movieplayer(1)movieplayer(1)NAME
movieplayer, mediaplayer - player for media files
SYNOPSIS
mediaplayer [-options] [-nofork] [-N] [-v] [-z zoomfactor] [-l loopcount]
[-W swingcount] [-b bandwidth] [mediafile]
DESCRIPTION
mediaplayer, also known as movieplayer for backwards compatibility, is a
player application for SGI, QuickTime, AVI and MPEG-1 movie files, as
well as Audio files supported by the SGI audiofile library (eg, AIFF,
AIFC, WAVE, MPEG1-audio, Sun .snd/Next .au, etc.).
mediaplayer can be used as a stand-alone application with a graphic user
interface for interactive control of the playback. It can also be used as
a command line utility for launching playback from within other
applications, such as IRIS Showcase or your favorite World Wide Web
browser, or from your own shell scripts.
COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS AND FLAGS-nofork
Specifies that mediaplayer should run in the foreground, when
invoked from the shell. This option is consistent with the rest of
the bundled media tools. The deprecated option -f is equivalent and
is provided for backward compatibility.
-N Provide no window borders for the visual portion of the playback.
Even though the window has no border, you can still use the standard
window manager commands to move and close the window.
-v Specifies view-only mode. In this mode, the menu bar and transport
controls are hidden, leaving only the display of the media inside
the window (if needed). By using the pop-up menu on button 3
(usually the right button), the user may show these at a later time.
This pop-up menu will also enable the user to save the file under a
different name, or quit the application.
-z zoomfactor
Specifies zoom factor for the visual display of the media. The size
of the display will be scaled up or down by the specified amount in
both the X and Y dimensions. The zoom factor can be expressed in a
floating point value from 0.1 to 4.0. (Not applicable to audio
files.)
-l loopcount
Play the movie the specified number of times, then exit. A value of
0 means to loop forever. This option automatically places the
player into view-only mode.
-W swingcount
Play the movie forward and reverse the specified number of times,
then exit. A value of 0 means to alternately play the media
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forwards then backwards forever. A swing count value of 2 will play
the media forward once, backward once, and then quit the program.
This option automatically places the player into view-only mode.
-b bandwidth
Play the movie with the given audio bandwidth, which may be "f"
(full), "h" (half), or "q" (quarter). Lower bandwidths require less
computation and may result in better video quality. This option is
currently used for MPEG-1 movies only. The default is half
bandwidth.
RESOURCES
If you want private customizations, create or edit the file to
$HOME/.desktop-`hostname`/MediaPlayer to add resources with your desired
values (eg, "audioBandwidth: full", etc).
SUPPORTED TYPES OF MEDIA
QuickTime Movie
mediaplayer is able to play QuickTime movies for which an available
decompressor has been installed. Such decompressors may include one
of the following:
Cinepak
Apple Animation (RLE encoding)
Apple Video (RPZA encoding)
Apple Compact Video
Apple Photo (non-interlaced JPEG) Note *
Standard QuickTime Motion JPEGA (MJPEGA)
Intel Indeo Video (R3.2)
Huffman (Lossless encoding)
DV/DVCPro data
``Raw'' (uncompressed)
Note *: JPEG decompression is done using hardware on O2 machines if
the image size is a multiple of 8 high and 8 wide.
In addition, mediaplayer can play movies in the QuickTime format
that have been compressed with the Cosmo Compress board, using
hardware playback support on Indy's with Cosmo Compress boards, or
on O2 systems using its built in hardware support. This interlaced
JPEG encoding will not be playable on other platforms supporting
QuickTime; for cross-platform use, these movies should be converted
to either Motion JPEG-A or Photo-JPEG, or one of the other standard
compression schemes (uncompressed, CinePak, etc).
mediaplayer does not require that the QuickTime file be flattened
before it can be played. However, the resource fork must exist in
its proper location. If the file was copied to the IRIX file system
using the IRIX Interactive Desktop, the appropriate resource files
should be in place. (But note that rcp or cp will not automatically
copy the resource fork file!) However, it should be noted that, in
many cases, playback performance as well as file size will be
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improved on flattened files. Therefore, before publishing movies, it
is generally advisable to flatten them. moviemaker(1)'s ``Export
As'' command, as well as mediaconvert and dmconvert can flatten
QuickTime movies.
mediaplayer now also supports playing QuickTime movies with
compressed audio, for the audio compression schemes IMA4:1 (common
on some sites on the Internet), and DV-Audio (normally only seen in
DV/DVCPro QuickTime files).
