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• Evolution #2173 (Résolu) : Date de création / publication

  13 janvier 2018, par nico d_

  J’ai ajouté la doc du plugin : https://contrib.spip.net/ecrire/?exec=article&id_article=4967

  Pas encore publiée, mais je propose de fermer ce ticket dès qu’elle le sera, et de continuer la discussion sur le forum du plugin sur contrib.

• FFMPEG process Killed and raises returncode 137 when executed through python3 subprocess.Popen but runs fine from the command line

  22 novembre 2017, par Stuart Clarke

  I’m not sure if this is the best way to go about this, but I have another question here which I don’t think was asked very well (or more to the point I realised the actual problem and have a simpler way of asking for help). If you can answer this question you’ll have the answer to the other.

  I’m using python 3.5.2 and ffmpeg 3.3.4-2 and have this function to run my ffmpeg commands :

  def ffmpegPro(args):
  
      err = None
  
      for i, arg in enumerate(args):
  
          if(" " in arg or "(" in arg or "[" in arg):
  
              args[i] = "\"" + arg + "\""
  
      command = [
  
          ffmpegcmd, '-y',
  
          '-loglevel', loglevel
  
      ] + args
  
      commandStr = " ".join(command)
  
      ffmpeg = subprocess.Popen(commandStr, stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, universal_newlines=True, shell=True)
  
      out, err = ffmpeg.communicate()
  
      if ffmpeg.returncode != 0:
  
          print(commandStr + "\n" + "ERROR CODE: " + str(ffmpeg.returncode))
  
          raise Exception(err)

  When I pass the following args the returncode is 137 and the process is Killed. This only occurs when executed in python, when I run the same command at the command line it executes as expected.

  ['-i', '/var/www/temp/film.mp4', '-vf', 'scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:x=(1920-iw)/2:y=(1080-ih)/2:color=black', '/var/www/temp/videoHD.mp4']

  The resulting command is :

  ffmpeg -y -loglevel verbose -i /var/www/temp/film.mp4 -vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:x=(1920-iw)/2:y=(1080-ih)/2:color=black" /var/www/temp/videoHD.mp4

  When executed through python :

  ERROR CODE: 137
  
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  
    File "getInsta2.py", line 740, in <module>
  
      populate(media_feed, last, saved)
  
    File "getInsta2.py", line 679, in populate
  
      videoPost(media, hasVids, thisSaved)
  
    File "getInsta2.py", line 639, in videoPost
  
      processVideo(film, final, noMusic, audios, lengths)
  
    File "getInsta2.py", line 358, in processVideo
  
      ffmpegPro(args)
  
    File "getInsta2.py", line 170, in ffmpegPro
  
      raise Exception(err)
  
  Exception: ffmpeg version 3.3.4-2~16.04.york0 Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the FFmpeg developers
  
    built with gcc 5.4.0 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4) 20160609
  
    configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version='2~16.04.york0' --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-gpl --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librubberband --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzmq --enable-libzvbi --enable-omx --enable-openal --enable-opengl --enable-sdl2 --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-chromaprint --enable-frei0r --enable-libopencv --enable-libx264 --enable-shared
  
    libavutil      55. 58.100 / 55. 58.100
  
    libavcodec     57. 89.100 / 57. 89.100
  
    libavformat    57. 71.100 / 57. 71.100
  
    libavdevice    57.  6.100 / 57.  6.100
  
    libavfilter     6. 82.100 /  6. 82.100
  
    libavresample   3.  5.  0 /  3.  5.  0
  
    libswscale      4.  6.100 /  4.  6.100
  
    libswresample   2.  7.100 /  2.  7.100
  
    libpostproc    54.  5.100 / 54.  5.100
  
  [h264 @ 0x7fa3db55a560] Reinit context to 640x368, pix_fmt: yuv420p
  
  Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/var/www/temp/film.mp4':
  
    Metadata:
  
      major_brand     : isom
  
      minor_version   : 512
  
      compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
  
      encoder         : Lavf57.71.100
  
    Duration: 00:06:19.80, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 451 kb/s
  
      Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High), 1 reference frame (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(left), 640x358 (640x368), 313 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn, 60 tbc (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : VideoHandler
  
      Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : SoundHandler
  
  Stream mapping:
  
    Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> h264 (libx264))
  
    Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> aac (native))
  
  Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
  
  [h264 @ 0x7fa3db59c700] Reinit context to 640x368, pix_fmt: yuv420p
  
  [graph_1_in_0_1 @ 0x7fa3db7115e0] tb:1/48000 samplefmt:fltp samplerate:48000 chlayout:0x3
  
  [Parsed_scale_0 @ 0x7fa3db72e000] w:1920 h:1080 flags:'bicubic' interl:0
  
  [graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x7fa3db72f6a0] w:640 h:358 pixfmt:yuv420p tb:1/15360 fr:30/1 sar:0/1 sws_param:flags=2
  
  [Parsed_scale_0 @ 0x7fa3db72e000] w:640 h:358 fmt:yuv420p sar:0/1 -> w:1920 h:1074 fmt:yuv420p sar:0/1 flags:0x4
  
  [Parsed_pad_1 @ 0x7fa3db72eac0] w:1920 h:1074 -> w:1920 h:1080 x:0 y:2 color:0x000000FF
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7fa3db7309e0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 AVX2 LZCNT BMI2
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7fa3db7309e0] profile High, level 4.0
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7fa3db7309e0] 264 - core 148 r2795 aaa9aa8 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2017 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=6 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00
  
  Output #0, mp4, to '/var/www/temp/videoHD.mp4':
  
    Metadata:
  
      major_brand     : isom
  
      minor_version   : 512
  
      compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
  
      encoder         : Lavf57.71.100
  
      Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (libx264), 1 reference frame ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p(left), 1920x1080, q=-1--1, 30 fps, 15360 tbn, 30 tbc (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : VideoHandler
  
        encoder         : Lavc57.89.100 libx264
  
      Side data:
  
        cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: -1
  
      Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) ([64][0][0][0] / 0x0040), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, delay 1024, 128 kb/s (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : SoundHandler
  
        encoder         : Lavc57.89.100 aac
  
  Killed
  
  </module>

  Note the Killed at the end. This occurs just before any processing begins.

  BUT when run from the command line (cutting and pasting the command as outputted by the code) we get :

  ffmpeg version 3.3.4-2~16.04.york0 Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the FFmpeg developers
  
    built with gcc 5.4.0 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4) 20160609
  
    configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version='2~16.04.york0' --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-gpl --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librubberband --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzmq --enable-libzvbi --enable-omx --enable-openal --enable-opengl --enable-sdl2 --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-chromaprint --enable-frei0r --enable-libopencv --enable-libx264 --enable-shared
  
    libavutil      55. 58.100 / 55. 58.100
  
    libavcodec     57. 89.100 / 57. 89.100
  
    libavformat    57. 71.100 / 57. 71.100
  
    libavdevice    57.  6.100 / 57.  6.100
  
    libavfilter     6. 82.100 /  6. 82.100
  
    libavresample   3.  5.  0 /  3.  5.  0
  
    libswscale      4.  6.100 /  4.  6.100
  
    libswresample   2.  7.100 /  2.  7.100
  
    libpostproc    54.  5.100 / 54.  5.100
  
  [h264 @ 0x7f68c918f560] Reinit context to 640x368, pix_fmt: yuv420p
  
  Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/var/www/temp/film.mp4':
  
    Metadata:
  
      major_brand     : isom
  
      minor_version   : 512
  
      compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
  
      encoder         : Lavf57.71.100
  
    Duration: 00:06:19.80, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 451 kb/s
  
      Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High), 1 reference frame (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(left), 640x358 (640x368), 313 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn, 60 tbc (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : VideoHandler
  
      Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : SoundHandler
  
  Stream mapping:
  
    Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> h264 (libx264))
  
    Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> aac (native))
  
  Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
  
  [h264 @ 0x7f68c91d1700] Reinit context to 640x368, pix_fmt: yuv420p
  
  [graph_1_in_0_1 @ 0x7f68c93465e0] tb:1/48000 samplefmt:fltp samplerate:48000 chlayout:0x3
  
  [Parsed_scale_0 @ 0x7f68c9363000] w:1920 h:1080 flags:'bicubic' interl:0
  
  [graph 0 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x7f68c93646a0] w:640 h:358 pixfmt:yuv420p tb:1/15360 fr:30/1 sar:0/1 sws_param:flags=2
  
  [Parsed_scale_0 @ 0x7f68c9363000] w:640 h:358 fmt:yuv420p sar:0/1 -> w:1920 h:1074 fmt:yuv420p sar:0/1 flags:0x4
  
  [Parsed_pad_1 @ 0x7f68c9363ac0] w:1920 h:1074 -> w:1920 h:1080 x:0 y:2 color:0x000000FF
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 AVX2 LZCNT BMI2
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] profile High, level 4.0
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] 264 - core 148 r2795 aaa9aa8 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2017 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=6 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00
  
  Output #0, mp4, to '/var/www/temp/videoHD.mp4':
  
    Metadata:
  
      major_brand     : isom
  
      minor_version   : 512
  
      compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
  
      encoder         : Lavf57.71.100
  
      Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (libx264), 1 reference frame ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p(left), 1920x1080, q=-1--1, 30 fps, 15360 tbn, 30 tbc (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : VideoHandler
  
        encoder         : Lavc57.89.100 libx264
  
      Side data:
  
        cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: -1
  
      Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) ([64][0][0][0] / 0x0040), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, delay 1024, 128 kb/s (default)
  
      Metadata:
  
        handler_name    : SoundHandler
  
        encoder         : Lavc57.89.100 aac
  
  frame=   46 fps=0.0 q=0.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:01.62 bitrate=   0.0kbits/s
  
  frame=   59 fps= 46 q=29.0 size=     116kB time=00:00:02.04 bitrate= 464.8kbits/
  
  frame=   72 fps= 40 q=29.0 size=     203kB time=00:00:02.49 bitrate= 667.2kbits/
  
  frame=   84 fps= 36 q=29.0 size=     308kB time=00:00:02.88 bitrate= 875.9kbits/
  
      Blah
  
      Blah
  
      Blah
  
  frame=11351 fps= 21 q=26.0 size=   97572kB time=00:06:18.45 bitrate=2112.1kbits/
  
  frame=11367 fps= 21 q=29.0 size=   97732kB time=00:06:18.98 bitrate=2112.5kbits/
  
  frame=11384 fps= 22 q=29.0 size=   97809kB time=00:06:19.56 bitrate=2111.0kbits/
  
  No more output streams to write to, finishing.
  
  frame=11392 fps= 21 q=-1.0 Lsize=   98519kB time=00:06:19.77 bitrate=2125.1kbits/s speed=0.715x    
  
  video:92124kB audio:5986kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 0.416313%
  
  Input file #0 (/var/www/temp/film.mp4):
  
    Input stream #0:0 (video): 11392 packets read (14892948 bytes); 11392 frames decoded; 
  
    Input stream #0:1 (audio): 17803 packets read (6112540 bytes); 17802 frames decoded (18229248 samples); 
  
    Total: 29195 packets (21005488 bytes) demuxed
  
  Output file #0 (/var/www/temp/videoHD.mp4):
  
    Output stream #0:0 (video): 11392 frames encoded; 11392 packets muxed (94334785 bytes); 
  
    Output stream #0:1 (audio): 17802 frames encoded (18229248 samples); 17803 packets muxed (6129981 bytes); 
  
