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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>The xine engine FAQ list</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.76.1" /></head><body><div class="book" title="The xine engine FAQ list"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h1 class="title"><a id="idp44992048"></a>The xine engine FAQ list</h1></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2001-2010 the xine project team</p></div></div><hr /></div><div class="article"><div class="titlepage"><hr /></div><div class="toc"><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#general">General questions about xine and this document</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#about">What is the xine engine?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#scope">What's the aim and scope of this text?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#wheretogethelp">My question is not yet covered here – where can I ask for help?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#pronounce">How do I pronounce "xine"?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#modules">What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, … Mercurial repositories for?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#hg">Where and how do I get the latest development version?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#cvs">Don't you use CVS?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#patch">How do I submit patches?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#binaries">Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#building">Building and installing xine from source</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#buildrequirements">What do I need to compile everything properly?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#idp50710928">How do I compile xine?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#rpmbuild">Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#debbuild">Making your own .deb packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#cflags">Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#athlonflags">Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon™) available? Can I build them?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#idp56038800">Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#idp56049888">Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/…)</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#nonrootbuild">Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#win32build">How to compile xine for Windows?</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#playback">Playback of various stream types</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#idp56070784">DVD Playback with xine</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#vcdsupport">Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#quicktime">Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#idp56165600">Real Network files/streams</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#wmv">Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#dvb">Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#stdin">How do I play streams from STDIN?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#avisubtitles">How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#running">Running xine</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#speedup">I have a lot of dropped frames – what can I do?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#smoothness">Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#ports">I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, … !</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#aaxine">What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#dxr3">Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card?</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#audio">Audio related questions</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#audiodrivers">What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#compressor">When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the voices!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#noaudio">When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#surroundsound">Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#spdif">What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#sblivespdif">Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#volumecontrol">Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#stuttering">Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by -2115 pts" on the console output</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#soundloss">xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#video">Video related questions</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#novideo">I can hear the audio – but I don't see a picture!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#bluescreen">I only see a blue (or green or black) video image most of the time.</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#buggyxv">The image looks strange, it is shifted, cropped or shows weird lines!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#xvextension">How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#colorkey">Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#texturedvideo">How do I get Xv working with compiz?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#aspectratio">The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#discardedskipped">What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#contrastbrightnesssaturation">My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a grey video output!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#videodriver">Which is the best video driver to use?</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#overlay">OSD and overlay related questions</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#unscaledosd">What is this "unscaled" OSD about?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#noosd">I can't see the OSD or it leaves a black box over the image!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#overlaycolorleak">Why colours of overlays/subtitles seem to be "leaking"?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#uglysubtitles">Why external subtitles look so ugly?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#subtitlesoutsidevideo">Why subtitles can't be displayed outside the video?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#supportedfonts">What kinds of subtitle fonts does xine use?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#generatefonts">How to create own xine subtitle fonts?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#subencoding">Encoding of external subtitles is bad. What is wrong?</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#errors">Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#xfreecrash">Starting xine crashes X, I am logged out of my desktop!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#audiodrivererr">Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#novideoportfound">"no video port found"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#unabletoopendvddrive">"Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#status0x51">My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#demuxerror0000">"demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#ossfailed">"audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#throwingawayimage">"video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#novideopluginavailable">"No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'."</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#decoderfailedtostart">"w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?"</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#xinecrashed">xine just crashed on me – i didn't get any error message</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><div class="sect1" title="General questions about xine and this document"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="general"></a>General questions about xine and this document</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="What is the xine engine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="about"></a>What is the xine engine?</h3></div></div></div><p>
The xine engine is a free media player engine. It comes in the form of
a shared libarary and is typically used by media player frontends
and other multimedia applications for playback of multimedia streams
such as movies, radio/tv network streams, DVDs, VCDs.
</p><p>
Since there are several frontends for the xine library available,
this document has a problem when it comes to examples.
The two most common frontends xine-ui and gxine are mixed in command
line examples throughout this FAQ. When you use a different
frontend, some of these will not work for you. The filename of
the config file also varies amongst frontends. If you get confused,
I recommend you try with one of xine-ui or gxine.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="What's the aim and scope of this text?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="scope"></a>What's the aim and scope of this text?</h3></div></div></div><p>
The primary goal of this FAQ is to cover all recurring questions related
to the xine engine. Frontend specific questions are usually not covered here.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="My question is not yet covered here – where can I ask for help?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="wheretogethelp"></a>My question is not yet covered here – where can I ask for help?</h3></div></div></div><p>
First of all be sure that your question is really not covered here and
that you haven't just been a bit too lazy to read through all of this
text. ;-). Also check out the documentation specific to
the frontend (e.g. <span class="command"><strong>xine-ui</strong></span> or <span class="command"><strong>gxine</strong></span> or
<span class="command"><strong>totem</strong></span>).
</p><p>
That said – you are welcome to mail to our user mailing list:
<code class="email"><<a class="email" href="mailto:xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net">xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</a>></code>
Please provide some info about your setup so people have a chance to
help you, e.g. include information about your audio/video hardware
and drivers you use, operating system, cpu type and some console
output/any error messages. Also include command line parameters you
have specified and information about the type of stream you're
trying to play back. Also very important is the version of xine
you're using and information about any additional plugins you
may have installed on your system.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How do I pronounce "xine"?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="pronounce"></a>How do I pronounce "xine"?</h3></div></div></div><p>
As long as people know what you are talking about, you are free to
pronounce it the way you like, but the official pronounciation is
[ksi:n], like the name "Maxine" with the "Ma" removed.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, … Mercurial repositories for?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="modules"></a>What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine, … Mercurial repositories for?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Some time ago xine just became too complex to be just one big program.
Therefore it was split into two major parts.
</p><p>
xine-lib is simply speaking the engine of xine. It contains all basic plugins
and is necessary to run anything that relies on xine. (This is the part that
is covered in this FAQ.)
</p><p>
Then there are frontends – applications that use xine. The most
common frontend is that of a media player. There are currently
three frontends being developed in the xine project: xine-ui, a skinned
dvd-player style frontend directly based on xlib; gxine, a desktop
media-player style frontend using the standard GTK widget set; and
xine-plugin, a plugin for browsers such as Firefox.
External projects like kaffeine, sinek and totem develop additional frontends.
In the future you will likely see more and different types of applications
being developed which will use the xine engine for video processing
and other multimedia purposes.
</p><p>
If you simply want a media/dvd player, you'll need to install xine-lib
first and then choose and install a player frontend like xine-ui or gxine.
</p><p>
Other repositories include <code class="filename">xine-project-www</code>,
which contains the xine project website sources, and various packaging
and development branches.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Where and how do I get the latest development version?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="hg"></a>Where and how do I get the latest development version?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Be advised that end-users should stick to the official xine releases.
The Mercurial repositories are only intended for developers and for others who know why they use it.
</p><p>
The repositories are listed at <a class="ulink" href="http://hg.debian.org/hg/" target="_top">http://hg.debian.org/hg/</a>;
however, this is a list of all repositories which are kept there, not just the
xine project's (which are the ones which begin with <code class="filename">xine-lib/</code>). To check one out:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>hg clone http://hg.debian.org/hg/<code class="filename">repository</code> <code class="filename">local_copy</code></strong></span></pre><p>
e.g.
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>hg clone http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib xine-lib</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
You can see a full list of repositories by visiting
<a class="ulink" href="http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/" target="_top">http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/</a>.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Don't you use CVS?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="cvs"></a>Don't you use CVS?</h3></div></div></div><p>
We used to, but there are some significant problems with CVS. Merging
is easier with Mercurial (and, for that matter, git); and we can commit
changes locally, change them if mistakes have been made, then make them
public whenever we're ready.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How do I submit patches?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="patch"></a>How do I submit patches?</h3></div></div></div><p>
See the xine Hackers' Guide, chapter 3, "How to contribute".
(This is available online at <a class="ulink" href="http://www.xine-project.org/hackersguide#contribute" target="_top">http://www.xine-project.org/hackersguide#contribute</a>.)
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="binaries"></a>Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?</h3></div></div></div><p>
The xine project does not provide pre-compiled binaries for legal
reasons (some parts of xine may be covered by patents in some countries).
Some OS projects/vendors (e.g. Debian, FreeBSD, …) offer binaries
for their distributions – please contact them or use their package search
tools for further info.
You can also find links to third parties providing xine RPMs on
the xine homepage at
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.xine-project.org/releases" target="_top">http://www.xine-project.org/releases</a>.
</p><p>
See the next section of this FAQ for instructions on how to build xine
from source.
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="Building and installing xine from source"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="building"></a>Building and installing xine from source</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="What do I need to compile everything properly?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="buildrequirements"></a>What do I need to compile everything properly?</h3></div></div></div><p>
First of all an official and stable release of gcc. Also be aware
that patched gcc versions may break parts of xine and are therefore
not supported by the xine project.
</p><p>
Furthermore you'll have to use GNU make to compile xine. On most GNU/Linux
systems "make" is GNU make – on other platforms use "gmake" instead.
Also, zlib is required (including the appropriate header files, which are
often found in a package called zlib-devel or similar.)
</p><p>
If you want to compile xine from Mercurial, you'll need to have the autobuild tools
installed (automake, autoconf and libtool – in recent versions).
</p><p>
Frontends might need additional libraries, e.g. for gxine you'll need to have
GTK2 installed. Make sure you have not only the shared libraries themselves
but also the header files (often packaged seperately as so-called -dev packages)
on your system.
