[LUGSB] Playing DivX issues

[Michael Graffam]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Paul C Bors wrote:

> Any of you guys know of any good DivX player for Linux or what
> parameters to pass to mplayer to keep the sound and the video in sync?
>
> Every time I play any DivX on my laptop it goes out of sync within like
> 10 to 30 mins, depending on the file.

There is no fast-and-simple way to pass some magical parameters to Mplayer
here.

A/V sync loss could be due to a number of issues:

1) The machine could be too slow to use the codec, and/or your X display
   drivers are shot.
2) Buggy sound and (occassionally) xv drivers can do this.
3) The file itself could be the problem. Just because it plays fine in
   other players / Windows doesn't mean it is encoded in a "normal" way.

Accordingly, there are many ways to attempt to solve the problem.

You could try a different DivX codec. Mplayer can give you a few to choose
from.

Make sure you are using the Xv extensional w/ mplayer.

As far as buggy sound goes .. use mplayer to do a raw decode of the file.
That is, use: mplayer -nosound -vo null file.divx Let mplayer run, and use
top or some other tool to find out what % of your CPU mplayer is using for
the DivX decode. Then do mplayer -vo null file.divx and see how much is
being used to play the audio on top of of decoding it, etc. This will
be a significant percentage (10, or more) if your sound drivers are
holding you back.

If all else fails, just do: mplayer -framedrop