Divx on Linux?

[prot0vision]

Hi All,

I've been wondering about replacing Windows 2000 on my 'video server' box with something more lightweight to play avi's and mpegs. Something that doesn't take 2 minutes to boot. (The DOS Quickview prog is pretty cool)

I know its possible to play divx on linux, but do you need to a have a gui running, or can you start a player from the command line, and have it show the file?

I've never installed linux, but I'm considering it if I can do the above. I would just like to know if what I want is possible, before I go through the trouble of re-partitioning my HD for Linux.

Thanks
prot0vision

[cofferscuffs]

Yes you can run it from a GUI like KDE or Gnome. But I personally don't know about the quality of the decoder core of DivX on linux. BTW, what package were you thinking of intstalling? Mandrake 8.1? RedHat 7.2??

[prot0vision]

Actually, I was hoping to run divx on linux WITHOUT a gui. I'm not sure if programs like mplayer need a gui, or does it open its own screen when playing a file, not relying on the gui for display.

I'm hoping to eventually make some sort of easy, text-based menu system to pick a file to play, then have Mplayer (or something) start playback. That's why I don't need the gui, just be able to start and stop playback of files. I think Mplayer needs a gui (x-windows, etc) in order to work, so that player might not be good for me.

I picked up a cheap Mankdrake 6.1 box a few months ago, but haven't used it. Would it be too out-of-date to do some testing with? I guess I'll have to check the requirements of the linux progs I want to run.

Thanks,
prot0vision

[Psyche]

Post your "videoserver" specs and I may be able to help you. As you say well Mplayer doesn't need XWindows to run, in fact it's a console program, it uses some driver to draw the image. I've successfully played DivX 3.11a and DivX 4.x with MP3 audio with no problem, lower CPU usage than Win2K and WinXP, the only problem is that its user interface is a bit "spartane", apart from that it works like a charm.

[prot0vision]

Thanks for the info.

I'm hoping to take my p3/733/W2K/ATI AIW128 from Windows 2000, to something that will boot quickly and play Avi's, divx + WMA audio, etc.

(I shouldn't use the term 'video server', what I mean is a spare PC hooked to my tv :) ).

Eventually I would like to be able to do PVR-style capturing of tv shows in linux, the way I can now with ATI's software.

prot0vision

[Psyche]

No probñem I guess. P3 733 is powerful enough to play anything you throw at it nowadays. Latest release of MPlayer (0.60) will even allow you to play DVD with multiple audio and subtitles, I would advise you to try the Rage128 overlay driver (vid_rage128) as you will be able to play an overlay in the FB console (that's what I do with my G400 and it looks great). Only mention that it's experimental stuff though.
It will even allow to use DivX style postprocessing in MPEG1 and 2, even DVD! This can make a difference in quality for bad encodes.

For a hint, my specs:

Athlon 600
Matrox G400, 16 MB
SuSE Linux Professional 7.2

Framebuffer console and such things...

Some problems I see are, TV OUT, and Capturing. I don't know if there are drivers for TV OUT or v4l which will allow you to use such features. TRY! :D