Recently(Sept. 2000) I tried to collect the best soft for playing video
under Linux.
Here is presented the result of the search.
What software NOT to use :
1) Don't use mtv (mpegtv)
2) Don't use xanim & action
Software to use:
For MPEG 1 playback :
The best thing I find is smpeg player.
It is created by Loki Entertainment Software, and is distributed under
GNU Public License. You can download rpm
or sources here, or go the
original site for the latest version.
Dependences: requires SDL.
SDL-1.1.6-1.i386.rpm;
SDL-1.1.6.tar.gz ; SDL-devel-1.1.6-1.i386.rpm
Official SDL site
After installation run either
/usr/bin/gtv - graphical management, double size, scrollbar.
/usr/bin/plaympeg - fully resizable! but command line only :(
Here is the screenshot. ( playing mpeg1 with XMMS)
At last important note: If you use XFree 4.0 or higher - you won't have hardware acceleration by default. Hardware acceleration dramatically improves performance, especially when you resize output window, or go into fullscreen ! You need to set enviroment variable SDL_VIDEO_X11_NODIRECTCOLOR into 1. In bash:
For AVI & ASF (MPEG4) playback:
Here screenshot of playing MPEG4 film with avifile (compiled with SDL).
Recently avi-xmms plugin was created, which uses avifile to play avi & mpeg4. You can download plugin(src.rpm) here or from the official site. Note however, the plugin uses old buggy version of avifile, besides it doesn't play .asf correctly. You'd better wait until the next plugin release. If you compiled avifile with SDL , press Esc for pseudo-fullscreen.