<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN">

<book>

 <bookinfo>
  <title>The xine engine FAQ</title>
  <titleabbrev>xine FAQ</titleabbrev>
  <copyright>
   <year>2001-2003</year>
   <holder>the xine project team</holder>
  </copyright>
 </bookinfo>

 <article>
  <sect1 id="general">
   <title>General questions about xine and this document</title>

   <sect2 id="about">
    <title>What is the xine engine?</title>
    <para> 
     The xine engine is a free media player engine. It comes in the form of
     a shared libarary and is typically used by media player frontends
     and other multimedia applications for playback of multimedia streams
     such as movies, radio/tv network streams, DVDs, VCDs.
    </para>
    <para>
     Since there are several frontends for the xine library available,
     this document has a problem when it comes to examples.
     The two most common frontends xine-ui and gxine are mixed in command
     line examples throughout this FAQ. When you use a different
     frontend, some of these will not work for you. The filename of
     the config file also varies amongst frontends. If you get confused,
     I recommend you try with one of xine-ui or gxine.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="scope">
    <title>What's the aim and scope of this text?</title>
    <para>
     The primary goal of this FAQ is to cover all recurring questions related
     to the xine engine. Frontend specific questions are usually not covered here.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="wheretogethelp">
    <title>My question is not yet covered here - where can I ask for help?</title>
    <para>
     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. ;-). Also check out the documentation specific to
     the frontend (e.g. <command>xine-ui</command> or <command>gxine</command> or
     <command>totem</command>).
    </para>
    <para>
     That said - you are welcome to mail to our user mailing list:
     <email>xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</email>
     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.
    </para>
   </sect2>
   
   <sect2 id="pronounce">
    <title>How do I pronounce "xine"?</title>
    <para>
     As long as people know what you are talking about, you are free to
     pronounce it the way you like, but the official pronounciation is
     [ksi:n], like the name "Maxine" with the "Ma" removed.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="modules">
    <title>What are those xine-lib, xine-ui, gnome-xine, ... modules in cvs for?</title>
    <para>
     Some time ago xine just became too complex to be just one big program.
     Therefore it was split into two major parts.
    </para>
    <para>
     xine-lib is simply speaking the engine of xine. It contains all basic plugins
     and is necessary to run anything that relies on xine. (This is the part that
     is covered in this FAQ.)
    </para>
    <para>
     Then there are frontends - applications that use xine. The most
     common frontend is that of a media player. There are currently
     two frontends being developed in the xine project, xine-ui (skinned
     dvd-player style frontend directly based on xlib) and gxine,
     a desktop media-player style frontend using the standard gtk widget set
     and comes with a mozilla browser plugin.
     External projects like kaffeine, sinek and totem develop additional frontends.
     In the future you will likely see more and different types of applications
     being developed which will use the xine engine for video processing
     and other multimedia purposes.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you simply want a media/dvd player, you'll need to install xine-lib
     first and then choose and install a player frontend like xine-ui or gxine.
    </para>
    <para>
     Other modules in CVS are: <filename>xine-plugin</filename> a mozilla browser plugin
     for streaming media playback using xine, 
     <filename>xine_www</filename> the
     xine project website sources.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="cvs">
    <title>Where and how do I get the latest development version?</title>
    <para>
     Be advised that end-users should stick to the official xine releases.
     The CVS and Mercurial repositories are only intended for developers and for others who know why they use it.
    </para>
    <sect3>
     <title>Checking out xine modules from Mercurial</title>
     <para>
      The repositories are listed at <ulink url="http://hg.debian.org/hg/">http://hg.debian.org/hg/</ulink>;
      however, this is a list of all repositories which are kept there, not just the
      xine project's (which are the ones which begin with <filename>xine-lib/</filename>). To check one out:
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>hg clone http://hg.debian.org/hg/<filename>repository</filename> <filename>local_copy</filename></command></screen>
      e.g.
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>hg clone http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib xine-lib</command></screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      Currently, only xine-lib and gxine are present here.
     </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3>
     <title>Checking out xine modules from CVS</title>
     <para>
      To check out xine modules from CVS, first do this:
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@xine.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine login</command></screen>
      The password is empty, just press Enter.
     </para>
     <para>
      Then, to check out individual modules (e.g. <filename>xine-lib</filename> or <filename>xine-ui</filename>):
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@xine.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xine co &lt;modulename&gt;</command></screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      If you want xine-lib or gxine, you should use Mercurial instead.
      The CVS repositories for these are not maintained.
