MPlayer2 Is Still Alive & Kicking

Written by Michael Larabel in Multimedia on 12 August 2011 at 09:44 AM EDT. 36 Comments
MULTIMEDIA
Back in March I reported on the MPlayer2 fork of the popular MPlayer multi-media application. MPlayer2 came as a result of one of the MPlayer developers being denounced from the group and from there the developer and others took to implementing their own desired features and functionality from a fork of the open-source code-base. But how's the MPlayer2 project now doing?

The MPlayer2 project is still alive and kicking, as I was reminded yesterday via Twitter. The MPlayer2 Git repository is still being actively developed. Additionally, its comparison page now boasts several more features that it has over upstream MPlayer:

- Greater NVIDIA VDPAU support
- Better pause handling
- Better Matroska support
- Easy-to-use multi-threading with ffmpeg-mt being used by default
- Support for precise seeks
- Support for gettext-based translations
- No dependence on embedded FFmpeg tree or internal FFmpeg symbols
- Improved audio/video sync handling
- OSS4 volume control support
- Support for gapless playback of audio files
- Better responsiveness

Of particular interest to Phoronix readers is likely the better Matroska support, multi-threading, and the improved Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix support. The improved VDPAU in MPlayer2 is said to deliver better performance, removal of certain limitations, support for frame-timing functionality, and other minor improvements.

The MPlayer2 project also has completely dropped the Mencoder application over poor quality code and other issues.

More information on this open-source project can be found at MPlayer2.org.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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