</p><p>
Some plugins that come with the xine engine need additional libraries (otherwise
they will not be built). For example, libogg and libvorbis (plus their include files)
are needed for ogg/vorbis support. Most notably, if you want to see any video
on your X11 desktop (and that's what you're here for, isn't it?), you need the
X developer packages as well.
</p><p>
Don't worry about this too much right now, xine's <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span>
(see below) will check for all the stuff needed and will tell you what's missing
(which means that you should check the output it produces carefully ;) ).
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How do I compile xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="idp50710928"></a>How do I compile xine?</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" title="Simple build instructions for beginners"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="simplebuildinstr"></a> Simple build instructions for beginners </h4></div></div></div><p>
Download the latest xine-lib and gxine/xine-ui tarballs, then follow
these instruction. To unpack a tarball, use:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>tar xfvz tarballname.tar.gz</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
The following instructions will install xine in <code class="filename">/usr/local</code>
where it will be visible for all users. You need root privileges to do this on most systems.
</p><p>
After unpacking xine-lib, issue:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>./configure</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>make install</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Make sure your <code class="filename">/etc/ld.so.conf</code> contains
<code class="filename">/usr/local/lib</code> and continue with:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>ldconfig</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Now unpack your frontend (gxine or xine-ui or …), then:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>./configure</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>make install</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="Complete build instructions"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="completebuildinstr"></a>Complete build instructions</h4></div></div></div><p>
The build process is the same for all of the xine modules.
</p><p>
You have to start with xine-lib. If built and installed successfully, you
can continue with the frontend(s).
</p><p>
If you have installed xine-lib to a non-standard prefix, make sure
that you have <code class="filename">$prefix/bin</code> in your PATH and that your linker finds
libs in <code class="filename">$prefix/lib</code> – otherwise trying to build modules that
rely on xine-lib will fail with configure complaining about not
finding certain parts of libxine. Using bash you can do something like:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>export PATH="$prefix/bin:$PATH"</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$prefix/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"</strong></span></pre><p>
to make sure libxine can be found by the frontend(s).
</p><p>
Last but not least. Here the build instructions. As stated earlier,
those are the same for every xine module.
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>./autogen.sh</strong></span> [→ <span class="emphasis"><em>only</em></span> if you're building from hg]
<span class="command"><strong>./configure</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>make</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>make install</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="rpmbuild"></a>Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)</h3></div></div></div><p>
Basically you will only have to issue one command, if you have just
downloaded a source tarball from our web site:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>rpmbuild -ta <THE_NAME_OF_YOUR_SOURCE_TAR_BALL></strong></span></pre><p>
(Older versions of RPM use <span class="command"><strong>rpm</strong></span> instead of <span class="command"><strong>rpmbuild</strong></span>.)
</p><p>
This will start the binary and source RPM building. After compiling is
finished, a binary rpm is placed in your rpm binary directory which is
something like <code class="filename">/usr/src/RPM/RPMS/<YOUR_ARCHITECTURE></code>
and a source RPM is written to your rpm source dir
(e.g. <code class="filename">/usr/src/RPM/SRPMS</code>).
</p><p>
In case that you have an up-to-date hg repository, you will need to do the
following first in order to get a tarball release out of it which you
can later use with the <span class="command"><strong>rpmbuild -ta</strong></span> command above:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>./autogen.sh && make clean && make dist</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
In any case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install
xine-lib first before you can proceed with xine-ui.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Making your own .deb packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="debbuild"></a>Making your own .deb packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)</h3></div></div></div><p>
You'll need an HG snapshot tarball or source checked out from the repository.
</p><p>
First, make sure that the "devscripts" and "build-essential" packages are installed. You'll
then need the following commands (the first one isn't needed unless you're using a snapshot tarball):
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>tar xzf <PACKAGE-VER.tar.gz></strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>cd <PACKAGE-VER></strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>./autogen.sh noconfig</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>debuild binary</strong></span>
</pre><p>
(If <span class="command"><strong>debuild</strong></span> complains about unmet dependencies, then
install them using <span class="command"><strong>aptitude install <PACKAGES></strong></span> (as root) then re-run
<span class="command"><strong>debuild binary</strong></span>.
</p><p>
Once the build has been successfully completed, you'll have some new .debs.
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>cd ..</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>ls *.deb</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>su - -c 'cd '"`pwd`"' && dpkg -i <DEB_PACKAGES>'</strong></span>
</pre><p>
Ubuntu users will probably want to use this instead of that <span class="command"><strong>su</strong></span>:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>sudo dpkg -i <DEB_PACKAGES></strong></span>
</pre><p>
</p><p>
In any case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install
xine-lib first before you can proceed with xine-ui or gxine.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="cflags"></a>Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Yes, you can do so by setting the CFLAGS variable and then running
<span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> again. You can even pass them to
<span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> directly. Example:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>./configure CFLAGS="-march=i686"</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Other user variables <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> respects are:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="command"><strong>CC</strong></span> to specify the compiler executable
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="command"><strong>CPP</strong></span> to specify the C preprocessor executable
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="command"><strong>LD</strong></span> to specify the linker executable
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="command"><strong>CPPFLAGS</strong></span> to pass additional include paths or other
preprocessor options
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="command"><strong>LDFLAGS</strong></span> to pass additional library paths or other
linker options
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p><p>
An example combining some of these would look like:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>./configure CC="/opt/intel/bin/icc" LD="/opt/intel/bin/xild" \
CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/dvdnav" LDFLAGS="-L/home/guenter/xine_libs"</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon™) available? Can I build them?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="athlonflags"></a>Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon™) available? Can I build them?</h3></div></div></div><p>
If you have a recent gcc you can try to compile "more" k7 support in (esp.
better instruction scheduling). If the configure script should fail to
detect your processor/gcc correctly, try passing the canonical system name for
your machine to configure with the <span class="command"><strong>--host</strong></span> option, e.g.
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>./configure --host=k7-pc-linux-gnu</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="idp56038800"></a>Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib)</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" title="The package doesn't compile at all!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="doesntcompile"></a>The package doesn't compile at all!</h4></div></div></div><p>
In order to be able to compile xine-lib, you need (amongst other things)
the zlib compression library plus the appropriate headers, which are
often found in a package called zlib-devel or similar.
</p><p>
Read again carefully the output <span class="command"><strong>./configure</strong></span>
produced and/or compiler warnings and error reports, they often contain
helpful information to find out what's going on. If you're stuck here
and decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list,
make sure you include these outputs.
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="xvpluginfailstobuild"></a>The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile!</h4></div></div></div><p>
If you want to have Xv support compiled in, make sure you either have
a shared Xv library on your system, e.g.
<span class="command"><strong>ls /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv*</strong></span>
should give you some .so libs, like this:
</p><pre class="screen">
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.a
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so.1</pre><p>
</p><p>
Alternatively you need to have libtool 1.4 or newer installed, then
libXv.a is sufficient. Otherwise you can create the shared versions yourself:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>ld --whole-archive -shared -o libXv.so.1 libXv.a</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>ln -s libXv.so.1 libXv.so</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>ldconfig</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Now you should be ready to build the Xv video-out plugin on your system.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/…)"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="idp56049888"></a>Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/…)</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" title="I have installed xine-lib but the frontend complains about not finding it!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="xinelibnotfound"></a>I have installed xine-lib but the frontend complains about not finding it!</h4></div></div></div><p>
First of all take a closer look at the compilation instructions above again.
You will probably find your answer there right away.
</p><p>
As stated there (there again that hint *grin*), make sure that you
have <code class="filename">$prefix/bin</code> in your path and that your
linker is able to find libraries installed in <code class="filename">$prefix/lib</code>
By the way, $prefix is where you installed your xine-lib to earlier
(yes, installing xine-lib with <span class="command"><strong>make install</strong></span> or
installing the corresponding distribution-provided -dev or -devel
package would be a good idea before trying to compile the frontend ;)
).
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="nonrootbuild"></a>Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Sure. First set up a subdir where you install your private software, eg.
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>mkdir ~/xine</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Then you have to set a few environment variables – it's probably a good
idea to add this to your <code class="filename">~/.bashrc</code> (or somewhere similar):
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>export PATH="$HOME/xine/bin:$PATH"</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/xine/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Now you can unpack tarballs e.g. in <code class="filename">~/xine/src</code>
(<span class="command"><strong>mkdir ~/xine/src</strong></span> if necessary) and do a
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine</strong></span>
<span class="command"><strong>make install</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
You also need to tell frontends using xine-lib, where to find it:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine --with-xine-prefix=$HOME/xine</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How to compile xine for Windows?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="win32build"></a>How to compile xine for Windows?</h3></div></div></div><p>
For compiling xine under Windows with MinGW, CygWin or MS Visual C see <a class="ulink" href="http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib?cmd=file;file=doc/README.WIN32;filenode=-1;style=raw" target="_top"><code class="filename">README.WIN32</code></a>.
</p><p>
For cross-compiling xine under comfortable unix-like environment with MinGW see <a class="ulink" href="http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib?cmd=file;file=doc/README.MINGWCROSS;filenode=-1;style=raw" target="_top"><code class="filename">README.MINGWCROSS</code></a>.
