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XINE: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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VERSION
=> $Id: FAQ_en,v 1.16 2002/06/11 21:24:20 heikos Exp $
INDEX
-===-
1 THE FAQ
1.1 What's the aim and scope of this text?
1.2 My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help?
2 GENERAL QUESTIONS
2.1 What are those xine-lib, xine-ui and xine-plugin modules for?
2.2 Where and how do I get the latest development version?
2.3 Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?
3 THE BUILD PROCESS
3.1 What do I need to compile everything properly?
3.2 How do I compile xine?
3.2.1 simple build instructions for beginners
3.2.2 complete build instructions
3.2.3 making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui)
3.3 Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?
3.4 Are there binaries for my K7 available? Can I build them?
3.5 Build problems: xine-lib.
3.5.1 The package doesn't compile at all!
3.5.2 The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile!
3.6 Build problems: xine-ui.
3.6.1 I have installed xine-lib but xine-ui complains about not finding it!
3.7 Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root) ?
4 INSTALLATION
4.1 Is it possible to use windows codecs with xine?
4.2 Where should I put the win32 codec dlls for xine?
4.3 This is great! Could you provide these dlls?
5 THE PLEASURE OF RUNNING XINE :)
5.1 GENERAL QUESTIONS
5.1.1 I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do?
5.1.2 I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... !
5.1.3 How do I play streams from STDIN?
5.1.4 How do I change the skin of the xine gui?
5.1.5 What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?
5.1.6 What do all these ~/xine/config entries mean?
5.1.7 How do I use the dvd plugin?
5.1.8 I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region!
5.1.9 Can xine play (S)VCDs?
5.1.10 How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?
5.2 AUDIO RELATED QUESTIONS
5.2.1 When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!
5.2.2 I have trouble with loading ALSA 0.9.x libs! (alsa09 audio plugin)
5.2.3 What about ALSA 0.5.x?
5.2.4 Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?
5.2.5 What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?
5.2.6 Changing the volume with the GUI control has not affect! What's up!?
5.3 VIDEO RELATED QUESTIONS
5.3.1 I can hear the audio - but I don't see the picture!
5.3.2 How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?
5.3.3 The xine logo is being displayed but I don't see my video!
5.3.4 Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!
5.3.5 The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!
5.3.6 How can I change color/brightness/contrast?
5.3.7 What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?
5.4 ERROR MESSAGES: WHAT THEY MEAN AND WHAT YOU CAN DO.
5.4.1 Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!
5.4.2 "no video port found"
5.4.3 "Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)"
5.4.4 "demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)"
5.4.5 "input_dvd: Sorry, xine doesn't play encrypted DVDs. The legal status
of CSS decryption is unclear and we will not provide such code."
5.4.6 "audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead"
5.4.7 "video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old"
5.4.8 "No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'."
5.4.9 "w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?"
5.4.10 "xine-lib xxx expected. Version xxx found"
6 BUGS - GET THAT DAMN VERMIN EXTERMINATOR NOW! ;-)
6.1 I did the impossible - I really found a bug! Who can I inform about it?
1 THE FAQ
1.1 What's the aim and scope of this text?
The primary goal of this FAQ is to cover all recurring questions related
to all of the xine modules.
1.2 My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help?
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. ;-)
That said - you are welcome to mail to our user mailing list.
xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net
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.
2 GENERAL QUESTIONS
2.1 What are those xine-lib, xine-ui and xine-plugin modules for?
Some time ago xine just became too complex to be just one big program.
Therefore it was split into two major parts.
xine-lib is simply speaking the engine of xine. It contains all plugins
and is necessary to run anything that relies on xine.
xine-ui is basically the user interface which makes use of the xine-lib.
xine-plugin is a general browser plugin that makes it possible to
watch your favorite video streams within your browser (e.g. mozilla)
using the xine engine.
gnome-xine is a gnome frontend for the xine-engine and can be used
as a replacement for xine-ui. It is more focused on the general
media-player aspects of xine, as opposed to the full-featured
dvd-player-like gui that xine-ui is.