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="patch">
    <title>How do I submit patches?</title>
    <para>
     First, make sure that you're using a current development version
     (see above) or at least the current release version. Then, once you're
     ready to send the patch...
    </para>
    <para>
     Generate your patch using either <command>cvs diff -u &gt;
     my.patch</command> or <command>hg diff &gt; my.patch</command> (as
     appropriate). Make sure that your message subject briefly describes the
     patch; your message body should contain a longer description of the
     patch. Your patch should be applicable using <command>patch -p0 -i
     my.patch</command> or, preferably, <command>patch -p1 -i
     my.patch</command> from the top-level directory in the source tree
     (i.e. where configure.ac is) - this is fairly important for our
     Mercurial-based repositories since it makes importing your patch that
     much easier (hg import defaults to -p1).
    </para>
    <para>
     Alternatively, if you've been hacking away at a module which is
     maintained using mercurial, you can make them available as diffs - use
     <command>hg export</command> or, if you have several patches, you could
     use <command>hg bundle</command> instead (both require extra
     parameters; <command>hg help export</command> and <command>hg help
     bundle</command> for more details) - or via HTTP by using <command>hg
     serve</command>. In the latter case, you'll need to post a URL from
     which a developer can pull the changes.
    </para>
    <para>
     Patches should normally be sent to the xine-devel mailing list,
     <email>xine-devel@lists.sourceforge.net</email>.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="gnome-xine">
    <title>Why is gxine's CVS module named &quot;gnome-xine&quot;?</title>
    <para>
     Historical reasons: gxine was originally named gnome-xine.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="binaries">
    <title>Where can I find pre-compiled binaries, e.g. RPMs?</title>
    <para>
     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 or use their package search
     tools for further info.
     You can also find links to third parties providing xine RPMs on
     the xine homepage at
     <ulink url="http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases">http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases</ulink>.
    </para>
    <para>
     See the next section of this FAQ for instructions on how to build xine
     from source.
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="building">
   <title>Building and installing xine from source</title>

   <sect2 id="buildrequirements">
    <title>What do I need to compile everything properly?</title>
    <para>
     First of all an official and stable release of gcc. Also be aware 
     that patched gcc versions may break parts of xine and are therefore 
     not supported by the xine project.
    </para>
    <para>
     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.
     Also, zlib is required (including the appropriate header files, which are
     often found in a package called zlib-devel or similar.)
    </para>
    <para>
     If you want to compile xine from CVS, you'll need to have the autobuild tools
     installed (automake, autoconf and libtool - in recent versions).
    </para>
    <para>
     Frontends might need additional libraries, e.g. for gxine you'll need to have
     GTK2 installed. Make sure you have not only the shared libraries themselves
     but also the header files (often packaged seperately as so-called -dev packages)
     on your system.
    </para>
    <para>
     Some plugins that come with the xine engine need additional libraries (otherwise
     they will not be built). For example, libogg and libvorbis (plus their include files)
     are needed for ogg/vorbis support. Most notably, if you want to see any video
     on your X11 desktop (and that's what you're here for, isn't it?), you need the
     X developer packages as well.
    </para>
    <para>
     Don't worry about this too much right now, xine's <command>configure</command>
     (see below) will check for all the stuff needed and will tell you what's missing
     (which means that you should check the output it produces carefully ;) ).
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2>
    <title>How do I compile xine?</title>
    <sect3 id="simplebuildinstr">
     <title> Simple build instructions for beginners </title>
     <para>
      Download the latest xine-lib and gxine/xine-ui tarballs, then follow
      these instruction. To unpack a tarball, use:
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>tar xfvz tarballname.tar.gz</command></screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      The following instructions will install xine in <filename>/usr/local</filename>
      where it will be visible for all users. You need root privileges to do this on most systems.
     </para>
     <para>
      After unpacking xine-lib, issue:
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>make install</command></screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      Make sure your <filename>/etc/ld.so.conf</filename> contains 
      <filename>/usr/local/lib</filename> and continue with:
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ldconfig</command></screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      Now unpack your frontend (gxine or xine-ui or ...), then:
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>make install</command></screen>
     </para>
    </sect3>    
    <sect3 id="completebuildinstr">
     <title>Complete build instructions</title>
     <para>
      The build process is the same for all of the xine modules.
     </para>
     <para>
      You have to start with xine-lib. If built and installed successfully, you
      can continue with the frontend(s).