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="Playback of various stream types"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="playback"></a>Playback of various stream types</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="DVD Playback with xine"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="idp56070784"></a>DVD Playback with xine</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" title="How do I play back DVDs with xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="dvdplayback"></a>How do I play back DVDs with xine?</h4></div></div></div><p>
Newer xine (1.0.x) releases come with a full-featured
DVD plugin that should be able to handle any unencrypted,
non-locked DVD with full menu navigation support. No external
plugins are required anymore here.
</p><p>
To get DVD playback working, first make sure you have
a symlink <code class="filename">/dev/dvd</code> pointing to your
DVD device on your system. For example, if your DVD drive
is the master ide drive on the second IDE channel,
<code class="filename">/dev/dvd</code> should point to
<code class="filename">/dev/hdc</code>. Please note that if you
are using the ide-scsi emulation on your system, it is
likely that your DVD drive got mapped to a scsi device
node even though it is an ide drive. In that case first
check out you boot/kernel logs (or run <span class="command"><strong>cdrecord -scanbus</strong></span>)
to find out which device it got mapped to and set the
symlink accordingly (should be something like <code class="filename">/dev/scd0</code>,
<code class="filename">/dev/scd1</code>, … in that case).
Also make sure you (as a user) have sufficient (read and write) permissions
on your DVD drive. This could mean you either have to change the device
permissions or add your user to a special group
(e.g. <span class="command"><strong>addgroup cdrom username</strong></span>),
depending on your setup and/or distribution.
</p><p>
It is highly recommended to switch DMA mode on for your DVD drive
(without it even very recent machines will have trouble producing
smooth video output). Use a command like
<span class="command"><strong>hdparm -d 1 <device></strong></span>
on your DVD device. Please note that even if you're using ide-scsi
you will have to set the dma flag on the ide device node (e.g.
<code class="filename">/dev/hdc</code>), not the mapped <code class="filename">/dev/scd</code>
scsi device.
</p><p>
To be able to play back encrypted DVDs you need to have
libdvdcss installed on your system (please check if this is legal where
you live). If you do not understand what the term "encrypted DVD" means
here: As a rule of thumb, every DVD you have to pay money for is most
likely encrypted.
</p><p>
To make matters worse, apart from encryption, there is another obstacle
to take: the region code. The DVD authorities decided to divide the world
into eight geographical regions. Have a look at
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/RegionMap.pdf" target="_top">http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/RegionMap.pdf</a>
if you want to know which number has been assigned to your country. It is
now their idea, that you shall only play DVDs, which have been produced
for your region. If you take a DVD off the shelf in your local store,
you should find a little globe-like icon which shows the region code the
disc is for.
</p><p>
Newer (post-2000) DVD drives (so-called RPC-2 drives) check the DVD
region, which means they'll prevent you from playing back DVDs that have
a different region code from what the drive is set up for. Some drives
come with a factory setting of region 0 so they can play back
any DVD until a region code is set. Others refuse to play any DVD at all
until they are told a region. The easiest way to handle this is to use
the regionset utility from
<a class="ulink" href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415" target="_top">
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415
</a>.
</p><p>
Once you have everything set up, try something like
<span class="command"><strong>gxine dvd:/</strong></span> or <span class="command"><strong>xine -p dvd:/</strong></span>
to start dvd playback. Some frontend also offer so-called autoplay
buttons or menu entries that start dvd playback immediately.
</p><p>
Important: do not try to mount the DVD. Just insert it and hit the DVD autoplay
button or start xine from the command line.
</p><p>
If things do not work as expected, try running the <span class="command"><strong>xine-check</strong></span>
shellscript that comes with xine to see if this gives you further hints on
what could be wrong.
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="DVD playback works, but it takes a long time until playback starts"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="dvdlongwait"></a>DVD playback works, but it takes a long time until playback starts</h4></div></div></div><p>
This points to a region code problem. Some versions of libdvdcss can play
back DVDs from other regions than the RPC-2 DVD drive is set up for,
but this usually means a cryptographic attack (which takes time) has
to be used to access the DVD.
</p><p>
You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here:
<a class="ulink" href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415" target="_top">
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415
</a>.
</p><p>
Warning: Please be aware that the number of region code changes in RPC-2
drives is limited (usually about 5 times), after that your drive will
stay locked to the region you last set it up for.
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="regionset"></a>I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region!</h4></div></div></div><p>
You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here:
<a class="ulink" href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415" target="_top">
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&release_id=168415
</a>.
</p><p>
Warning: Please be aware that the number of region code changes in RPC-2
drives is limited (usually about 5 times), after that your drive will
stay locked to the region you last set it up for.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="vcdsupport"></a>Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine supports VCD and SVCD playback out-of-the box. Similar to DVDs,
make sure you have a <code class="filename">/dev/cdrom</code> alias pointing
to your CDROM drive which you will use to play back the (S)VCD.
</p><p>
At the moment, CD-i formats are not supported by xine.
</p><p>
Do not try to mount the (S)VCD. Simply insert it into your CDROM drive
and hit the VCD autoplay button or start something like
<span class="command"><strong>gxine vcd:/</strong></span> or <span class="command"><strong>xine vcd:/</strong></span>
from the command line.
</p><div class="sect3" title="VideoCD troubleshooting guide"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="vcdtroubleshooting"></a>VideoCD troubleshooting guide</h4></div></div></div><p>
This gives higher-level troubleshooting. More lower-level information is
given in <a class="link" href="#vcddebug" title="VideoCD debugging">the next section</a>.
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
When you open the configuration dialog of your frontend, you should
see a <em class="parameter"><code>vcd</code></em> config section. An important setting is
<em class="parameter"><code>default_device</code></em>. If this is set to the empty string,
the VCD plugin will try to scan your drives for a suitable device if the
driver has the capability to scan for drives. However you can set
the device to something of your choosing. On GNU/Linux, this may be
<code class="filename">/dev/cdrom</code> and on Solaris it may be
<code class="filename">/vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0</code>.
</p><p>
If you set this field, make sure these are correct for your
particular setup. For example, I generally play out of the DVD
device and this is called <code class="filename">/dev/dvd</code> rather than <code class="filename">/dev/cdrom</code>.
</p><p></p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Your frontend should offer a VCD autoscan button or menu item.
If you select this, you should see your CD disk light go on if you have one.
And the CD should be read. You should get a playlist of what's on the VideoCD.
</p><p>
If not something's wrong, possibly you configured the wrong drive.
You might try to read a disk image of a VideoCD and thus elimate any problems
with hardware. You can get a test VideoCD disk image to test here:
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip" target="_top">
http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip
</a>.
After unzipping this there should be files <code class="filename">test_svcd_pal.cue</code> and
<code class="filename">test_svcd_pal.bin</code>. Run xine with the MRL
<code class="filename">vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue:E0</code>.
If you see something playing then this is a hardware problem.
You might also want to try starting playback-control with
<code class="filename">vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue:P1</code>.
</p><p></p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
There should be at least one "track", and one "entry" listed for
the VideoCD and the names of these in the MRL list will end with
"T1" and "E0" respectively. Often there are other playlist items,
and if you have menus or still frames there will be
"segments" as well. The simplest things to check are probably
"entries" and "tracks". If there are no entries listed or none of
the tracks or entries play, then there may be a problem with
that particular medium. So as in the step above, you can try a known good
sample and perhaps burn a CD from that. More likely if you get this
far, some of the items listed work and some do not. There are a
number of debugging switches that you can dynamically turn on and
off that may be able to help in isolating more specific problems.
See the <a class="link" href="#vcddebug" title="VideoCD debugging">section below</a>.
</p><p></p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Something plays now, but you do not get any menus? Well, first is there
supposed to be a menu? In the last step you should have seen what is on
the VideoCD. Still frames are always "segments" so see if you can find one in the MRL
list and select that.
</p><p>
If there are no segments listed, there aren't any still-frame
menus. It's also possible to have menus in looping MPEG's. Use the
<span class="command"><strong>vcddump</strong></span> tool to find loops. <span class="command"><strong>vcddump</strong></span> is
also part of VCDImager. Another program that can help you examine the contents
of a VideoCD is <span class="command"><strong>vcdxrip</strong></span>.
</p><p>
To troubleshoot, start out with the known SVCD example that has a
still-frame menu at the beginning:
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip" target="_top">
http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip
</a>
Inside this is a largish file called <code class="filename">test_svcd_pal.bin</code> and another
short text file called <code class="filename">test_svcd_ntsc.cue</code>. These are CD disk
images; that is, something that could be burned to a CD drive such
as with <span class="command"><strong>cdrdao</strong></span>. However you don't have to create a CD to view these
with the xine VCD plugin. You should be able to play the VideoCD by running the MRL
<code class="filename">vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue</code>.
If you see a still frame on startup. Great! If instead you see what
looks like the beginning of a movie (Blue Streak with Martin Lawrence)
then go to the next step.
</p><p></p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
You have a VideoCD with menu and can see it, but there is no menu on startup?
If you have the VideoCD from the last step, then run the MRL
<code class="filename">vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue:P1</code>
If this shows a still frame, but it just does not show when you
hit either the "VCD" autoscan button or give a MRL without the P1 at
the end then go to the next step.
</p><p>
If you have another VideoCD, from the MRL list, you should also see "playlist"
entries. Try selecting the one that ends "P1". If you don't see an entry with P1,
then your VideoCD does not have playback control (PBC) and although there may
be a still frame on the VideoCD it may have been authored so it is not easily
accessed. Again <span class="command"><strong>vcddump</strong></span> or <span class="command"><strong>vcdxrip</strong></span> can help here.
