junglemike
12th June 2004, 11:36
Hi dear forum members.
I know that my problem is almost impossible to solve. But still i'll ask with hope that there is someone experienced in these essues.
Ok, my problem is playing back mpeg-4 video (mostly Xvid) on a very old computer. It's laptop (cpu - P-II 266mhz, 128mb ram, win2000 2.5mb video ram) As you can see - this is pretty old setup for playing video, But still, i'm trying to do it.
Before i discovered mplayer, I was using bsplayer and ffdshow as filter. In such way i was able to playback normally (without frames dropped and a/v desync) only files with small resolutin , like 5xx*2xx
When i tried to open a larger (res) file - i received an error that "overlay fail",,,,"hardware is not capable of color space conversions, switching to RGB" and file continued to play in RGB. And then i have about 70% frame drops, sync lost in seconds, and movie is unwatchable. I'm not a large expert in color space issues (rgb,yuv,etc) but from i've read here on the forum - rgb takes much more cpu poer then overlay planner face. So in addition that i have very slow cpu that barely manages to playback small res movies in overlay - i have to slightest chance to playing large movies in RGb.
From what i figured out, since i have insufficient amount of video memory (2.5mb) it is unable to open overlay in large windows. So some time ago i found a "solution". Here it is: in ffdshow there is an opton called resize. It resizes the stream in real-time and then sends the image to videocard, of course i can then resize the vdieo window with mouse to any disired size, as well as i can set full screen (800x600), and overlay IS working, but this is the exact result if i would opend olredy resized movie (say, 320x200). Thre are 2 drawbacks: 1) the resized movie is not looking that good as original, 2) real-time resize filter takes cpu time as well(i guess).
So as a result, i was able to play most of the movies , resizing the to aobut 320x200 (depend on aspect ration) Cpu load was aobut 100%.
Then on xvid forum hrere i posted the question aobut fastest player/filte/decoder. And someone told me about mplayer that was originally designed to work in Linux. That guy said that tis player takes 1-3% cpu less than ffdshow. To my complete surprise and amazement this plaeyer takes 1/3 of cpu recources in all my computers compared to ffdshow+bsplayer. (on Celeron 1700mhz (desktop) mplayer takes only 6-8%, while ffdshow took 22% (!!!) On P3-750 it takes ~20% cpu at max. I even tested this mplayer on my oldes Petium 1- 166mhz (mmx) with 32mb ram, win95, Even on such aged computer most movies ran fine!!! Unbeliavable.)
So when i tried this player on my p2-266mhz laptop - i really did see an extreme improvement, most of the movies took below 50% cpu, Even my largest resolution movie 720x576 could be played fine (85% cpu).
Ok, but here's the problem. If i try to open a movie with res larger than ~5xx*2xx - i see a color destorsion - as colors are shifted right. So bottom line - any movie that before cased ffdshow to switch to rgb (overlay fail) now play fine, but have these color problem. No problem though with small files.
So if anyone uses mplayer or knows something about overlay, please share with me your opinions and thoutght of what i can do more to resolve this color problem. Maybe i shuld change the overlay settings? how? Is it possible to use regular memory instead of video memory?
P.s. I must say that this color problem if of course problem (limitation maybe) of my hardware and is NOT a problem with mplayer, since on bot celeron 1700 and P3-750 mplayer works perfect and opens all files.
I know that my problem is almost impossible to solve. But still i'll ask with hope that there is someone experienced in these essues.
Ok, my problem is playing back mpeg-4 video (mostly Xvid) on a very old computer. It's laptop (cpu - P-II 266mhz, 128mb ram, win2000 2.5mb video ram) As you can see - this is pretty old setup for playing video, But still, i'm trying to do it.
Before i discovered mplayer, I was using bsplayer and ffdshow as filter. In such way i was able to playback normally (without frames dropped and a/v desync) only files with small resolutin , like 5xx*2xx
When i tried to open a larger (res) file - i received an error that "overlay fail",,,,"hardware is not capable of color space conversions, switching to RGB" and file continued to play in RGB. And then i have about 70% frame drops, sync lost in seconds, and movie is unwatchable. I'm not a large expert in color space issues (rgb,yuv,etc) but from i've read here on the forum - rgb takes much more cpu poer then overlay planner face. So in addition that i have very slow cpu that barely manages to playback small res movies in overlay - i have to slightest chance to playing large movies in RGb.
From what i figured out, since i have insufficient amount of video memory (2.5mb) it is unable to open overlay in large windows. So some time ago i found a "solution". Here it is: in ffdshow there is an opton called resize. It resizes the stream in real-time and then sends the image to videocard, of course i can then resize the vdieo window with mouse to any disired size, as well as i can set full screen (800x600), and overlay IS working, but this is the exact result if i would opend olredy resized movie (say, 320x200). Thre are 2 drawbacks: 1) the resized movie is not looking that good as original, 2) real-time resize filter takes cpu time as well(i guess).
So as a result, i was able to play most of the movies , resizing the to aobut 320x200 (depend on aspect ration) Cpu load was aobut 100%.
Then on xvid forum hrere i posted the question aobut fastest player/filte/decoder. And someone told me about mplayer that was originally designed to work in Linux. That guy said that tis player takes 1-3% cpu less than ffdshow. To my complete surprise and amazement this plaeyer takes 1/3 of cpu recources in all my computers compared to ffdshow+bsplayer. (on Celeron 1700mhz (desktop) mplayer takes only 6-8%, while ffdshow took 22% (!!!) On P3-750 it takes ~20% cpu at max. I even tested this mplayer on my oldes Petium 1- 166mhz (mmx) with 32mb ram, win95, Even on such aged computer most movies ran fine!!! Unbeliavable.)
So when i tried this player on my p2-266mhz laptop - i really did see an extreme improvement, most of the movies took below 50% cpu, Even my largest resolution movie 720x576 could be played fine (85% cpu).
Ok, but here's the problem. If i try to open a movie with res larger than ~5xx*2xx - i see a color destorsion - as colors are shifted right. So bottom line - any movie that before cased ffdshow to switch to rgb (overlay fail) now play fine, but have these color problem. No problem though with small files.
So if anyone uses mplayer or knows something about overlay, please share with me your opinions and thoutght of what i can do more to resolve this color problem. Maybe i shuld change the overlay settings? how? Is it possible to use regular memory instead of video memory?
P.s. I must say that this color problem if of course problem (limitation maybe) of my hardware and is NOT a problem with mplayer, since on bot celeron 1700 and P3-750 mplayer works perfect and opens all files.