    Total: 29195 packets (100464766 bytes) muxed
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] frame I:74    Avg QP:19.08  size: 51540
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] frame P:3506  Avg QP:21.34  size: 19348
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] frame B:7812  Avg QP:24.07  size:  2904
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] consecutive B-frames:  1.3% 20.2%  4.6% 73.9%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] mb I  I16..4: 19.7% 73.6%  6.7%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] mb P  I16..4:  3.2%  6.4%  0.1%  P16..4: 52.5%  7.6%  2.6%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:27.6%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] mb B  I16..4:  0.2%  0.2%  0.0%  B16..8: 23.2%  0.4%  0.0%  direct: 0.5%  skip:75.5%  L0:51.8% L1:46.6% BI: 1.6%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] 8x8 transform intra:66.4% inter:94.0%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 33.6% 53.4% 7.3% inter: 5.3% 14.2% 0.0%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] i16 v,h,dc,p: 22% 27%  5% 46%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 29% 19% 20%  4%  7%  7%  7%  5%  4%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 31% 28% 11%  3%  9%  7%  6%  3%  2%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] i8c dc,h,v,p: 49% 21% 20% 10%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.5% UV:0.1%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] ref P L0: 63.4%  8.9% 21.4%  6.3%  0.0%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] ref B L0: 89.3%  9.1%  1.6%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] ref B L1: 98.1%  1.9%
  
  [libx264 @ 0x7f68c93659e0] kb/s:1987.38
  
  [aac @ 0x7f68c9366e80] Qavg: 1160.814

  and the output video is fine.

  Why would this process be killed by python ?

  Thanks,

  Stu

• Linux Media Player Survey Circa 2001

  2 septembre 2010, par Multimedia Mike — General

  Here’s a document I scavenged from my archives. It was dated September 1, 2001 and I now publish it 9 years later. It serves as sort of a time capsule for the state of media player programs at the time. Looking back on this list, I can’t understand why I couldn’t find MPlayer while I was conducting this survey, especially since MPlayer is the project I eventually started to work for a few months after writing this piece.

  For a little context, I had been studying multimedia concepts and tech for a year and was itching to get my hands dirty with practical multimedia coding. But I wanted to tackle what I perceived as unsolved problems– like playback of proprietary codecs. I didn’t want to have to build a new media playback framework just to start working on my problems. So I surveyed the players available to see which ones I could plug into and use as a testbed for implementing new decoders.

  Regarding Real Player, I wrote : “We’re trying to move away from the proprietary, closed-source “solutions”. Heh. Was I really an insufferable open source idealist back in the day ?

  Anyway, here’s the text with some Where are they now ? commentary [in brackets] :

  ---

  Towards an All-Inclusive Media Playing Solution for Linux

  I don’t feel that the media playing solutions for Linux set their sights high enough, even though they do tend to be quite ambitious.

  I want to create a media player for Linux that can open a file, figure out what type of file it is (AVI, MOV, etc.), determine the compression algorithms used to encode the audio and video chunks inside (MPEG, Cinepak, Sorenson, etc.) and replay the file using the best audio, video, and CPU facilities available on the computer.

  Video and audio playback is a solved problem on Linux ; I don’t wish to solve that problem again. The problem that isn’t solved is reliance on proprietary multimedia solutions through some kind of WINE-like layer in order to decode compressed multimedia files.

  Survey of Linux solutions for decoding proprietary multimedia
  updated 2001-09-01

  AVI Player for XMMS
  This is based on Avifile. All the same advantages and limitations apply.
  [Top Google hit is a Freshmeat page that doesn’t indicate activity since 2001-2002.]

  Avifile
  This player does a great job at taking apart AVI and ASF files and then feeding the compressed chunks of multimedia data through to the binary Win32 decoders.

  The program is written in C++ and I’m not very good at interpreting that kind of code. But I’m learning all over again. Examining the object hierarchy, it appears that the designers had the foresight to include native support for decoders that are compiled into the program from source code. However, closer examination reveals that there is support for ONE source decoder and that’s the “decoder” for uncompressed data. Still, I tried to manipulate this routine to accept and decode data from other codecs but no dice. It’s really confounding. The program always crashes when I feed non-uncompressed data through the source decoder.
  [Lives at http://avifile.sourceforge.net/ ; not updated since 2006.]