SGI Movie
When the Cosmo Compress hardware is present, mediaplayer will play
interlaced JPEG files created by or for use with Cosmo Compress.
These movies will also play using the built in hardware support in
the O2 platform.
MPEG-1 video bitstream, MPEG-1 systems (audio/video) bitstream
mediaplayer supports playback of MPEG-1 movies (video bitstreams, or
systems bitstreams with a video track). Unlike SGI and QuickTime
movies, MPEG-1 movies generally do not include index table
information which facilitates track length determination and frame-
accurate random access.
AVI Movie
mediaplayer is able to play AVI movies that use these compression
schemes: JPEG, Apple Compact Video, Indeo R3.2 or none
(uncompressed).
DV/DVCPro DIF Movies
mediaplayer is able to play DV or DVCPro DIF movies (streams). This
is an industry-standard raw file format commonly used to store data
copied from DVC format camcorders and VCRs. It can contain image and
audio data.
Audio Files
mediaplayer supports all file formats supported by the SGI audio
file library, including AIFF-C, AIFF, NeXT/Sun format, WAVE, BICSF,
MPEG1 bitsream, SoundDesigner2, and others. Please see
afInitFileFormat(3dm) for more details.
KEYBOARD COMMANDS
mediaplayer and moviemaker support left-arrow and right-arrow keyboard
equivalents for "step forward" and "step backward" when viewing a movie
file. Note that this functionality applies only to movie files, not audio
files.
COPY SUPPORT
When the user makes a selection using the timeline, mediaplayer will
activate the "Copy" entry on the "Edit" menu. mediaplayer supports
copying the current selection to the X-Clipboard, so that users may paste
from mediaplayer into other X-based applications, such as moviemaker,
imgworks, soundeditor, inperson, etc. When a user chooses "Copy,"
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mediaplayer will advertise a number of formats of data that it makes
available to other applications to paste:
Movie Data
A Movie of the current selection. (SGI or QuickTime)
Audio Data
An audiofile of the current selection, assuming that the current
selection contains audio data.
Still Image Data
A still image representing the first frame of the current selection,
assuming that the current selection contains a data that can be
represented as an image.
IMPORTANT CHANGE
mediaplayer supports all of the command-line options that were supported
in movieplayer (which mediaplayer obsoletes) with one notable exception.
The command flag -S is no longer supported. Use the standard X -geometry
method instead. These should proceed the mediaplayer command-line
options.
EXAMPLES
To show a simple movie window at a specific area on the screen, without
borders or a control panel, use a command like:
mediaplayer -geometry +100+100 -v -N moviefile
To make a movie appear on the screen, play itself three times, and
disappear, use a command like:
mediaplayer -geometry +100+100 -l 3 moviefile
TRADEMARKS
Cinepak is a trademark of Radius, Inc.
Apple is a registered trademark and QuickTime is a trademark of Apple
Computer, Inc.
Indeo is a registered trademark of Intel Corp.
NOTES
The 'Maintain Aspect Ratio' menu item only affects the graphics display
of movies. It has no effect on video-output or Cosmo hardware playback.
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movieplayer(1)movieplayer(1)SEE ALSOsoundplayer(1), capture(1), moviemaker(1), soundeditor(1),
showcase(1), mediaconvert(1), dmconvert(1), makemovie(1),
dminfo(1), imgworks(1), afInitFileFormat(3dm)
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