</p><p></p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
You have a VideoCD with menu at beginning and can see it using an MRL
with P1 at the end, but you want to see it by hitting the "VCD" autoscan button
as well? Check to see that you have the configuration entry
<em class="parameter"><code>media.vcd.autoplay</code></em> set to <em class="parameter"><code>playlist</code></em>.
</p></li></ul></div></div><div class="sect3" title="VideoCD debugging"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="vcddebug"></a>VideoCD debugging</h4></div></div></div><p>
To facilitate tracking down problems we let you see what's going on dynamically.
Various debugging settings will cause output to appear on xine's plugin log
and/or on standard error output. See the config entry <em class="parameter"><code>media.vcd.debug</code></em>
for details.
</p><p>
The tool <span class="command"><strong>vcd-info</strong></span> from the cdio branch of vcdimager can be used to
show the entire contents of a VideoCD or selected portions of that. Until the cdio
branch of vcdimager is completely merged with vcdimager, the cd-info branch version
has a few more features. (However consult vcdimager for complete version of the program.)
</p><p>
<span class="command"><strong>vcdxrip</strong></span> can be used to extract portions of a VideoCD and or create an
XML description file of the VideoCD. This XML file and the extracted
files can be used by <span class="command"><strong>vcdxbuild</strong></span> to recreate another VideoCD.
</p><p>
And finally see also tools <span class="command"><strong>cd-info</strong></span> and <span class="command"><strong>cd-read</strong></span> from libcdio.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="quicktime"></a>Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Quicktime is just a system layer (container format) which can contain various
different audio and video formats. The system layer itself is fully supported
in xine. However, some quicktime audio/video codecs are not natively supported yet.
Luckily, if you are using a x86 compatible machine (any recent PC hardware should do)
you can install and use the original Quicktime DLLs and watch most streams
(trailers) that can be downloaded from the net.
</p><p>
Possibly the most convenient way to get the Quicktime DLLs is to download
them from the MPlayer website
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html" target="_top">
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
</a>.
The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you find
inside to <code class="filename">/usr/lib/codecs</code> (actually you can place them
anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll
have to set <em class="parameter"><code>decoder.external.win32_codecs_path</code></em> in your
xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be
able to watch Quicktime trailers.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Real Network files/streams"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="idp56165600"></a>Real Network files/streams</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" title="Can I watch Real (.rm, .ram) files using xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="realfileplayback"></a>Can I watch Real (.rm, .ram) files using xine?</h4></div></div></div><p>
The situation with real files and streams is pretty similar to the situation
with Quicktime Streams (see above). The newer real audio and video formats
are only supported by using binary-only codecs which are not included in
xine.
</p><p>
Possibly the most convenient way to get the Real codecs is to install
RealPlayer 9 or RealPlayer 10 and set the
<em class="parameter"><code>decoder.external.real_codecs_path</code></em> in your xine
config file to the name of the directory which contains the codecs
(look for drvc.so); it's probably something like
<code class="filename">/opt/real/RealPlayer/codecs/</code>. Restart xine then
and you should be able to watch Real files/streams.
</p><p>
Another way to get the Real codecs is to download them from the MPlayer website
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html" target="_top">
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
</a>.
The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you
find inside to <code class="filename">/usr/lib/codecs</code> and set the
<em class="parameter"><code>decoder.external.real_codecs_path</code></em> in your xine config file
to <code class="filename">/usr/lib/codecs</code> (actually you can place them
anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll
have to set <em class="parameter"><code>decoder.external.real_codecs_path</code></em> accordingly).
Restart xine then and you should be able to watch Real files/streams.
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="What about (live) network streams (pnm://, rtsp:// style urls)?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="realnetworkstreams"></a>What about (live) network streams (pnm://, rtsp:// style urls)?</h4></div></div></div><p>
xine supports both pnm and rtsp streaming. However, digging out the actual
pnm/rtsp url can be tricky as they're often packed into heavy JavaScript and
HTML code on most websites. You can either use a combination of your
browser's "save source" function and wget or use a xine browser plugin
(currently the gxine frontend comes with a simple mozilla plugin,
for example). When you decided to dig out the url by hand don't get fooled
by the many redirectors that are often placed around the actual url.
Use wget to download any http://-style urls and use less to look inside
the downloaded .ra/.ram files where you will find the actual pnm/rtsp
url which can be opened using xine.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="wmv"></a>Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?</h3></div></div></div><p>
While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias)
is fully supported in xine, for newer windows media 9 based streams
you'll need to install windows binary codecs (.DLLs).
</p><p>
Possibly the most convenient way to get the Windows DLLs is to download
them from the MPlayer website
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html" target="_top">
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
</a>.
The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you find
inside to <code class="filename">/usr/lib/codecs</code> (actually you can place them
anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll
have to set <em class="parameter"><code>decoder.external.win32_codecs_path</code></em> in your
xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be
able to watch windows media streams.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="dvb"></a>Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine?</h3></div></div></div><p>
At the time of this writing DVB support is a very new and experimental
feature in xine. The number of supported cards is pretty limited at the moment.
See <code class="filename">doc/README.dvb</code> (in the xine-lib tarball) for details.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How do I play streams from STDIN?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="stdin"></a>How do I play streams from STDIN?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Use something like:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>cat stream.mpg | gxine stdin:/</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="avisubtitles"></a>How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?</h3></div></div></div><p>
In xine 0.9.13 this used to be:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine foo.avi%bar.sub</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Latest xine-lib modules (1-beta3 or newer) support external subtitles
for any media file, not only AVI. In order to use it you can pass a
special MRL construction like:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine file://path/to/test.mpg#subtitle:/path/to/file.sub</strong></span></pre><p>
The external subtitles support can also be used by any xine frontend.
Currently xine-ui and kaffeine implement this feature with a subtitle
selection dialog.
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="Running xine"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="running"></a>Running xine</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="I have a lot of dropped frames – what can I do?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="speedup"></a>I have a lot of dropped frames – what can I do?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Your hardware might be too slow for xine. Make sure you turn on all
speed optimizing options. A few things you should check (in order of
importance):
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
First of all, run the <span class="command"><strong>xine-check</strong></span> script included in xine
package (probably already installed in your system).
<span class="command"><strong>xine-check</strong></span> will report several of the most common problems
listed here. Sample output from xine-check:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>xine-check</strong></span>
Please be patient, this script may take a while to run...
[ good ] you're using Linux, doing specific tests
[ good ] looks like you have a /proc filesystem mounted.
[ good ] You seem to have a reasonable kernel version (2.4.18)
[ good ] intel compatible processor, checking MTRR support
[ good ] you have MTRR support and there are some ranges set.
[ good ] found the player at /usr/local/bin/xine
[ good ] /usr/local/bin/xine is in your PATH
[ good ] found /usr/local/bin/xine-config in your PATH
[ good ] plugin directory /usr/local/lib/xine/plugins exists.
[ good ] found input plugins
[ good ] found demux plugins
[ good ] found decoder plugins
[ good ] found video_out plugins
[ good ] found audio_out plugins
[ good ] skin directory /usr/local/share/xine/skins exists.
[ good ] found logo in /usr/local/share/xine/skins
[ good ] I even found some skins.
[ good ] /dev/cdrom points to /dev/hdc
[ good ] /dev/dvd points to /dev/hdc
[ good ] DMA is enabled for your DVD drive
[ good ] found xvinfo: X-Video Extension version 2.2
[ good ] your Xv extension supports YUV overlays (improves MPEG performance)
[ good ] your Xv extension supports packed YUV overlays
[ good ] Xv ports: YUY2 YV12 I420 UYVY</pre><p>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Try to use the Xv driver, it greatly improves performance and quality
because your graphics card does image scaling and colourspace conversion. The
<a class="link" href="#video" title="Video related questions">video section</a> contains important information
about several Xv drivers.
</p><p>
If Xv cannot be used for some reason, make sure your display is set up
to 16bpp, not 24 or higher (reduces memory bandwith). Some Xv drivers
may also have better performance with 16bpp.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Make sure the hard drive (or cdrom/dvd drive) which supplies the
video data is in DMA mode (if supported).
</p><p>
On most linux-based systems, you can use hdparm to check this:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>hdparm /dev/hda</strong></span>
[...]
using_dma = 1 (on)
[...]</pre><p>
</p><p>
You can enable DMA mode with the following command:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>hdparm -d1 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data</strong></span></pre><p>
In some cases where this fails it helps to specify the dma mode
to use, for example:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>hdparm -d1 -X 66 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data</strong></span></pre><p>
In RedHat 8.0 an additional entry in /etc/modules.conf
</p><pre class="screen"> options ide-cd dma=1</pre><p>
should help (reboot for this change to take effect).
</p><p>
More information about this may be found here:
<a class="ulink" href="http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html" target="_top">
http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html
</a>.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Use a recent kernel which is optimized for your hardware. Old kernels
may lack support for accelerated instructions like SSE, for example.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Close other applications (use a tool like "top" to find out
what applications are using up CPU power). Programs that update the
system clock like ntp should also be disabled.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Enable MTRR support in your kernel. If you are still using XFree 3.x,
you'll have to tell the kernel yourself where the graphics memory is.
You'll find details about that in the linux dvd howto.
