least processor intensive video player

xcable

I'm putting gentoo on to K6-2 based SBC (single board computer) and a Geode 233 based SBC. I'm looking for a video (mpeg 1/2/4) player that has the least processor overhead. I'm tried mplayer (which is my mpalyer for my workstation) but its too slow for mpeg 4 (divx) palyback.

Any body have experince with embeded linux and/or good low processor video players?

xcable

Mitchybums · n00b Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 68 Location: iowa

I used xine on a pII 366 modile without problems playing divx.
this was on a redhat install (7.3) with 196 mb.
Gentoo on a 233mmx should run better.

Raoul_Duke · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2003 4:50 pm Post subject:

Yep, i run Xine on a 433mhz Celeron and i can run it perfectly smoothly, even whilst compiling stuff........well worth it :wink:

pantherace · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 79

Frankly mplayer is the best. I got it running on Zaurus (and others have carried this on). Mplayer is much less memory hungry than any Xine variant (example: the opie media player on Z (based on xine), which cannot even run on a default Sharp ROM with 32MB of RAM)

Likely you are running into issues with fpu (mplayer's mp3,etc decoder seem to be optimized for intel.) I would suggest that you try using libmad for the mp3codec as it is integer based and very good, or try ffmp3 which is ffmpeg's mp3 decoder, but not as good as mad.

In addition to the Z (206Mhz StrongARM (no fpu)) I have used mplayer on a p-233 mmx laptop, on framebuffer, with no noticable framedrop (note at the time, I did not have an audio out, but it was decoding the audio) You will be unable to scale in software real-time.

Malakin · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2003 9:58 pm Post subject:

I've seen divx videos that need an 800mhz cpu (p3/althon) just to watch them so you'll have problems with some videos no matter what on that system. dvd's generally need something in the 400mhz range to work although it varies on the dvd a little.

Also of importance is make sure you're using xv for video output and obviously make sure dma is enabled. Without xv the cpu requirements skyrocket.

Both xine and mplayer work fine for me. I doubt one is much faster then the other.

Anubis · n00b Joined: 09 Nov 2002 Posts: 68 Location: BYU

I would use mplayer with the -nocache option on the command line. This helps to speed things up as well. Hence:

Ethereal · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2003 12:29 pm Post subject:

mplayer is the best now http://mplayerhq.hu
try to get accelerated X drivers, use fast video output plugins(xv, dga, xvidix) decrease color depth, use libavcodec(ffmpeg/ffdivx) codec family, use fast audio output. For more read mplayer docs, there is a special section about it.

pantherace · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 79

A pretty good summary. (I wish people would read things like this, there are a whole bunch of questions asked about things like this on mplayer-users, just because people dont rtfm)

http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/747/

To the person with the 800MHz p3/athlon required to play: What resolution, video card, sound card, player, and bitrate.

I can scale up the bitrate to high heaven and have it play just fine with always less than 50% cpu usage on a p3-800. Likely something is messed up.

Malakin · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 1:01 am Post subject:

connyosis · n00b Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 53

xine has for some reason always been faster and more stable than mplayer for me. I used to play divx movies on my K6-2 350 MHz without any problems with xine.
_________________
If rubbin cold dirt in your crotch is wrong - I don't wanna be right!

Beekster · Apprentice Joined: 26 Nov 2002 Posts: 268 Location: Sydney

How much work, if any, gets offloaded to more modern video cards?

Running movies (in mplayer), be they divx, xvid, or mpeg has my P4 1.7 averaging close to 0%. It does have periodic spikes every 5 seconds or so that usually hits 1%, with it hitting 2 or 3% occasionally. I assume that has more to do with fetching the data than decoding it.

This is with a Ti4600 GF4 video card. Is the video card doing a lot of the work? I probably have more processing power in the video card than the CPU, cerainly paid twice the price of the CPU for it...

I think you could play video on less than a 486DX4-100 if you could find a board for it with an AGP slot and stuck a modern video card in it... :wink:

connyosis · n00b Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 53

Well to some extent a fast video card will take on some load from the processor. I remember being able to watch divx movies without any "choppiness" when I switched from a Nvidia TNT card to a GeForce.
_________________
If rubbin cold dirt in your crotch is wrong - I don't wanna be right!

gilesjuk · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 11:16 pm Post subject:

Malakin · Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2003 1:57 am Post subject:

Beekster · Apprentice Joined: 26 Nov 2002 Posts: 268 Location: Sydney

pantherace · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 79

Beekster · Apprentice Joined: 26 Nov 2002 Posts: 268 Location: Sydney

Thanks for the info, pantherace. I knew there was package documentation under /usr/share/doc but had never spent much (read any) time browsing through it. I'm going to be busy for a while...

Malakin · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2003 4:41 am Post subject:

pantherace · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 79

trythil · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2003 5:16 pm Post subject:

SDL uses the XVideo extension for video output when it can, which is why you're not seeing much of a difference between Xv and SDL output modules.