Web Based Video Out Control?

Ruckus · 2007-03-12 18:06:27

I have an older box with xp on it (500mhz, 384mb ram). I have an ATI Radeon 7000 VE dual head/svideo out graphics card. I would like to be able to have it play movies/music through the S-Video out (no other monitors plugged in) and have it all controlled from a web browser. Music will be easy to get working i think, using MPD and one of its web based front ends. Does any one know of a similar set up i could play movies with? I would prefer to not have to have X installed if i can avoid it.

(Im not looking for a myth tv box, it needs to be controlled via the web).

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-03-12 18:07:18)

skottish · 2007-03-12 18:55:06

I think that VLC has a web interface. You should be able to control it from the command line.

Last edited by skottish (2007-03-12 18:55:24)

junglepeanut · 2007-03-12 19:19:43

Mythtv is controllable over the web I am currently building a cheap computer for this with parts off craigslist so that I can watch tv from the US when I am overseas easier. (This probably doesn't help you as the way it works must not be the way you would like it to (installing x), but I thought I would post anyways.)

Also I think mplayer has a terminal environment player, please don't quote me on this as I have never gotten it to work...did not try hard at all. It did play sound though just garbled video maybe wrong driver was used... This should be controllable form a browser or ssh?

Sorry just throwing out ideas.

Ruckus · 2007-03-12 19:29:35

skottish wrote:

I think that VLC has a web interface. You should be able to control it from the command line.

VLC require GTK tho, (so no running it without X etc). Same for MPlayer im fairly sure. Any other suggestions?

Edit: looked into mplayer some more, it seems that it can play like i need,

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design3/info.html wrote:

Another great feature of MPlayer is the wide range of supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, DirectFB, but you can use GGI, SDL (and this way all their drivers), VESA (on every VESA compatible card, even without X11!

now i need to find a web based front end for it. Any one have any ideas? (i'd rather not make my own, tho maybe if i am forced to code my own, i could add it to be apart of one of the MPD
frontends).

I found this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/webmplayer/ but its audio only :\

Edit2: Checked over VLC again and according to http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html on the video outputs, it says "native" works with linux? is that without X etc? (as it also has a seperate mention of it working with X11).

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-03-12 20:15:22)

skottish · 2007-03-12 20:29:04

This is part of why I though VLC may work:

http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-h … /ch03.html

Actually, it seems to be possible:

http://wiki.videolan.org/index.php/Console

Last edited by skottish (2007-03-12 20:34:53)

Ruckus · 2007-03-12 21:08:43

skottish wrote:

This is part of why I though VLC may work:
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-h … /ch03.html
Actually, it seems to be possible:
http://wiki.videolan.org/index.php/Console

Yeh i saw that and played around with them, i still couldnt get vlc to play video locally from console tho, those are mostly for if your just using VLC for its server streaming features I think.

It does seem to be possible with MPlayer however, making it use the vesa driver. http://hans.fugal.net/typo/articles/200 … -ve-tv-out Ironically, i found that searching for tv out for my specific card (its not fully supported by the ati drivers).

pelle.k · 2007-03-12 21:29:33

Why no X? Without X you will not get accelerated video output; your videos/movies will crawl, and also go out of synch.
You don't need a fullblown WM, just X (theres only two more lines you need in xorg.conf for tv output...)

[edit]my ati rage II 3d tv-out isn't officially supported either, but still here i am, with tv-out working flawlessly through xorg _ati_ driver. Also, there's always atitvout.[/edit]

Last edited by pelle.k (2007-03-12 21:38:19)

skottish · 2007-03-12 21:38:13

Sorry I couldn't have been more help. I would like to know what your final solution is; This sounds interesting. If you would come back and post that would be great.

Oh yeah, you may want to check FFMPEG also.

Ruckus · 2007-03-12 21:38:57

pelle.k wrote:

Why no X? Without X you will not get accelerated video output; your videos/movies will crawl, and also go out of synch.
You don't need a fullblown WM, just X (theres only two more lines you need in xorg.conf for tv output...)

Its an older machine, p3 450mhz, while it can run x fine (i used to use the pc as my main desktop, and ran ubuntu fine on it) but now that its my server, its also a home file server for 3 other computers, web development server, and pretty much anything else that would take longer than a few hours to do (downloading large files etc). And i remember that when it was my main desktop, if i wanted to watch a movie on it, i couldnt do anything else at all without the movie lagging, so not having X would have saved on resources a bit.

Was looking at myth tv tho, and it does look nice, i may try using it and see if i have any performance problem. I need to get a remote control for it tho

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-03-12 21:39:46)

pelle.k · 2007-03-13 16:46:08

Listen, what i'm trying to tell you is that watching a movie _without_ Xorg is going to halt your old CPU _completely_, just because of the lack of GPU acceleration. So, xorg is actually the _faster_ alternative here. If you run with "xv" out driver in mplayer there will be close to no stress on the cpu.
I myself run a p3 @ 400 mhz running freevo, connected with samba to my download server. I also control it with a cheapo usb ir remote. TV-out only.
I run it under openbox, but freevo can acctually "be it's own" window manager.

Ruckus · 2007-05-25 03:37:22

I actually put this project on the back burner waiting until i got an IR remote, but the other day i decided to throw arch on there to replace my development server, and I actually got MPlayer to play movies without X (It did need to pull a few X dependencies tho), using the cvidix driver, for my set up i had to do something along these lines:

mplayer -vo cvidix -screenw 800 -screenh 600 -aspect 4:3 /path/to/video

One problem tho is that after a couple hours of trying, i still cant get the video centered, as of now its centered horizontially but not vertically. It is about 2 inches lower than it should be, and a little bit of the video overlaps to the top of the screen.

