -If you are using KDE, there is the possibility that the aRts sound daemon is -currently running and thus blocking your sound device. You can check that by -starting the aRts control (in your KDE menu it should be under Multimedia). If -it is running, you can either use the aRts audio output plugin: - gxine -A arts -Or you suspend the aRts daemon by checking the appropriate option in your aRts -control. (recommended) - -Newer versions of arts have an auto-suspend mode - this can lead to some -nondeterministic behaviour of xine if it is set up to use the audio device -directly. Using arts is recommended in that case, however you will loose the -ability to do four/five channel audio output. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old" - -This is a performance related problem. If you have a fast computer and this -message shows from time to time playing dvd/cdrom, it's very likely that your -drive is not DMA enabled. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'." - -You have tried to play a stream using a unknown or unhandled codec. Possibly -the file uses some obscure proprietary format and no information is available -on how to decode it. - -If you're on an x86 platform (e.g. PC hardware) you might want to try -installing binary-only windows medial, real networks and quicktime codecs (see -above). - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?" - -You probably don't have the win32 dll needed to decode this file. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -xine just crashed on me - i didn't get any error message - -OK, yes, that shouldn't happen and you're upset. We can understand that. But, -to help you and of course to fix this, we need some information. So, let's go -through the checklist and maybe prepare a nice bug report for the xine-user -mailing list: - - * Did xine really crash (segfault) or did it hang (deadlock)? - - * Can you reproduce the bug? (e.g. do you remember what you did and when you - do it again it crashes again?) - - * Is that a specific media file or format which crashes xine? (Have you tried - other files types?) - - * Check the console output (and include it in a bug report), maybe earlier - there is some output that points to the problem. - - * Your X server just froze on you? unfortunately that's a known problem with - some chipsets and drivers (most commonly Savage chipsets) when using Xv. - You might want to try running gxine -V XShm to see if the problem is - related to the Xv driver. This will unfortunately be much slower, as lots - of things are now done in software instead of hardware scaling/colour space - conversion. - - Maybe at the time you read this, there's an XFree upgrade which fixes this - for the Savage driver. If that works for you, please notify the xine crew - at <xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net>, so they can update this FAQ! - - * Even though we try to make each release as bug free as possible, xine is - still under heavy development (nice excuse, isn't it? *grin*). - - If you write to the xine user mailing list <xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net - > make sure you include a the above information (when applicable) and also - some information about your machine (operating system, cpu type and speed, - gfx card, sound card, ...) and please use a meaningfull subject line ("xine - bug" is bad, "xine fails to play this quicktime trailer in fullscreen mode" - ist much better). - - Thanks for taking the time to help improve xine. - |