</p><p>
If you're using X.org or XFree 4.x, enabling MTRR support in your kernel should
be enough (use a recent kernel!).
</p><p>
Try a <span class="command"><strong>cat /proc/mtrr</strong></span> – if the file exists and you find an entry
corresponding to the amount of graphics memory you have, everything
should be fine.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Have your X-server (usually X.org or XFree86) running with higher priority.
Most recent linux distributions (like RedHat 8.0 or Mandrake 9.0) should
do that for you, improving not only xine but desktop responsiveness
in general.
</p><p>
Use the "top" utility and verify under the "NI" column if
the X process has a negative value, this indicates a higher priority.
See "The X Window User HOWTO – Performance considerations" for
further instructions
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html" target="_top">
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html
</a>.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Use the latest or a known-good gcc version and build an optimized xine-lib for
your architecture.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Besides boosting X-server priority, sometimes it's possible to avoid
discarding frames by making xine itself higher priority. This is not
a recommended pratice since it will require to run xine as root,
but you may give it a try if you want:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>nice --5 xine</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
xine needs high speed memory access which depends on your chip set.
Make sure you enable all speed-improving options.
</p><p>
Especially the via apollo pro chipset is known to be quite weird,
(most of all on my gigabyte board). If you can't configure the ram
access thoroughly using the bios you might want to try some really
nasty tricks, as explained on (for example):
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp" target="_top">
http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp
</a>
</p><p>
This website centers around a windows-tool to tweak the chipset, you
can do the same on FreeBSD with <span class="command"><strong>pciconf</strong></span>.
On some linux distributions there are similar tools.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
a nice performance tuning tool can be found here:
<a class="ulink" href="http://powertweak.sourceforge.net" target="_top">http://powertweak.sourceforge.net</a>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Set up and use raw devices for DVD access. Please note that the
actual performance gain during playback is very small if any, but
since raw devices are bypassing the kernel's buffer cache, Linux
will not try to cache the DVDs you play. This would not be useful,
because xine does its own caching and you usually play DVDs
sequentially, which means you won't reuse anything from the cache.
But the problem would be that Linux throws everything out of the
cache that might be in there.
</p><p>
Raw devices should be available in linux kernel 2.4.x and there are
patches for older kernels available from:
<a class="ulink" href="ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/" target="_top">
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/
</a>
</p><p>
For recent kernels (2.6.x series) the raw devices are neither
needed nor supported anymore, so don't bother.
</p><p>
To use raw devices, first connect a free raw device to your dvd
device, use something like:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>raw /dev/raw1 /dev/dvd</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
Then create a link named "rdvd" pointing to that raw device:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>ln -s raw1 /dev/rdvd</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
For slow / high-latency dvd drives it might help to increase
the number of video buffers xine allocates. Try setting
<em class="parameter"><code>engine.buffers.video_num_buffers:500</code></em>
to a higher value (e.g. 1000 or 2500).
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="smoothness"></a>Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth!</h3></div></div></div><p>
Video output can be further improved by tuning your linux kernel:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
Set HZ to 1000 in
<code class="filename">/usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/param.h</code>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Try applying scheduler patches, especially the O(1) and the preemptive
patches have proven useful at the time of this writing (spring 2003).
</p></li></ul></div><p>
Linux 2.5/2.6 will probably have these improvements out of the box.
</p><p>
Miguel Freitas has written a nice
<a class="ulink" href="http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/~miguel/multimedia_sim/" target="_top">
article about his kernel multimedia experiments
</a>.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, … !"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="ports"></a>I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, … !</h3></div></div></div><p>
Check out the the corresponding README files in the directory <code class="filename">xine-lib/doc</code>.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="aaxine"></a>What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?</h3></div></div></div><p>
aalib is an ascii art library. xine comes with an aalib video output
plugin so you can watch movies in your xterm, on the console or on your
old vt100 – very cool ;> … another nice option is to preview movies
on a remote server in your shell over ssh.
</p><p>
To use it make sure you have aalib installed correctly before you
configure/build xine-lib and xine-ui. In addition to the <span class="command"><strong>xine</strong></span> binary a
binary named <span class="command"><strong>aaxine</strong></span> should get built and installed. You can then use
something like:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>aaxine foo.mpg</strong></span></pre><p>
to use aalib video output.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="dxr3"></a>Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card?</h3></div></div></div><p>
While xine's focus is clearly on software decoding, the dxr3 is supported.
</p><p>
You can find more information about using xine with the dxr3
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.amalthea.de/xine/" target="_top">here</a>
(also covers how to do tv output using the dxr3).
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="Audio related questions"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="audio"></a>Audio related questions</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="audiodrivers"></a>What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Currently xine support audio output via OSS (Linux 2.4 and most
*BSD audio drivers),
ALSA 0.9 and 1.0 (ALSA 0.5.x is no longer supported), aRTs (KDE
3's sound daemon), ESounD (esd, gnome's sound daemon not
recommended because it has serious issues with a/v sync), JACK,
PulseAudio, plus platform-specific output through Sun devices for
Solaris and NetBSD and Irix output.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the voices!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="compressor"></a>When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the voices!</h3></div></div></div><p>
Congratulations, you seem to have an original movie audio track there.
</p><p>
Uhm. So you don't like it. Well, there are two things you can do:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
You can enable xine's audio compressor. Most frontends have
a settings window and in that you'll find a slider for the
compressor setting. The values are percent values, so a
slider setting of 200 means that xine will double the volume
of silent parts of the movie (loud parts stay the same).
</p><p>
If your frontend does not have such a compression slider,
you can pass the value with the MRL:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine dvd:/#compression:150</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
If you have a dolby digital (AC3) soundtrack, you can try
to enable liba52's dynamic range compression setting
<em class="parameter"><code>audio.a52.dynamic_range:1</code></em>
in your xine config file (or use some gui config dialog).
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="noaudio"></a>When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!</h3></div></div></div><p>
If this happens with any video, first try a different audio driver
(<span class="command"><strong>gxine -A oss</strong></span>, <span class="command"><strong>gxine -A arts</strong></span>,
<span class="command"><strong>xine -A alsa</strong></span> …).
</p><p>
If this problem only occurs with one specific stream, maybe switching to
a different audio channel (using the gui) helps. Some DVD streams have
audio on strange channels.
</p><p>
If all this doesn't help, maybe you're missing an audio codec or you found
a bug. If you decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list,
make sure to include all console output xine produced and also clearly
state what type of stream you tried to play back or, even better, make
a test stream available somewhere for developers to download and try.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="surroundsound"></a>Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Yep, it can do that using OSS or ALSA drivers, provided that the driver
supports it. However, since xine cannot detect if there are actually speakers
connected to the additional channels, you'll have to activate that feature manually.
</p><p>
You can do this either in the config dialog while xine is running (press
the config button on the xine panel and go to the AUDIO tab) or have it
the complicated way by editing the config file yourself which is located
in your home directory in <code class="filename">.config/gxine</code> or
<code class="filename">.xine</code>:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Surround 4.0
audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Surround 4.1
audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Surround 5.1</pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="spdif"></a>What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine can do that too. Pretty much the same story as for 4-/5-channel
surround (see above). You can either use the config dialog or edit
the config file (<code class="filename">~/.xine/config</code> or
<code class="filename">~/.config/gxine/config</code>) yourself:
</p><pre class="programlisting"> audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Pass Through</pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="sblivespdif"></a>Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers</h3></div></div></div><p>
The following explains how to get the above configuration
going with xine. Some parts of it may applicable to other
configurations (cards that use the EMU10k1 chip) as well.
</p><div class="sect3" title="Requirements"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="idp56271248"></a>Requirements</h4></div></div></div><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><p>xine-lib >= 1.x.x</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>OSS driver</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>an external decoder</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>a cable to connect the SBLive to the external decoder</p></li></ol></div><p>
The configuration described was tested using a Soundblaster live 5.1 (rev 7)
with a Yamaha DSP-AX620 external decoder.
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="Retrieving the driver"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="idp56276496"></a>Retrieving the driver</h4></div></div></div><p>
The OSS driver is maintained by creative and can be downloaded at
<a class="ulink" href="http://opensource.creative.com/" target="_top">http://opensource.creative.com/</a>.
The driver package contains documentation on how to install it.
Besides that I'd like to add the following notes.
</p><p>
In order to compile and install these drivers, you need a valid kernel
configuration file. For RedHat Linux's pre-compiled kernels these
configuration files can be found in
<code class="filename">/usr/src/linux/configs</code>.
After you've located the correct config file for your kernel,
you need to copy it to <code class="filename">/usr/src/linux/.config</code>
For example, when you run the 2.4.18-i686 kernel do :
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>cp /usr/src/linux/configs/kernel-2.4.18-i686.config /usr/src/linux/.config</strong></span></pre><p>
Make sure that the emu10k1 module that is currently installed is
not loaded. To unload the modules:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>/sbin/modprobe -rv emu10k1.o ac97_codec.o</strong></span></pre><p>
If this mentions that the device is busy, some program is
using the driver. Some example could be a mixer application
or sound daemon like artsd. You'll need to close down the
applications before continuing.
At success it should print something like:
</p><pre class="screen">
# delete emu10k1
# delete ac97_codec
# delete soundcore</pre><p>
Run make in the directory where you unpacked the driver and follow the
instructions printed at the end of each step.