2.2 Where and how do I get the latest development version?
Check it out of our CVS:
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine login
[empty password]
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine co xine-lib
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine co xine-ui
Or you alternatively get daily checkouts as tar archive on our web site.
2.3 Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?
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 for further info.
You can also find links to third parties providing xine RPMs on
the xine homepage.
See section 3 of this faq for instructions on how to build xine
from source.
3 THE BUILD PROCESS
3.1 What do I need to compile everything properly?
First of all an official and stable release of gcc because there seem
to be still problems with gcc-3.x. Also be aware that patched gcc versions
may break parts of xine and are therefore not supported by us (libmpeg2
is broken when compiled with pgcc).
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.
3.2 How do I compile xine?
3.2.1 simple build instructions for beginners
Download the latest xine-lib and xine-ui tarballs, then follow
these instruction. To unpack a tarball, use:
tar xfvz tarballname.tar.gz
The following instructions will install xine in /usr/local for all
users. You need root privileges to do this on most systems.
First unpack xine-lib, then:
./configure
make install
Make sure your /etc/ld.so.conf contains /usr/local/lib, then:
ldconfig
Now unpack xine-ui, then:
./configure
make install
3.2.2 complete build instructions
The build process is the same for all of the xine modules (see 2.1 for
an explanation of the modules).
You have to start with xine-lib. If built and installed successfully, you
can continue with xine-ui and/or xine-plugin.
If you have installed xine-lib to a non-standard prefix, make sure you
that you have $prefix/bin in your PATH and that your linker finds
libs in $prefix/lib - otherwise trying to build modules that
rely on xine-lib will fail with configure complaining about not
finding certain parts of libxine. Using bash you can do something like:
export PATH="$prefix/bin:$PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$prefix/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
to make sure libxine can be found by xine-ui/xine-plugin/....
Last but not least. Here the build instructions. Like stated earlier,
those are the same for every xine module.
./cvscompile.sh [-> *only* if you checked your sources out of CVS]
./configure
make
make install
3.2.3 making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui)
Basically you will only have to issue one command, if you have just
downloaded a source tarball from our web site:
rpm -ta THE_NAME_OF_YOUR_SOURCE_TAR_BALL
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
usally /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/[YOUR_ARCHITECTURE] and a source RPM is written
to your rpm source dir (e.g. /usr/src/RPM/SRPMS).
In case that you have a fresh CVS checkout, 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 "rpm -ta" command above:
./cvscompile.sh && make clean && make dist
In every case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install
xine-lib first before you can proceed with xine-ui.
3.3 Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?
Yes, you can do so by setting the CFLAGS variable and then run
configure again.
This can be useful to specify additional include paths or library paths
to the compiler.
Example: export CFLAGS="-I/usr/include -L/home/guenter/xine_libs"
3.4 Are there binaries for my K7 available? Can I build them?
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 setting the xine_BUILD envvar
explicitly to a valid description string for your configuration, e.g.
export xine_BUILD=k7-pc-linux-gnu
rm -f config.cache
./cvscompile.sh
make
make install
3.5 Build problems: xine-lib.
3.5.1 The package doesn't compile at all!
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.
3.5.2 The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile!
If you want to have Xv support compiled in, make sure you either have
a shared Xv library on your system, e.g. ls /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv*
should give you some .so libs, like this:
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.a
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so.1
Alternatively you need to have libtool 1.4 or newer installed. If not
and you only got libXv.a you can create the shared versions yourself:
ld --whole-archive -shared -o libXv.so.1 libXv.a
ln -s libXv.so.1 libXv.so
ldconfig
Now you should be ready to build the Xv video-out plugin on your system.
3.6 Build problems: xine-ui.
3.6.1 I have installed xine-lib but xine-ui complains about not finding it!
First of all take a closer look at 3.2 again. You will probably find your
answer there right away.
