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mtv | PocketTV for WinCE | MpegTV SDK |
MPEG Video+Audio and VCD Player for Linux and Unix | MPEG Video+Audio Player for Windows-CE devices (FREE!) | Toolkit includes MPEG Video+Audio real-time library and sample source code for Linux and WinCE |
Usage |
The mtv distribution contains two executable files: mtv which is the graphic front-end and mtvp which is actual run-time Player. You should keep both files in the same directory.mtvp is a command-line application (no graphic user-interface). It is free for non-commercial non-governmental use, and has no limitation.
mtv is a graphic front-end for mtvp. It requires a license (Shareware or Commercial). Without a license key, mtv has some limitations.
mtv and mtvp can play MPEG-1 files that contain video or video+audio. Those files usually have the .mpg extension. Sometimes they have other extensions such as .mpeg, .m1v, .mps, .m1s, etc.
There are different ways to start mtv (or mtvp):
- To play an MPEG file:
$ mtv file.mpg
- To choose a file in a directory with *.mpg files:
$ mtv directory
Open a file browser in the specified directory at startup. This works only with mtv.
If needed, click on the pattern box and enter a different pattern for the file extension (by default *.mpg).
- To play an MPEG stream directly from a URL (http, ftp, etc):
$ mtv URL
Type "mtv -h" to see what type of URL's are supported.
- To play VCD track #n (replace n by 1, 2, 3 etc):
$ mtv vcd:n
- To play an MPEG stream from stdin:
$ mtv - <file.mpg
- To simply start mtv:
$ mtv
- To start mtv iconified:
$ mtv -i
- To print the usage and options:
$ mtv -h
The VCR-like controls of mtv are quite obvious, and a small balloon help will pop-up if you keep the mouse pointer on a control for more than a second.
You can click on the video window to make the control windows disapear and re-appear. This feature is useful to make the control window visible when it is hidden under other windows: just click on the video window a couple of times.
You can change the horizontal size of the control windows to get more accuracy when seeking with the horizontal slide-bar.
mtv or mtvp can be installed as the default MPEG viewer (or MPEG helper application) for your Web browser. Check the FAQ for details.
Command-line Options |
mtv recognizes a number of command-line options. To see all the options type "mtv -h
".For example, if you do not have an audio board, you can use option -a0 to disable completely audio. If you don't, the Player will complain that it cannot open the audio device.
Environment Variables |
mtv and mtvp recognize various environment variables. To see the list of those environment variables, type "mtv -h
" and "mtvp -h
". You can use mtvp's environment variables with mtv, too.To set an environment variable in your csh/tcsh start-up file (e.g. ~/.cshrc), you can use the setenv command:
To set an environment variable with sh, you can use:
$ setenv MTVP_AUDIO_DEVICE_MAIN /dev/audio2You can also use the "env" command wrapper to define the environment variable just while executing a command, like:
$ MTVP_AUDIO_DEVICE_MAIN=/dev/audio2; export MTVP_AUDIO_DEVICE_MAIN
$ env MTVP_AUDIO_DEVICE_MAIN=/dev/audio2 mtv file.mpg
Framerate & Sync Options |
mtv has various frame synchronization modes:Play only I-frames will play only the Intra frames, as fast as possible, without audio.
Play only I- and P-frames will play only the Intra and Predicted frames, as fast as possible, without audio..
Play all video frames will play all the frames, as fast as possible, without audio. The display will be smooth, but there is no guarantee that it will play at the proper speed. It will play slower or faster than the nominal framerate depending on the performances of your system and of the size of the frames.
Play video at nominal framerate will play the video at the framerate indicated in the bitstream, usually 24 or 30 frames/sec). This can cause some frames to be skipped if your computer is too slow or if the images are too large to be decoded or displayed fast enough. This is the default mode.
Play video at specified framerate will play the video at the framerate selected with the slide-bar. Some frames may be skipped if your computer is too slow or if the images are too large to be decoded and displayed at the selected framerate.
The framerate is controlled with the slide-bar for playing faster or slower (down to 1 frame per sec). The "Nominal framerate" button selects the nominal framerate. Note that Audio can only be played at the nominal framerate.
The actual number of frames displayed per second is displayed on the main control panel, together with the total number of frames played since the last random access (a random access occurs when you start playing from a new position in the sequence).
Audio Options |
When playing MPEG-1 Systems streams the Player plays the audio in sync with the video.You can select between 3 possible audio qualities, and select between Mono (left or right channel) or Stereo. Note that selecting "High quality" and/or Stereo increase the CPU resources used by the audio decoder. The best compromise quality/resources is "Medium quality" in Mono, which is the default. There are command-line options to select the audio mode.
Note that Low quality audio (ulaw) is not available in Stereo (it will play in mono even if Stereo is selected).
Audio can only be played at the nominal framerate. If you play at another rate, audio will be turned off automatically (until you come back to the nominal framerate).
If your system supports a mixer device (/dev/mixer) you can choose if the Volume and Balance controls should act on the Master volume or on the PCM volume (default is PCM). This option is currently available only on systems using OSS audio driver.
If your system supports audio output selection you can choose between line-out, headphones or internal speakers. This option is currently available only for Solaris-sparc systems.
Option -a0 can be used to disable audio completely.
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Last Modified:
31 Jul 99
All Rights Reserved © 1998 MpegTV LLC
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