  Real Player
  There’s not much to do with this since it is closed source and proprietary. Even though there is a plugin architecture, that’s not satisfactory. We’re trying to move away from the proprietary, closed-source “solutions”.
  [Still kickin’ with version 11.]

  XAnim
  This is a well-established Unix media player. To his credit, the author does as well as he can with the resources he has. In other words, he supports the non-proprietary video codecs well, and even has support for some proprietary video codecs through binary-only decoders.

  The source code is extremely difficult to work with as the author chose to use the X coding format which I’ve never seen used anywhere else except for X header files. The infrastructure for extending the program and supporting other codecs and file formats is there, I suppose, but I would have to wrap my head around the coding style. Maybe I can learn to work past that. The other thing that bothers me about this program is the decoding approach : It seems that each video decoder includes routines to decompress the multimedia data into every conceivable RGB and YUV output format. This seems backwards to me ; it seems better to have one decoder function that decodes the data into its native format it was compressed from (e.g., YV12 for MPEG data) and then pass that data to another layer of the program that’s in charge of presenting the data and possibly converting it if necessary. This layer would encompass highly-optimized software conversion routines including special CPU-specific instructions (e.g., MMX and SSE) and eliminate the need to place those routines in lots of other routines. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
  [This one was pretty much dead before I made this survey, the most recent update being in 1999. Still, we owe it much respect as the granddaddy of Unix multimedia playback programs.]

  Xine
  This seems like a promising program. It was originally designed to play MPEGs from DVDs. It can also play MPEG files on a hard drive and utilizes the Xv extensions for hardware YUV playback. It’s also supposed to play AVI files using the same technique as Avifile but I have never, ever gotten it to work. If an AVI file has both video and sound, the binary video decoder can’t decode any frames. If the AVI file has video and no sound, the program gets confused and crashes, as far as I can tell.

  Still, it’s promising, and I’ve been trying to work around these crashes. It doesn’t yet have the type of modularization I’d like to see. Right now, it tailored to suit MPEG playback and AVI playback is an afterthought. Still, it appears to have a generalized interface for dropping in new file demultiplexers.

  I tried to extend the program for supporting source decoders by rewriting w32codec.c from scratch. I’m not having a smooth time of it so far. I’m able to perform some manipulations on the output window. However, I can’t get the program to deal with an RGB image format. It has trouble allocating an RGB surface with XvShmCreateImage(). This isn’t suprising, per my limited knowledge of X which is that Xv applies to YUV images, but it could also apply to RGB images as well. Anyway, the program should be able to fall back on regular RGB pixmaps if that Xv call fails.

  Right now, this program is looking the most promising. It will take some work to extend the underlying infrastructure, but it seems doable since I know C quite well and can understand the flow of this program, as opposed to Avifile and its C++. The C code also compiles about 10 times faster.
  [My home project for many years after a brief flirtation with MPlayer. It is still alive ; its latest release was just a month ago.]

  XMovie
  This library is a Quicktime movie player. I haven’t looked at it too extensively yet, but I do remember looking at it at one point and reading the documentation that said it doesn’t support key frames. Still, I should examine it again since they released a new version recently.
  [Heroine Virtual still puts out some software but XMovie has not been updated since 2005.]

  XMPS
  This program compiles for me, but doesn’t do much else. It can play an MP3 file. I have been able to get MPEG movies to play through it, but it refuses to show the full video frame, constricting it to a small window (obviously a bug).
  [This project is hosted on SourceForge and is listed with a registration date of 2003, well after this survey was made. So the project obviously lived elsewhere in 2001. Meanwhile, it doesn’t look like any files ever made it to SF for hosting.]

  XTheater
  I can’t even get this program to compile. It’s supposed to be an MPEG player based on SMPEG. As such, it probably doesn’t hold much promise for being easily extended into a general media player.
  [Last updated in 2002.]

  GMerlin
  I can’t get this to compile yet. I have a bug report in to the dev group.
  [Updated consistently in the last 9 years. Last update was in February of this year. I can’t find any record of my bug report, though.]