Like stated in 3.2 (there again that hint *grin*), make sure that you
have $prefix/bin in your path and that your linker is able to find
libraries installed in $prefix/lib (by the way, $prefix is where you
installed your xine-lib to earlier (yes, installing xine-lib with
"make install" would be a good idea before trying to compile xine-ui ;)).
3.7 Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root) ?
yes. first set up a subdir where you install your private software, eg
$ mkdir ~/usr
then you have to set a few environment variables - it's probably a good
idea to add this to your ~/.bashrc (or somewhere similar):
export PATH="$HOME/usr/bin:$PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/usr/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export CFLAGS="-I$HOME/usr/include -L$HOME/usr/lib -O3"
export ACLOCAL_FLAGS="-I $HOME/usr/share/aclocal"
now you can unpack tarballs e.g. in ~/usr/src (mkdir ~/usr/src if
necessary) and do a
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/usr
$ make install
4 INSTALLATION
4.1 Is it possible to use windows codecs with xine?
Yes, xine is able to use some win32 dlls (as used on windows systems)
to decode a few obscure formats. We do not endorse such use of binary
codecs, the user is solely responsible for any license conflicts.
Some codecs that are known to work (not an exhaustive list):
mpg4c32.dll - Microsoft MPEG-4 v1/v2
ir50_32.dll - Indeo Video 5 format
ir41_32.dll - Indeo Video 4.1 format
ir32_32.dll - Indeo Video 3.2 format
iccvid.dll - Cinepak video
wmvds32.ax - Windows Media Video 7
wmv8ds32.ax - Windows Media Video 8
vp31vfw.dll - VP32 Video format
divxa32.acm - DivX audio (WMA)
voxmsdec.ax - Voxware Metasound
These win32 dlls only work on x86 systems.
4.2 Where should I put the win32 codec dlls for xine?
xine uses
/usr/lib/win32
by default to search for dlls, but you can change this in your config
file (located in ~/.xine) by editing:
codec.win32_path:/usr/lib/win32
4.3 This is great! Could you provide these dlls?
No. The code in these dlls is proprietary software (owned by microsoft,
intel and others). Some of them are available for download on the web
(at no cost), but we can't provide them for legal reasons (due to license
restrictions, both from xine and codec sides).
You may already have these codecs in your computer if you have
a windows partition.
5 THE PLEASURE OF RUNNING XINE :)
5.1 GENERAL QUESTIONS
5.1.1 I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do?
Your hardware might be too slow for xine. Make sure you turn on all
speed optimizing options. A few things you should check:
- first of all, run the xine-check script included in xine-ui
package (probably already installed in your system).
xine-check will report several of the most common problems
listed here. Sample output from xine-check:
$ xine-check
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
- use a recent kernel which is optimized for your hardware
- use the latest gas/gcc
- close other applications (use a tool like "top" to find out
what applications are using up CPU power)
- if you are not using Xv, make sure your display is set up
to 16bpp, not 24 or higher (reduces memory bandwith)
- make sure the hard drive (or cdrom/dvd drive) which supplies the
video data is in DMA mode (if supported)
On most linux-based systems, you can use hdparm to check this.
Example:
hdparm /dev/hda
...
using_dma = 1 (on)
...
You can enable DMA mode with the following command:
hdparm -d1 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data
More information about this may be found here:
=> http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html
- xine needs high speed memory access which depends on your chip set.
Make sure you enable all speed-improving options.
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):
=> http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp
This website centers around a windows-tool to tweak the chipset, you
can do the same on FreeBSD with pciconf. On some linux distributions
there are similar tools.
- a nice performance tuning tool can be found here:
=> http://powertweak.sourceforge.net
- 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.
If you're using XFree 4.x, enabling MTRR support in your kernel should
be enough.
Try a cat /proc/mtrr - if the file exists and you find an entry
corresponding to the amount of graphics memory you have, everything
should be fine.