I'm still looking for a decent web interface for MPlayer that handles both movies and music (really just movies is the only requirement as i'd probably rather use MPD for music anyway).

Also, its taking about the same CPU required if X etc was installed as well, 30-35%, but thats because that the cvidix provides limited hardware acceleration by it's self.

Ruckus · 2007-05-28 00:24:45

Well, after spending a couple of days attempting to get mplayer/cvidix to play the movie the correct size on the console, i broke down and installed X/openbox and had it autologin/start VLC with the http interface enabled.
this is perfect, except that when movies are playing VLC uses 40% CPU (reasonable), and X uses 50% cpu, unreasonable, this is causing 100% cpu load and some movies lag.
I suspect this is being caused by the X server running with the vesa driver, but this is the only way i can have TV out working on my ati radeon 7000/VE. (Atitvout doesn't work with the open source drivers, and proprietary drivers arn't supported by the card anyway.

Any suggestions on how to reduce the CPU usage of X?

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-05-28 00:25:48)

pelle.k · 2007-05-28 00:57:23

I suspect this is being caused by the X server running with the vesa driver

It is...

but this is the only way i can have TV out working on my ati radeon 7000/VE

Check out my "device" and "screen" section;

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "atirage3dpro"
    Driver      "ati"
    #VideoRam    2048
    Option "TVOut"             "true"
    Option "TVStandard"     "PAL"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "atirage3dpro"
    Monitor     "tv"
    DefaultDepth 16

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "800x600"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Now, it's important it's configured _exactly_ like this. This is the only configuration that works for me. (probably for you too as i imagine the same tv-out is used)

You've got to tweak your serverlayout section to include "screen 1" instead of what you have now.

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Simple Layout"
    Screen "Screen 1"

    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

remember to install xf86-video-ati first! Good luck.

Ruckus · 2007-05-28 03:44:02

pelle.k wrote:

I suspect this is being caused by the X server running with the vesa driver
It is...
but this is the only way i can have TV out working on my ati radeon 7000/VE
Check out my "device" and "screen" section;
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "atirage3dpro"
    Driver      "ati"
    #VideoRam    2048
    Option "TVOut"             "true"
    Option "TVStandard"     "PAL"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "atirage3dpro"
    Monitor     "tv"
    DefaultDepth 16

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "800x600"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection
Now, it's important it's configured _exactly_ like this. This is the only configuration that works for me. (probably for you too as i imagine the same tv-out is used)
You've got to tweak your serverlayout section to include "screen 1" instead of what you have now.
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Simple Layout"
    Screen "Screen 1"

    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
remember to install xf86-video-ati first! Good luck.

I tried your conf, and it did not work for me, its as if its still just not being output to the TV. What card do you have? This is the conf that I tried: http://home.mylost.info/misc/xorg.conf

I have an ATI Radeon 7000/VE 64MB DUAL head + svideo out (all thats hooked up is the svideo cable).

pelle.k · 2007-05-28 05:42:27

Maybe you should try "radeon" instead of "ati" then...
My card? It's a rather antique "ati rage 3d pro II" pci hehe.

Ruckus · 2007-05-28 06:31:57

pelle.k wrote:

Maybe you should try "radeon" instead of "ati" then...
My card? It's a rather antique "ati rage 3d pro II" pci hehe.

Using radeon had no effect, any other ideas?

Edit:
With mplayer you can make it use a differant driver right? But it doesnt have a nifty web interface, ill look into using mplayer specifying a differant driver tomorrow.

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-05-28 06:33:11)

Ruckus · 2007-05-30 04:18:42

http://megahurts.dk/rune/tv_output.html

I was trying to compile and install that, but i seem to keep getting this error compiling and i'm not sure why (Other people have gotten it to compile it seems).

r128_accel.c: In function 'R128CCEWaitForIdle':
r128_accel.c:247: error: 'errno' undeclared (first use in this function)
r128_accel.c:247: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
r128_accel.c:247: error: for each function it appears in.)
r128_accel.c:247: error: 'EBUSY' undeclared (first use in this function)
r128_accel.c: In function 'R128CCEStop':
r128_accel.c:286: error: 'errno' undeclared (first use in this function)
r128_accel.c:286: error: 'EBUSY' undeclared (first use in this function)
r128_accel.c: In function 'R128CCEGetBuffer':
r128_accel.c:1573: error: 'EAGAIN' undeclared (first use in this function)
make[2]: *** [r128_accel.lo] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/atidriver/xf86-video-ati-6.5.8.0/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/atidriver/xf86-video-ati-6.5.8.0'
make: *** [all] Error 2
[root@hserver xf86-video-ati-6.5.8.0]#

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-05-30 06:52:15)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-12 18:06:27

Web Based Video Out Control?

#2 2007-03-12 18:55:06

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#3 2007-03-12 19:19:43

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#4 2007-03-12 19:29:35

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#5 2007-03-12 20:29:04

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#6 2007-03-12 21:08:43

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#7 2007-03-12 21:29:33

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#8 2007-03-12 21:38:13

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#9 2007-03-12 21:38:57

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#10 2007-03-13 16:46:08

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#11 2007-05-25 03:37:22

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#12 2007-05-28 00:24:45

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#13 2007-05-28 00:57:23

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#14 2007-05-28 03:44:02

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#15 2007-05-28 05:42:27

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#16 2007-05-28 06:31:57

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

#17 2007-05-30 04:18:42

Re: Web Based Video Out Control?

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