     </para>
     <para>
      If you have installed xine-lib to a non-standard prefix, make sure
      that you have <filename>$prefix/bin</filename> in your PATH and that your linker finds
      libs in <filename>$prefix/lib</filename> - 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:
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>export PATH="$prefix/bin:$PATH"</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$prefix/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"</command></screen>
      to make sure libxine can be found by the frontend(s).
     </para>
     <para>
      Last but not least. Here the build instructions. As stated earlier,
      those are the same for every xine module.
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./autogen.sh</command> [-> *only* if you checked your sources out of CVS]
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>make</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>make install</command></screen>
     </para>
    </sect3>    
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="rpmbuild">
    <title>Making your own RPM packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)</title>
    <para>
     Basically you will only have to issue one command, if you have just
     downloaded a source tarball from our web site:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>rpmbuild -ta &lt;THE_NAME_OF_YOUR_SOURCE_TAR_BALL&gt;</command></screen>
     (Older versions of RPM use <command>rpm</command> instead of <command>rpmbuild</command>.)
    </para>
    <para>
     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
     something like <filename>/usr/src/RPM/RPMS/&lt;YOUR_ARCHITECTURE&gt;</filename>
     and a source RPM is written to your rpm source dir
     (e.g. <filename>/usr/src/RPM/SRPMS</filename>).
    </para>
    <para>
     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 <command>rpmbuild -ta</command> command above:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./autogen.sh &amp;&amp; make clean && make dist</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     In any case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install
     xine-lib first before you can proceed with xine-ui.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="debbuild">
    <title>Making your own .deb packages (xine-lib, xine-ui, gxine)</title>
    <para>
     You'll need a CVS or HG snapshot tarball or source checked out from the repository.
    </para>
    <para>
     First, make sure that the "devscripts" package is installed. You'll
     then need the following commands (the first one isn't needed unless you're using a snapshot tarball):
     <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>tar xzf &lt;PACKAGE-VER.tar.gz&gt;</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>cd &lt;PACKAGE-VER&gt;</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./autogen.sh noconfig</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>debuild binary</command>
     </screen>
     (If <command>debuild</command> complains about unmet dependencies, then
     install them using <command>aptitude install &lt;PACKAGES&gt;</command> (as root) then re-run
     <command>debuild binary</command>.
    </para>
    <para>
     Once the build has been successfully completed, you'll have some new .debs.
     <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>cd ..</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ls *.deb</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>su - -c 'cd '"`pwd`"' && dpkg -i &lt;DEB_PACKAGES&gt;'</command>
     </screen>
     Ubuntu users will probably want to use this instead of that <command>su</command>:
     <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>sudo dpkg -i &lt;DEB_PACKAGES&gt;</command>
     </screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     In any case, please keep in mind that you have to build and install
     xine-lib first before you can proceed with xine-ui or gxine.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="cflags">
    <title>Can I provide additional CFLAGS for compilation?</title>
    <para>
     Yes, you can do so by setting the CFLAGS variable and then running
     <command>configure</command> again. You can even pass them to
     <command>configure</command> directly. Example:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure CFLAGS="-march=i686"</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     Other user variables <command>configure</command> respects are:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        <command>CC</command> to specify the compiler executable
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        <command>CPP</command> to specify the C preprocessor executable
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        <command>LD</command> to specify the linker executable
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        <command>CPPFLAGS</command> to pass additional include paths or other
        preprocessor options
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        <command>LDFLAGS</command> to pass additional library paths or other
        linker options
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
    <para>
     An example combining some of these would look like:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure CC="/opt/intel/bin/icc" LD="/opt/intel/bin/xild" \
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/dvdnav" LDFLAGS="-L/home/guenter/xine_libs"</command></screen>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="athlonflags">
    <title>Are there binaries for my AMD K7 (Athlon&trade;) available? Can I build them?</title>
    <para>
     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 passing the canonical system name for
     your machine to configure with the <command>--host</command> option, e.g.
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure --host=k7-pc-linux-gnu</command></screen>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2>
    <title>Build problems: xine engine (xine-lib)</title>
    <sect3 id="doesntcompile">
     <title>The package doesn't compile at all!</title>
     <para>
      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.
     </para>
     <para>
      Read again carefully the output <command>./configure</command>
      produced and/or compiler warnings and error reports, they often contain
      helpful information to find out what's going on. If you're stuck here
      and decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list,
      make sure you include these outputs.
     </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3 id="xvpluginfailstobuild">
     <title>The Xv video-out plugin fails to compile!</title>
     <para>
      If you want to have Xv support compiled in, make sure you either have
      a shared Xv library on your system, e.g. 