- set up and use raw devices for dvd access
Raw devices should be available in linux kernel 2.4.x and there are
patches for older kernels available from:
=> ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/
To use raw devices, first connect a free raw device to your dvd
device, use something like:
raw /dev/raw1 /dev/hdc
then create a link named "rdvd" pointing to that raw device:
ln -s /dev/raw1 /dev/rdvd
5.1.2 I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... !
Check out the the corresponding README files in the directory:
xine-ui/doc
5.1.3 How do I play streams from STDIN?
Use something like:
cat stream.mpg | xine stdin://mpeg1
Or, if you've got an mpeg-2 stream use:
cat stream.vob | xine stdin://mpeg2
5.1.4 How do I change the skin of the xine gui?
The easiest way to do this is by selecting your favorite theme with
the gui itself. In order to do this, start xine and push the control
button on the panel which opens a menu window (that also contains the
contrast controller for example). There you will find xine's skin
chooser. Click your desired skin and your new theme will come into
affect immediately.
And if you wanna do it the hard way :) you can also edit the
appropriate entry in your ~/.xine/config file (gui.skin).
5.1.5 What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?
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 ;>
To use it make sure you have aalib installed correctly before you
configure/build xine-lib and xine-ui. In addition to the "xine" binary a
binary named "aaxine" should get built and installed. You can then use
something like:
aaxine foo.mpg
to use aalib video output.
5.1.6 What do all these ~/.xine/config entries mean?
You can find information about them in xine-ui/doc/README.config_en.
5.1.7 How do I use the dvd plugin?
First of all:
The dvd plugin delivered with xine does not support playback of locked
and/or encrypted dvds. You will need external programs or something
like an "enhanced" xine_dvd_plugin to view these DVDs with xine
directly. Of course (technically speaking) you can easily play back the
decrypted mpeg2 stream (which is the movie on the dvd) with xine, if
the data on the dvd is decoded with the help of additional programs.
xine's standard dvd plugin also can't handle menus. For more information
about menu support please check http://dvd.sf.net
If you install a different or "enhanced" dvd plugin, it will be
accessible on xine-ui as a new button. Hitting "DVD" button will
_always_ give you the standard dvd plugin (without menu support and
decryption/unlocking) .
Due to the uncertain legal situation regarding css decryption we do not
include anything of that nature in the xine distribution, nor do we
generally endorse the use of such software (you should check if the use
of such software is legal where you live).
We hope that this situation will change soon.
The easiest way to play an unlocked/unencrypted dvd is to press the DVD
button on the xine panel and then the play button. Now everything should
work out-of-the-box. Please note that for this to work you don't need to
mount your dvd. Just lean back and enjoy the movie... :-)
Alternatively you can also do all the work by yourself (even though
unnecessary but if you want to: the user is the king *grin*):
Please note, if you go this way, you will *not* have seamless branching
of the dvd movie. You have to play each part of the movie manually.
(...why don't just press the dvd button anyway!? ;-))
Mount your dvd and check what files are on the disc. There should be
some files like:
[...]/VIDEO_TS/VTS_xx_x.VOB, where x are numbers.
If you look for the big .VOB files on a dvd, those are probably the
ones where the movie is in. To play one of those big files, start xine
like that:
xine dvd://VTS_xx_x.VOB
Make sure you do not supply any path name (no VIDEO_TS/) and use capital
letters for the file name.
xine tries to open the dvd using /dev/cdrom. On FreeBSD this will only
work if you create a symlink to your dvd-devicenode for the time being.
5.1.8 I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region!
You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here:
=> http://linuxtv.org/download/dvd/dvd_disc_20000215_css.tar.gz
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.
5.1.9 Can xine play (S)VCDs?
Yes, use a MRL like:
xine VCD://[track number]
5.1.10 How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?
use a MRL like:
xine foo.avi%bar.sub
5.2 AUDIO RELATED QUESTIONS
5.2.1 When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!
This can happen with mpeg-2 material such as DVDs.
Try another audio channel:
xine -a channel stream.vob
(or select the channel by using the gui-buttons)
Some .vob files have audio on strange channels (e.g. 3, 7, 10).
5.2.2 I have trouble with loading ALSA 0.9.x libs! (alsa09 audio plugin)
Joel Atyas
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