Problems watchin videos on different players

bcman · 2013-09-17 19:28:58

Hi guys,

I have a slow system (1 gb ram, a 1.7 ghz celeron and a on-board video chipset) and that's why I installed Arch. I installed the intel video driver and more video players (vlc, mplayer, smplayer, totem) and the needed codecs. I want to watch some pour quality movies. I had more linux distros including xubuntu (12.04) and ubuntu (9.10). On these distro's the videos played good, even in full screen. On xubuntu it played with smplayer and in ubuntu with vlc. But on Arch I can't make them work. On smplayer it playes very slow and the video and audio are not synced. In full screen it is worse. And vlc doesn't play them at all and the process hangs. What should I do to make them play just fine? If any info's are required tell me and I'll answer. Thanks

karol · 2013-09-17 19:36:01

What's the output of

lspci | grep VGA

Have you tried using mplayer, mplayer2 or mpv i.e. media players w/o a GUI?
What exactly do you mean by poor quality? 720p mp4 files?
Use e.g. htop to see what's keeping your CPU occupied. Watching movies and e.g. compiling stuff at the same time may lead to audio desynchronization.

What exactly happens with vlc? Start it from the console and see if there's anything interesting in the output.
Check console output of other media players, see if the system logs have anything interesting.

skanky · 2013-09-17 19:42:22

I sometimes get/got issues with mplayer synching audio and visual. ffplay, which comes as part of the ffmpeg package would play the same files without issue.
That one might be worth a try, too.

Pse · 2013-09-17 21:30:06

If your Intel GPU supports VAAPI you may want to take advantage of that by using mplayer-vaapi instead of mplayer.

Edit: do check the GPU drivers are installed and working correctly before.

Last edited by Pse (2013-09-17 21:30:49)

bcman · 2013-09-18 12:29:11

@karol
The output of lspci | grep VGA is:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Graphics Ltd. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266]

I have tried with mplayer and it works good, but the same problem appears at full screen.
The videos I'm trying to play are 624 x 352 .avi and .mkv
The CPU is almost at 0% when I play the videos
@skanky
I'll try ffplay and edit the post.
@Pse
I have installed the video drivers but I don't know how to check they are working corectly.
Thanks, I'll try mplayer-vaapi but still I don't know if the gpu supports VAAPI.

Thank you all.

LE:
Installed mplayer-vaapi and it plays slow, just like the others. ffplay works pretty good even in full screen. It still works a little slow, but if I don't have something else to do and it is impossible to make them run like on (x)ubuntu, I'll use this.

Last edited by bcman (2013-09-18 12:46:11)

ConnorBehan · 2013-09-19 08:16:51

Xvideo was probably decent on ubuntu because it had an older X server. Now XAA is gone and xf86-video-s3 does not have any other way to get 2D acceleration. Try xorg-server-1.12. If the playback there is good enough to justify rearranging your life, add xorg-server to IgnorePkg or go on an EXA porting adventure!

Pse · 2013-09-20 18:18:54

According to your last post, you don't have an Intel GPU, but rather an S3 one, so the Intel drivers are useless. You may need to install xf86-video-s3 and savage-dri as posted above. You may also need to revert to an older Xorg release.

bcman · 2013-09-25 16:02:21

Thanks Pse. I have installed the drivers and reverted to an older Xorg as you and ConnorBehan said and it works fine. Thank you all

ConnorBehan · 2013-09-26 01:08:11

I just realized that xf86-video-savage is probably a more appropriate driver for your card. This does have EXA support so using a new Xorg might be possible.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-09-17 19:28:58

Problems watchin videos on different players

#2 2013-09-17 19:36:01

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#3 2013-09-17 19:42:22

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#4 2013-09-17 21:30:06

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#5 2013-09-18 12:29:11

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#6 2013-09-19 08:16:51

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#7 2013-09-20 18:18:54

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#8 2013-09-25 16:02:21

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

#9 2013-09-26 01:08:11

Re: Problems watchin videos on different players

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