      <command>ls /usr/X11R6/lib/libXv*</command>
      should give you some .so libs, like this:
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.a
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so.1</screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      Alternatively you need to have libtool 1.4 or newer installed, then 
      libXv.a is sufficient. Otherwise you can create the shared versions yourself:
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ld --whole-archive -shared -o libXv.so.1 libXv.a</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ln -s libXv.so.1 libXv.so</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ldconfig</command></screen>
     </para>
     <para>
      Now you should be ready to build the Xv video-out plugin on your system.
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>

   <sect2>
    <title>Build problems in frontends (gxine/xine-ui/...)</title>
    <sect3 id="xinelibnotfound">
     <title>I have installed xine-lib but the frontend complains about not finding it!</title>
     <para>
      First of all take a closer look at the compilation instructions above again. 
      You will probably find your answer there right away.
     </para>
     <para>
      As stated there (there again that hint *grin*), make sure that you
      have <filename>$prefix/bin</filename> in your path and that your
      linker is able to find libraries installed in <filename>$prefix/lib</filename>
      By the way, $prefix is where you installed your xine-lib to earlier
      (yes, installing xine-lib with <command>make install</command> or
      installing the corresponding distribution-provided -dev or -devel
      package would be a good idea before trying to compile the frontend ;)
      ).
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="nonrootbuild">
    <title>Can I install xine in my home directory (without being root)?</title>
    <para>
     Sure. First set up a subdir where you install your private software, eg.
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>mkdir ~/xine</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     Then you have to set a few environment variables - it's probably a good
     idea to add this to your <filename>~/.bashrc</filename> (or somewhere similar):
     <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>export PATH="$HOME/xine/bin:$PATH"</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/xine/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     Now you can unpack tarballs e.g. in <filename>~/xine/src</filename> 
     (<command>mkdir ~/xine/src</command> if necessary) and do a
     <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>make install</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     You also need to tell frontends using xine-lib, where to find it:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./configure --prefix=$HOME/xine --with-xine-prefix=$HOME/xine</command></screen>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="win32build">
    <title>How to compile xine for Windows?</title>
    <para>
     For compiling xine under Windows with MinGW, CygWin or MS Visual C see <ulink url="http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib?cmd=file;file=doc/README.WIN32;filenode=-1;style=raw"><filename>README.WIN32</filename></ulink>.
    </para>
    <para>
     For cross-compiling xine under comfortable unix-like environment with MinGW see <ulink url="http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib?cmd=file;file=doc/README.MINGWCROSS;filenode=-1;style=raw"><filename>README.MINGWCROSS</filename></ulink>.
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="playback">
   <title>Playback of various stream types</title>

   <sect2>
    <title>DVD Playback with xine</title>
    <sect3 id="dvdplayback">
     <title>How do I play back DVDs with xine?</title>
     <para>
      Newer xine (1.0.x) releases come with a full-featured
      DVD plugin that should be able to handle any unencrypted,
      non-locked DVD with full menu navigation support. No external
      plugins are required anymore here.
     </para>
     <para>
      To get DVD playback working, first make sure you have
      a symlink <filename>/dev/dvd</filename> pointing to your
      DVD device on your system. For example, if your DVD drive
      is the master ide drive on the second IDE channel,
      <filename>/dev/dvd</filename> should point to
      <filename>/dev/hdc</filename>. Please note that if you
      are using the ide-scsi emulation on your system, it is
      likely that your DVD drive got mapped to a scsi device
      node even though it is an ide drive. In that case first
      check out you boot/kernel logs (or run <command>cdrecord -scanbus</command>)
      to find out which device it got mapped to and set the
      symlink accordingly (should be something like <filename>/dev/scd0</filename>,
      <filename>/dev/scd1</filename>, ... in that case).
      Also make sure you (as a user) have sufficient (read and write) permissions
      on your DVD drive. This could mean you either have to change the device
      permissions or add your user to a special group 
      (e.g. <command>addgroup cdrom username</command>),
      depending on your setup and/or distribution.
     </para>
     <para>
      It is highly recommended to switch DMA mode on for your DVD drive
      (without it even very recent machines will have trouble producing
      smooth video output). Use a command like
      <command>hdparm -d 1 &lt;device&gt;</command>
      on your DVD device. Please note that even if you're using ide-scsi
      you will have to set the dma flag on the ide device node (e.g. 
      <filename>/dev/hdc</filename>), not the mapped <filename>/dev/scd</filename>
      scsi device.