The last step should be:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>make install-tools</strong></span></pre><p>
As the README of the driver package mentions the SPDIF AC3
output doesn't work by default. In the directory
<code class="filename">utils/scripts</code> an <code class="filename">emu10k1.conf</code>
file can be found which need to be placed in the default
installation directory (<code class="filename">/usr/local/etc</code>).
After this the <code class="filename">emu10k1.conf</code> needs to be modified.
The following settings worked fine for me (I don't use the analog
outputs of the card):
</p><pre class="programlisting">
CARD_IS_5_1=yes
USE_DIGITAL_OUTPUT=yes
ENABLE_TONE_CONTROL=yes
AC3PASSTHROUGH=yes
ENABLE_LIVEDRIVE_IR=no
INVERT_REAR=no
MULTICHANNEL=yes
ROUTE_ALL_TO_SUB=no
ANALOG_FRONT_BOOST=no
SURROUND=no
PROLOGIC=no
ENABLE_CD_Spdif=yes
ENABLE_OPTICAL_SPDIF=no
ENABLE_LINE2_MIC2=no
ENABLE_RCA_SPDIF=no
ENABLE_RCA_AUX=no</pre><p>
After modifying the <code class="filename">emu10k1.conf</code>,
you need to modify your <code class="filename">/etc/modules.conf</code> and
make sure the following lines are in there.
</p><pre class="programlisting">
alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1
post-install emu10k1 /usr/local/etc/emu-script</pre><p>
After saving the changes to <code class="filename">modules.conf</code>, run
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>/sbin/depmod -a</strong></span></pre><p>
Now, you're ready to load the new modules and set the correct
options for it. To load the modules run:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>/sbin/modprobe emu10k1</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="Setting up xine for SPDIF (AC3 passthrough) output"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="idp56294320"></a>Setting up xine for SPDIF (AC3 passthrough) output</h4></div></div></div><p>
You can either use the config dialog of your frontend or edit
the config file (<code class="filename">~/.xine/config</code>) yourself:
</p><pre class="programlisting"> audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Pass Through</pre><p>
In case the setting is not in the file you can add it.
</p></div><div class="sect3" title="The cable used for the SBLive can easily be self-made or buy a stereo 3.5mm jack to dual RCA cable."><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="idp56296912"></a>
The cable used for the SBLive can easily be self-made
or buy a stereo 3.5mm jack to dual RCA cable.
</h4></div></div></div><p>
What you need to make the cable yourself:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>stereo 3.5mm jack plug</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>RCA plug</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>shielded cable (video coax 75 Ohm will do)</p></li></ul></div><p>
Connect them as follows :
</p><pre class="programlisting">
center pin jackplug ------|----- center pin RCA plug
GND __|__ GND</pre><p>
</p><p>
In order to test it use a DVD with AC3 or DTS track
start xine and select the right audio track
from user interface or start xine as:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine dvd:/1 -a 0</strong></span></pre><p>
The external decoder should display something like
"Dolby Digital" in case the selected audio track contains
AC3 data or "DTS" in case the selected audio track
contains DTS data. Of course stereo audio also goes
through the SPDIF output, so the analog outputs of the
SBLive 5.1 are not needed anymore.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="volumecontrol"></a>Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Some xine drivers do not support volume changing although the GUI
will show the volume bar. Usually this is not xine's fault: aRts C
API, for example, doesn't offer any volume property to applications.
Similarly, with ac3 pass through it is not possible to set the volume.
</p><p>
Note that recently we added support to "simulate" volume in aRts by
changing sample values on-the-fly before delivering them to the driver.
Not as good as having access to sound card's mixer but at least users
will not complain about lacking of volume bar anymore! :)
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by -2115 pts" on the console output"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="stuttering"></a>Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by -2115 pts" on the console output</h3></div></div></div><p>
Might be a soundcard problem, if it only comes in longer intervals.
Your soundcard does not keep it's sampling frequency accurately
enough, which results in audio and video
getting out of sync and xine has to compensate. If you see the message
only from time to time, you might remedy it by using the resampling sync
method. You can do this by setting the configuration entry
<em class="parameter"><code>audio.synchronization.av_sync_method</code></em> to <em class="parameter"><code>resample</code></em>.
</p><p>
If you receive the metronom message more often,
maybe switching to different drivers (alsa to oss or vise-versa)
can help here. It has also been reported that setting the configuration
entry <em class="parameter"><code>audio.synchronization.force_rate</code></em> to the native sampling
rate of your soundcard (try 44100 and 48000) helps sometimes.
</p><p>
Another, whole different possibility is that you have some background
process running which is messing with the clock (like some ntp client –
chrony, ntpd, …).
</p><p>
Occasional messages of "fixing sound card drift" may happen on start and
when playing a long stream (like a movie). This is normal behaviour,
nothing to worry about.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="soundloss"></a>xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs</h3></div></div></div><p>
You are using the OSS audio output plugin, right? In order to keep video and audio
in sync, xine regularly queries the audio driver for the amount of delay induced by
the current length of the driver's audio buffer. Unfortunately some OSS drivers seem
to be broken because the can return strange values here. This confuses the xine audio
subsystem and makes it drop audio.
</p><p>
You should try the various settings of the
configuration entry <em class="parameter"><code>audio.oss_sync_method</code></em>. The options
<em class="parameter"><code>getodelay</code></em> and <em class="parameter"><code>getoptr</code></em> ask the driver and
might therefore show the problem. But chances are that only one is broken and the other
works, so you should try them both first, since they are the most accurate.
The option <em class="parameter"><code>probebuffer</code></em> does not ask the driver directly but
tries to determine the buffer length from outside. This should work with any driver
and is the way to go, of the driver dependent methods fail.
<em class="parameter"><code>softsync</code></em> is the least accurate and should be used only in
emergency situations.
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="Video related questions"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="video"></a>Video related questions</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="I can hear the audio – but I don't see a picture!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="novideo"></a>I can hear the audio – but I don't see a picture!</h3></div></div></div><p>
Probably your hardware is simply too slow – see above for some
hints on how to speed things up.
</p><p>
Another possibility is that you using a buggy Xv driver, see the next
questions.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="I only see a blue (or green or black) video image most of the time."><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="bluescreen"></a>I only see a blue (or green or black) video image most of the time.</h3></div></div></div><p>
You are either watching a very boring video (just kidding) or you are
suffering from a bug in the Xorg 6.7 implementation of X11.
</p><p>
The workaround is to add the line
</p><pre class="programlisting"> Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"</pre><p>
in the <code class="varname">Device</code> section of your X server configuration (usually
<code class="filename">/etc/X11/xorg.conf</code> or <code class="filename">/etc/X11/XF86Config</code>).
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="The image looks strange, it is shifted, cropped or shows weird lines!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="buggyxv"></a>The image looks strange, it is shifted, cropped or shows weird lines!</h3></div></div></div><p>
This points to a problem with the Xv extension, which is used by xine
to display the video image. To verify this, try running xine with the XShm
video output plugin:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -V XShm</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
If that works fine, you just proved, that the Xv extension is buggy. xine will
remember the last used video output plugin, so the setting will stay at XShm.
You could simply continue using this, but XShm is a lot slower than Xv, so
read on and see if you can get it working. Usually you should look for
updated versions of the X driver module that belongs to your graphics card.
</p><p>
Other possibilites are limitations in either your X driver module or your
graphics hardware. If your card could somehow be running out of ressources (graphics
RAM perhaps) and displays an incorrect Xv overlay because of that, try reducing
the display resolution and/or colour depth.
</p><p>
Consult the next question for more details on Xv.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="xvextension"></a>How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine will normally use Xv by default if it is available. In some cases
you might need to choose Xv playback manually (when the <code class="filename">~/.xine/config</code>
file for some reason says that you want to use XShm):
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -V Xv</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
If this doesn't work for you, it may be possible that Xv is not present
on your system.
</p><p>
First you need to install/use X.org or XFree 4.x. Once you got that you have to
make sure the X drivers you're using are supporting Xv on your
hardware. Here are some hints for individual gfx chips:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
3Dfx: if all you get is a solid black window, upgrade to X.org or XFree 4.1.0 or later.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
ATI: if you only get "half a picture", try lowering your resolution
or bit depth, disable DRI (looks like you ran out of video RAM)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Trident card: If you see vertical bands jumbled, upgrade to the latest
xfree/experimental trident drivers (for the CyberBlade XP
a driver exists here:
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/" target="_top">http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/ </a>)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
nVidia: With newer GeForce cards, Xv should work with XFree 4.2.0 or
newer, for older RivaTNT cards use the binary drivers from nvidia
(of course the binary drivers work as well for GeForce cards)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Mach64/Rage3D (not Rage128/Radeon) cards/chips get no XVideo with
standard drivers, try
<a class="ulink" href="http://gatos.sourceforge.net/" target="_top">GATOS drivers
</a> instead
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
intel: i815 has Xv support in XFree 4.x, others unknown
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Permedia 2/3 has Xv support in XFree 4.x
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Savage: at least some older drivers tend to lock up the whole machine,
try the drivers available from
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html" target="_top">
http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html
</a>.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
SIS: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in XFree 4.x
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Chips and Tech 6555x, 68554, 69000, 69030 have Xv support in XFree 4.x
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
NeoMagic: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree 4.x
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
SiliconMotion: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree 4.x
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Matrox: G200 or newer (but not Parhelia) have Xv support in XFree 4.x.
For Parhelia, use the binary only drivers available from matrox' website.
