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diff --git a/doc/faq/faq.html b/doc/faq/faq.html index 82da42d43..c701cd67e 100644 --- a/doc/faq/faq.html +++ b/doc/faq/faq.html @@ -271,6 +271,11 @@ 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 @@ -2015,6 +2020,28 @@ CLASS="FILENAME" help. </P ></DIV +><DIV +CLASS="SECT1" +><HR><H2 +CLASS="SECT1" +><A +NAME="DXR3" +></A +>Does xine support my dxr3 / Hollywood+ card?</H2 +><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="CHAPTER" diff --git a/doc/faq/faq.txt b/doc/faq/faq.txt index 410f440d7..e69de29bb 100644 --- a/doc/faq/faq.txt +++ b/doc/faq/faq.txt @@ -1,1209 +0,0 @@ -The xine engine FAQ - -Copyright © 2001-2003 the xine project team - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Table of Contents -1. 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? - 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? - -2. Building and installing xine from source - - What do I need to compile everything properly? - How do I compile xine? - - Simple build instructions for beginners - Complete build instructions - - Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui) - Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation? - Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon (TM) ) available? Can I build - them? - Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib) - - The package doesn't compile at all! - The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile! - - Build problems: frontend (gxine/xine-ui/...) - - I have installed xine-lib but the frontend complains about not finding - it! - - Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root) ? - -3. Playback of various stream types - - DVD Playback with xine - - How do I play back DVDs with xine? - DVD playback works, but it takes a long time until playback starts - I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region! - - 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 Real (.rm, .ram) files using xine ? - What about (live) network streams (pnm://, rtsp:// style urls) ? - - Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv) 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? - -4. Running xine - - I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do? - 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? - -5. 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 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? - 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 - -6. 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? - -7. 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)" - "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 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 1. 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. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -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 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 xine HOWTO and 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. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -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 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 -sinek and totem develop additional frontends. In the future you will likely see -more and different types of apllications 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: xine-plugin a mozilla browser plugin for streaming media -playback using xine (at the time of this writing unmaintained and somewhat -obsoleted by gxine's browser plugin), 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. - -To check out xine-modules from CVS, first do this: - -cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine login [empty -password] - -then, to check out individual modules (e.g. xine-lib, gxine, 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 : http://xine.sf.net/index.php/about - -See the next chapter of this FAQ for instructions on how to build xine from -source. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 2. 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 -iss 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. - -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 for all users. You -need root privileges to do this on most systems. - -First unpack xine-lib, then: - - ./configure - make install - - -Make sure your /etc/ld.so.conf contains /usr/local/lib, then: - - 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 you 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 usally / -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 run configure again. - -This can be useful to specify additional include paths or library paths to the -compiler. - -Example: export CFLAGS="-I/usr/include -L/home/guenter/xine_libs" - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon (TM) ) 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 setting the xine_BUILD envvar explicitly to a -valid description string for your configuration, e.g. - - export xine_BUILD=k7-pc-linux-gnu - rm -f config.cache - ./autogen.sh - make - make install - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -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 helpfull 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: frontend (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) ? - -yes. first set up a subdir where you install your private software, eg - - $ mkdir ~/usr - - -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="$HOME/usr/bin:$PATH" - export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/usr/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" - export CFLAGS="-I$HOME/usr/include -L$HOME/usr/lib -O3" - export ACLOCAL_FLAGS="-I $HOME/usr/share/aclocal" - - -now you can unpack tarballs e.g. in ~/usr/src (mkdir ~/usr/src if necessary) -and do a - - $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/usr - $ make install - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 3. 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 you 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) 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). - -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 (most drives come with a factory -setting of region 0 so they can only play back region 0 dvds and there are not -many of those available). The easiest way to handle this is to use the -regionset utility from http://www.linuxtv.org/download/dvd/ -dvd_disc_20000215.tar.gz. - -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 libxine 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:// -linuxtv.org/download/dvd/dvd_disc_20000215_css.tar.gz - -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:// -linuxtv.org/download/dvd/dvd_disc_20000215_css.tar.gz - -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:// - -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, only very few typically used quicktime audio/video codecs are -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 "QuickTime5 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). Most 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) files using xine? - -While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias) is fully -supported in xine, for newer windows media 8 and 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? - -This is not supported in current xine 1.0.x releases (but it is being actively -worked on, so please be patient :) ). In xine 0.9.13 this used to be: - xine foo.avi%bar.sub - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 4. 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-lib 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 hardware does image scaling and color 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. Example: - 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. - - * 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 this is usually - not worth the effort as the performance gain from it is very small if any. - - 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/hdc - - - then create a link named "rdvd" pointing to that raw device: - raw /dev/raw1 /dev/hdc - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -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. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 5. 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 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 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! - -Well, 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/.xine: - # 4-channel: - audio.four_channel:1 - - # 5-channel: - audio.five_channel:1 - - # 5.1-channel - 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/~/.gxine/config) yourself: - audio.a52_pass_through:1 - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -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. -Maybe switching to different drivers (alsa to oss or vise-versa) can help here. - -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. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 6. 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 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) 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. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -Chapter 7. 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 mpeg-2). - -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... - cd /dev - ln -s hdc dvd - -...should do the job. Also make sure you have read access on the device the -symlink points to. See the dvd playback section for more information. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -"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.sf.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. - |