Mplayer & Matrox video output

Becks · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Dec 2002 Posts: 90

Some hints for those who also use a matrox card (G200, G400 f.e.) and want to be able to use the video output modus mga and/or xmga...

Step 1 - get (at least the package) for mplayer.
The easiest way is to emerge the package:

madripper · n00b Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Posts: 6

great howto! this was the only thing that got it working for me. -ben!

enrique · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2002 Posts: 342 Location: Denmark

Edit:

If you have a Matrox G400 Dualhead, you can also use mga_vid + mplayer to get TV out:

www.rockhopper.dk/linux/hardware/graphics_cards.html#chap2_sect3

Only problem pt is that it does not work well under 2.6.x new versions work fine with 2.6.x
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madripper · n00b Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Posts: 6

himasaram · n00b Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 28 Location: Gbg, Sweden

Hi! I'm trying to get video playback working with my Matrox G200. The best solution I have right now is to use mplayer's x11 video output driver and change my resolution to 640x480, as this driver doesn't support fullscreen. This way I get an acceptable, but horribly rough output (especially with subs). Any other driver shows very unpleasant artifacts all over the screen (xv), chrashes the system (directfb) or plain doesn't work (the rest).

While trying to follow your steps, I get as far as step 3, where compile failes.

daff · Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:56 pm Post subject:

Appearantly the mga_vid module/driver doesn't work anymore, at least not with any 2.6.x kernel (certainly not with mine, gentoo-dev 2.6.7-r12).

Also, support for any cards of the G200/G400/G550 series seems to be pretty f*cked in 2.6, seems you're lucky if you just get matroxfb to work so it doesn't panic your kernel when booting.

That's sad, the G400/G550 are such nice cards.
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blscreen · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 10:44 pm Post subject:

mga and matroxfb works here with gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.8.

BTW: wouldn't it be possible to let the mplayer ebuild do the required steps for mga support? There is a matrox USE-flag which causes the mga_vid module to be built, but it is not loaded before the mplayer configure script. So there is no /dev/mga_vid on devfs systems resulting in a negative test for mga in the configure script.

daff · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 7:28 am Post subject:

blscreen: Could you probably post the steps you took to get mga (is that mga_vid?) and matroxfb working? I am just not able to get them working (I run a gentoo-sources-2.6.7-r12 but maybe it's time to update?).

Building mga_vid fails for me with the very long error message posted above and matroxfb (lots of modules), when loaded, REALLY screws up my console (lots and lots of nice, small, colored dots and dotted lines, all over the screen, nothing readable anywhere).

I'd really appreciate it as certainly do others, too since the steps outlined in the parent post are a bit dated (Dec 2002).
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Instead of asking why a piece of software is using 1970s technology,
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.

blscreen · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 11:24 am Post subject:

For mga I used the steps from the initial post. 4c is not required if you use devfs, instead of 4d you can then add a line in /etc/modules.d/aliases (not sure if this is really needed)

karnesky · Apprentice Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 218

In the 2.6 kernels, I have been happy using mgatv from the sourceforge CVS. It just allows watching tv in overlay mode, but it uses v4l2. I have also has excellent results using driver_fb from CVS, which has more features & is v4l1.

karnesky · Apprentice Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 218

daff · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:29 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the information blscreen and karnesky!

Do you know if the gentoo-dev-sources are already patched for CONFIG_FB_SPLASH (I don't think so) or if it works patching them? The howto seems to describe the vanilla-dev-sources.

Unfortunately my attempts fail, as told, when I try to make the mga_vid module in /usr/src/MPlayer-1.0pre4/drivers with a message like the following (sorry for the long post). I think I'll try gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.8 and see if there's a difference.

blscreen · Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:

This bug should be fixed in the latest ~x86 version. In your /etc/portage/package.keywords (create it if it is not there) put the line

himasaram · n00b Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 28 Location: Gbg, Sweden

I got my setup working with my Matrox card after emerging the latest directfb-drivers and running mplayer -vo directfb. It's impossible to control resolution, but otherwise a quite slick solution. Good luck!

dmr · Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:31 pm Post subject:

blscreen · Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 2:01 pm Post subject:

daff · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 8:52 pm Post subject:

Now it finally works. Finally, finally, finally.

I applied attachment 37867 (thanks dmr) to 1.0pre4-r7, rebuilt it (mplayer), and it works now with xmga.

Using Xorg, gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.8-r3 and my G400.

However building the driver from /usr/src/linux/MPlayer-1.0pre4-r7/drivers doesn't work at all. Fails with the errors I posted above. Dunno what this is.

Now to get the G400's second head working in a usable manner.
_________________
Instead of asking why a piece of software is using 1970s technology,
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.