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="colorkey"></a>Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!</h3></div></div></div><p>
Looks like some colours on your GUI match the colour key which Xv uses. You can
change the colour key value to avoid this. There should be a line like:
</p><pre class="programlisting"> video.device.xv_colorkey:2110</pre><p>
in your <code class="filename">~/.xine/config</code> file where you can change the colour that's used
by xine for the video overlay.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How do I get Xv working with compiz?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="texturedvideo"></a>How do I get Xv working with compiz?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Tell xine to prefer textured video. There should be a line like:
</p><pre class="programlisting"> video.device.xv_preferred_method:Any</pre><p>
in your <code class="filename">~/.xine/config</code> file where you can change the preferred method
used by xine for the video overlay.
</p><p>
It may be that your graphics card or driver doesn't have the necessary
support for textured video, or the video is rendered too slowly.
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
ATI: you are likely to need xf86-video-ati later than 6.8.0; 6.9.0.91
or newer is recommended for slower/older hardware (< X1300) because
the rendering speed has been improved a lot.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Intel: 945 and later, at least, should be fine with xf86-video-intel
2.0 or later. Certainly with 2.2 or later.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
nVidia: will probably be fine. (FIXME)
</p></li></ul></div><p>
If you find that textured video is significantly slower or isn't
supported, you should either not use compiz or tell xine to use the
xshm video output driver.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="aspectratio"></a>The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!</h3></div></div></div><p>
Usually xine discovers the screen aspect ratio by
querying the X-server and then adjusts the video automatically
to make it look right. However, if that doesn't work try
pressing "a" to manually change the aspect ratio.
</p><p>
If you have a wide screen monitor, make sure the X-server
is correctly configured. The X-server must know the physical
size of the screen, which is independent of the resolution
being used.
</p><p>
For X.org, the screen size should be set in the <em class="parameter"><code>"Monitor"</code></em>
section in the file <code class="filename">/etc/X11/xorg.conf</code>, as in the example below:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "DDC Probed Monitor - ViewSonic G773-2"
DisplaySize 320 240
HorizSync 30.0 - 70.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 180.0
EndSection</pre><p>
For XFree86, the filename is normally <code class="filename">/etc/X11/XF86Config</code>.
</p><p>
Where <em class="parameter"><code>DisplaySize</code></em> specifies,
in millimeters, the physical size of the monitor's picture area.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="discardedskipped"></a>What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Sometimes xine will output a message like that:
</p><pre class="programlisting"> 200 frames delivered, XX frames skipped, YY frames discarded</pre><p>
</p><p>
The difference between these counters is a little subtle for the non
developer. There are two threads running in order to display video:
the decoder thread will deliver frames to the video output thread.
The latter is responsible for scheduling the frames to be displayed at
the right time.
</p><p>
If your system can't keep up with decoding requirements, decoder will
deliver overdue frames. Imagine if it finished decoding the frame
tagged for displaying at 11:30 but xine clock marks 11:31. When this
situation is detected, xine will try to skip decoding a few frames
to recover. Not every decoder may support this feature.
</p><p>
When the frame is decoded to be shown somewhere in future but the
output thread doesn't get scheduled in time by the operating system
to complete the operation, the frame is discarded. One cause might
be the disk access operation, which may halt the system for a few
miliseconds without DMA. See performance section tips above.
</p><p>
Note that if a decoder can't skip frames for some reason, you would
never see frames skipped (they would be all discarded).
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a grey video output!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="contrastbrightnesssaturation"></a>My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a grey video output!</h3></div></div></div><p>
This frequently happens with new Xv drivers or when switching to a
different video card. Background is that different Xv drivers often
use different ranges for the contrast/brightness/saturation settings.
</p><p>
To fix this, try opening the xine settings window and try adjusting
the sliders for contrast, brightness and saturation.
</p><p>
Please note that some frontends save these settings in their config file
so when you have found a working combination, make sure you exit
xine cleanly so the values are saved.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Which is the best video driver to use?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="videodriver"></a>Which is the best video driver to use?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine supports several video drivers for outputing the image. These will
differ on how the frames are copied to the video card memory, whether
colourspace conversion and scaling is done in software or hardware, among
other things. They may also differ on ease of use and stability.
</p><p>
Most of the time, Xv should give the users a good trade-off between
quality, compatibility and ease of use. This is why xine tries to use
Xv by default.
</p><p>
However some users may want to explore better the available hardware
capabilities (eg. syncing frame drawing with monitor refresh).
Also some Xv drivers contain slow copies and accessing the video card
directly may yield performance gains.
</p><p>
Drivers that access hardware directly includes VIDIX (warning: requires
root priviledges or kernel helper).
User may try one of those, but should be warned that with root access
they can cause the system to crash hard. The support is also limited to
a couple of graphics cards only.
</p><p>
Graphic workstations like SGI have usually a good support for OpenGL.
In that case, using OpenGL may be a better choice than XShm. However for
most desktop systems the performance of OpenGL will be quite bad.
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="OSD and overlay related questions"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="overlay"></a>OSD and overlay related questions</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="What is this "unscaled" OSD about?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="unscaledosd"></a>What is this "unscaled" OSD about?</h3></div></div></div><p>
Since version 1-rc3 of xine-lib supports a new method for rendering OSD
(On Screen Display) and subtitles. This method uses a X11 extension
called XShape that allows using screen resolution instead of
stream resolution. It is called "unscaled" OSD because it does not
scales with the video being played.
</p><p>
Suppose you are watching a 320x200 video in full screen. Normal OSD
would be blended at 320x200 and then scaled to full screen (lets say,
1024x768), resulting in big and ugly fonts. The unscaled overlay is
drawn directly to screen, creating a sharper and better looking OSD.
</p><p>
There are side effects too. Sometimes the unscaled overlay show some
glitch just before disappearing. Some people may be annoyed enough
by that and might want to disable the usage of unscaled overlay
altogether.
</p><p>
Unscaled OSD usage by subtitles and xine-ui is controlled by
the following settings (<code class="filename">~/.xine/config</code> or
<code class="filename">~/.config/gxine/config</code>):
</p><pre class="programlisting"> gui.osd_use_unscaled:0</pre><p>
</p><pre class="programlisting"> subtitles.separate.use_unscaled_osd:0</pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="I can't see the OSD or it leaves a black box over the image!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="noosd"></a>I can't see the OSD or it leaves a black box over the image!</h3></div></div></div><p>
If you are using xine-lib version 1-rc3 or newer, this is probably
due buggy XV drivers that do not support
<a class="link" href="#unscaledosd" title="What is this "unscaled" OSD about?">unscaled OSD</a> (the XShape
extension) properly.
</p><p>
There have being reports of some ATI drivers that don't allow
displaying anything over the video. The VIA Epia binary drivers
is reported to leave a black box where the OSD was displayed.
</p><p>
The problem may be fixed by either updating the video driver,
or disabling xine unscaled OSD support.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Why colours of overlays/subtitles seem to be "leaking"?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="overlaycolorleak"></a>Why colours of overlays/subtitles seem to be "leaking"?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine blends most overlays, specially the ones from DVD discs,
directly over the image (scaled OSD). Unfortunately most codecs
(like MPEG2) use a subsampled image format (YV12) that makes
properly blending an interesting challenge.
</p><p>
In short, this is a known xine bug. There have being discussions
on improving the blending quality but, so far, nobody implemented
a better (scaled) overlay renderer. Contact developers if you want
to try doing something about it.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Why external subtitles look so ugly?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="uglysubtitles"></a>Why external subtitles look so ugly?</h3></div></div></div><p>
You are probably using a xine-lib version older than 1-rc3.
Try upgrading your copy and read the
<a class="link" href="#unscaledosd" title="What is this "unscaled" OSD about?">section about unscaled osd</a>.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Why subtitles can't be displayed outside the video?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="subtitlesoutsidevideo"></a>Why subtitles can't be displayed outside the video?</h3></div></div></div><p>
It is possible, but older xine versions may not support it. There are two
alternatives for rendering the subtitles outside the video image:
</p><p>
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
Use the "expand" post plugin to increase frame height adding
black bars to it. This will allow blending the subtitles
over the black bars, since they will be part of the video now.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Use <a class="link" href="#unscaledosd" title="What is this "unscaled" OSD about?">unscaled OSD</a>, as it
does not requires any video to render the subtitles on.
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p><p>
Also notice that DVD overlays (including subtitles) are meant to
be displayed in a fixed position, this is how the DVD menu
highlighting works. xine does not support moving them.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="What kinds of subtitle fonts does xine use?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="supportedfonts"></a>What kinds of subtitle fonts does xine use?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine can use two kinds of fonts:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
TTF fonts
</p><p>
If xine is compiled with freetype library xine recognizes and uses TTF
fonts directly.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
xine fonts
</p><p>
This is xine's native format. It's better because the font
generator utility implements more features than the "on the fly" TTF renderer.
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p><p>
The font for text subtitles is selected via config option
<em class="parameter"><code>subtitles.separate.font</code></em>. You can specify xine font name
(<em class="parameter"><code>sans</code></em>, <em class="parameter"><code>serif</code></em>, …)
or file name of the TTF font. The directories
<code class="filename">$prefix/share/xine/libxine1/fonts</code> and
<code class="filename">~/.xine/fonts</code> are searched for the fonts, with
<code class="filename">$prefix</code> being the place xine-lib was installed to.
Usually this is <code class="filename">/usr/local</code> or <code class="filename">/usr</code>.
TTF fonts are also searched for in the current directory.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="How to create own xine subtitle fonts?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="generatefonts"></a>How to create own xine subtitle fonts?</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine's native subtitle fonts can be generated from TTF fonts with the
utility <span class="command"><strong>xine-fontconv</strong></span>. It isn't compiled and installed by default but
you can make it manually. You'll need freetype and zlib packages together with
their versions for development plus a compiler, of course ;)
Here's how you build <span class="command"><strong>xine-fontconv</strong></span>:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
Get the source of xine-fontconv utility from the <code class="filename">misc</code>
directory within the xine-lib sources.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Compile it:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>gcc xine-fontconv.c -o xine-fontconv `freetype-config --cflags --libs` -lz</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></li></ul></div><p>
You'll need some TTF font for generating. Characters in this font should
cover all codepages you want supported, otherwise you'll have missing characters.
</p><p>
Syntax is:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>./xine-fontconf font.ttf font_name [encoding1 [encoding2 […]]]</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
For example default font <code class="filename">sans</code> was generated with
following command:
</p><pre class="screen">
<span class="command"><strong>./xine-fontconv Aril_Bold.ttf sans iso-8859-1 iso-8859-2 iso-8859-5 \
iso-8859-9 iso-8859-15 cp1250 cp1251</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
There are displayed messages about missing characters on the screen
during generating. It's OK if the missing characters are U+007f..U+009F.
These characters come from iso-8859-1 and they aren't displayable.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Encoding of external subtitles is bad. What is wrong?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="subencoding"></a>Encoding of external subtitles is bad. What is wrong?</h3></div></div></div><p>
The encoding of the external subtitles is expected to be iso-8859-1 by
default. You need to set an appropriate encoding in the config option
<em class="parameter"><code>subtitles.separate.src_encoding</code></em>. Note that you also need
a font which contains all characters from the given encoding.
</p><p>
The default font <code class="filename">sans</code> and fonts
<code class="filename">serif</code> and <code class="filename">mono</code> cover these
encodings:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>iso-8859-1</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>iso-8859-2</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>iso-8859-5</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>iso-8859-9</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>iso-8859-15</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>windows-1250</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>windows-1251</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" title="Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="errors"></a>Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="Starting xine crashes X, I am logged out of my desktop!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="xfreecrash"></a>Starting xine crashes X, I am logged out of my desktop!</h3></div></div></div><p>
xine itself is unable to crash X, so when your X server just shuts down or
restarts with the login screen, there is something wrong with your X setup.
Most common are problems with the Xv extension. Try running xine with the XShm
video output plugin:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -V XShm</strong></span></pre><p>
</p><p>
If that works fine, you just proved, that the Xv extension is buggy. xine will
remember the last used video output plugin, so the setting will stay at XShm.
You could simply continue using this, but XShm is a lot slower than Xv, so
consult the <a class="link" href="#xvextension" title="How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?">section on Xv</a> and see if you can
get it working. Usually you should look for updated versions of the X driver
module that belongs to your graphics card.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="audiodrivererr"></a>Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!</h3></div></div></div><p>
You can select the audio driver using the -A option. So try:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -A null</strong></span></pre><p>
If you have ALSA drivers installed, try:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -A alsa</strong></span></pre><p>
If you run ESD (not recommended), try:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -A esd</strong></span></pre><p>
If you run artsd, try:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>xine -A arts</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""no video port found""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="novideoportfound"></a>"no video port found"</h3></div></div></div><p>
You got the Xv extension, but your video card driver doesn't support it.
First try to find a driver that does support Xv on your hardware (check
your graphics card vendor). If your driver has Xv support but you can't
get it working, try at a lower resolution (1024x768 is enough even for
anamorphic DVDs).
</p><p>
If all that fails, you can still use plain X11/XShm:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>gxine -V XShm foo.vob</strong></span></pre><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="unabletoopendvddrive"></a>"Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)"</h3></div></div></div><p>
You probably don't have /dev/dvd (check that). If so, simply create a
link /dev/dvd that points to your DVD device. Something like…
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>ln -s hdc /dev/dvd</strong></span></pre><p>
… should do the job. Also make sure you have read and write access on
the device the symlink points to.
See the <a class="link" href="#dvdplayback" title="How do I play back DVDs with xine?">dvd playback section</a>
for more information.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="status0x51"></a>My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }"</h3></div></div></div><p>
This error can be fixed by recompiling your kernel with the option
"Use multi-mode by default" enabled in the IDE settings.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="demuxerror0000"></a>"demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)"</h3></div></div></div><p>
Probably xine can't access your input source. Most commonly this happens
when you're trying to play locked/encrypted DVDs. Remember that xine
can't play such DVDs out-of-the box for legal reasons (see above).
</p><p>
If it is legal where you live, you can try to install libdvdcss. Once
you have done that and re-start xine, it should automatically detect
and use it to play back encrypted DVDs.
</p><p>
Another reason could be that your (RPC-2) DVD drive isn't set up
for the right region (see above).
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="ossfailed"></a>"audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead"</h3></div></div></div><p>
First of all, make sure that your OSS Audio drivers are working (i.e.
you can play music with other software). Maybe you're using alsa?
If so, try <span class="command"><strong>gxine -A alsa</strong></span> to see if this helps.
</p><p>
The most common reason for oss not working is that some other program is accesing
your audio device. If you're using linux, the command <span class="command"><strong>fuser /dev/dsp</strong></span>
should give you the PID of the process.
</p><p>
If you are using GNOME, chances are that this is caused by ESD. Now you
have two possibilities. Either deactivate ESD (temporarily) by right
clicking on the sound monitor applet and selecting "Place Esound in
standby" or just kill it. Then xine will use OSS audio output. The other
method is to make xine use ESD for audio output with:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>gxine -A esd</strong></span></pre><p>
This may result in worse playback – exact syncronization is not possible
with esd, so using oss should be preferred.
</p><p>
If you are using KDE, there is the possibility that the aRts sound
daemon is currently running and thus blocking your sound device. You
can check that by starting the aRts control (in your KDE menu it should
be under Multimedia). If it is running, you can either use the aRts
audio output plugin:
</p><pre class="screen"> <span class="command"><strong>gxine -A arts</strong></span></pre><p>
Or you suspend the aRts daemon by checking the appropriate option in
your aRts control. (recommended)
</p><p>
Newer versions of arts have an auto-suspend mode – this can lead to
some nondeterministic behaviour of xine if it is set up to use
the audio device directly. Using arts is recommended in that case;
however, you will lose the ability to do four/five channel audio output.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="throwingawayimage"></a>"video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old"</h3></div></div></div><p>
This is a performance related problem.
If you have a fast computer and this message is shown from time to
time when playing a DVD or CD, it's very likely that DMA is not enabled
for your drive.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'.""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="novideopluginavailable"></a>"No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'."</h3></div></div></div><p>
You have tried to play a stream using a unknown or unhandled codec.
Possibly the file uses some obscure proprietary format and no
information is available on how to decode it.
</p><p>
If you're on an x86 platform (e.g. PC hardware) you might want to
try installing binary-only windows medial, real networks and
quicktime codecs (see above).
</p></div><div class="sect2" title=""w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?""><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="decoderfailedtostart"></a>"w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?"</h3></div></div></div><p>
You probably don't have the win32 dll needed to decode this file.
</p></div><div class="sect2" title="xine just crashed on me – i didn't get any error message"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="xinecrashed"></a>xine just crashed on me – i didn't get any error message</h3></div></div></div><p>
OK, yes, that shouldn't happen and you're upset. We can understand that.
But, to help you and of course to fix this, we need some information.
So, let's go through the checklist and maybe prepare a nice bug report
for the <a class="ulink" href="http://bugs.xine-project.org/" target="_top">xine bug tracker</a>:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
Did xine really crash (segfault) or did it hang (deadlock)?
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Can you reproduce the bug? (e.g. do you remember what you
did and when you do it again it crashes again?)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Is that a specific media file or format which crashes xine? (Have you
tried other files types?)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Check the console output (and include it in a bug report), maybe earlier
there is some output that points to the problem.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Your X server just froze on you? unfortunately that's a known problem
with some chipsets and drivers (most commonly Savage chipsets) when
using Xv. You might want to try running <span class="command"><strong>gxine -V XShm</strong></span>
to see if the problem is related to the Xv driver. This will unfortunately
be much slower, as lots of things are now done in software instead of
hardware scaling/colour space conversion.
</p><p>
Maybe at the time you read this, there's an X upgrade which fixes
this for the Savage driver. If that works for you, please notify the xine crew at
<code class="email"><<a class="email" href="mailto:xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net">xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</a>></code>, so they can update this FAQ!
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Even though we try to make each release as bug free as possible, xine is
still under heavy development (nice excuse, isn't it? *grin*).
</p><p>
If you write to the <a class="ulink" href="http://bugs.xine-project.org/" target="_top">xine bug tracker</a>
make sure you include a the above information (when applicable)
and also some information about your machine (operating system, cpu type and
speed, gfx card, sound card, …) and please use a meaningfull subject
line ("xine bug" is bad, "xine fails to play this quicktime trailer in fullscreen mode"
ist much better).
</p><p>
Thanks for taking the time to help improve xine.
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p></div></div></div></div></body></html>
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files
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