     </para>
     <para>
      To be able to play back encrypted DVDs you need to have
      libdvdcss installed on your system (please check if this is legal where
      you live). If you do not understand what the term "encrypted DVD" means
      here: As a rule of thumb, every DVD you have to pay money for is most
      likely encrypted.
     </para>
     <para>
      To make matters worse, apart from encryption, there is another obstacle
      to take: the region code. The DVD authorities decided to divide the world
      into eight geographical regions. Have a look at
      <ulink url="http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/RegionMap.pdf">http://www.dvdforum.gr.jp/RegionMap.pdf</ulink>
      if you want to know which number has been assigned to your country. It is
      now their idea, that you shall only play DVDs, which have been produced
      for your region. If you take a DVD off the shelf in your local store,
      you should find a little globe-like icon which shows the region code the
      disc is for.
     </para>
     <para>
      Newer (post-2000) DVD drives (so-called RPC-2 drives) check the DVD
      region, which means they'll prevent you from playing back DVDs that have
      a different region code from what the drive is set up for. Some drives
      come with a factory setting of region 0 so they can play back
      any DVD until a region code is set. Others refuse to play any DVD at all
      until they are told a region. The easiest way to handle this is to use
      the regionset utility from
      <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&amp;release_id=168415">
       http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&amp;release_id=168415
      </ulink>.
     </para>
     <para>
      Once you have everything set up, try something like
      <command>gxine dvd:/</command> or <command>xine -p dvd:/</command>
      to start dvd playback. Some frontend also offer so-called autoplay
      buttons or menu entries that start dvd playback immediately. 
     </para>
     <para>
      Important: do not try to mount the DVD. Just insert it and hit the DVD autoplay
      button or start xine from the command line.
     </para>
     <para>
      If things do not work as expected, try running the <command>xine-check</command>
      shellscript that comes with xine to see if this gives you further hints on
      what could be wrong.
     </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3 id="dvdlongwait">
     <title>DVD playback works, but it takes a long time until playback starts</title>
     <para>
      This points to a region code problem. Some versions of libdvdcss can play
      back DVDs from other regions than the RPC-2 DVD drive is set up for,
      but this usually means a cryptographic attack (which takes time) has
      to be used to access the DVD.
     </para>
     <para>
      You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here:
      <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&amp;release_id=168415">
       http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&amp;release_id=168415
      </ulink>.
     </para>
     <para>
      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.
     </para>
    </sect3>    
    <sect3 id="regionset">
     <title>I have problems setting up my RPC-2 drive for the right region!</title>
     <para>
      You can download a tool to set the region code of RPC-Drives here:
      <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&amp;release_id=168415">
       http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31346&amp;release_id=168415
      </ulink>.
     </para>
     <para>
      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.
     </para>
    </sect3>    
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="vcdsupport">
    <title>Can I watch Video CDs (VCDs)? SVCDS ? CD-i?</title>
    <para>
     xine supports VCD and SVCD playback out-of-the box. Similar to DVDs,
     make sure you have a <filename>/dev/cdrom</filename> alias pointing
     to your CDROM drive which you will use to play back the (S)VCD.
    </para>
    <para>
     At the moment, CD-i formats are not supported by xine.
    </para>
    <para>
     Do not try to mount the (S)VCD. Simply insert it into your CDROM drive
     and hit the VCD autoplay button or start something like
     <command>gxine vcd:/</command> or <command>xine vcd:/</command>
     from the command line.
    </para>
    <sect3 id="vcdtroubleshooting">
     <title>VideoCD troubleshooting guide</title>
     <para>
      This gives higher-level troubleshooting. More lower-level information is
      given in <link linkend="vcddebug">the next section</link>.
     </para>
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        When you open the configuration dialog of your frontend, you should
        see a <parameter>vcd</parameter> config section. An important setting is
        <parameter>default_device</parameter>. If this is set to the empty string,
        the VCD plugin will try to scan your drives for a suitable device if the
        driver has the capability to scan for drives. However you can set
        the device to something of your choosing. On GNU/Linux, this may be
        <filename>/dev/cdrom</filename> and on Solaris it may be
        <filename>/vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0</filename>.
       </para>
       <para>
        If you set this field, make sure these are correct for your
        particular setup. For example, I generally play out of the DVD
        device and this is called <filename>/dev/dvd</filename> rather than <filename>/dev/cdrom</filename>.
       </para>
       <para></para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Your frontend should offer a VCD autoscan button or menu item.
        If you select this, you should see your CD disk light go on if you have one.
        And the CD should be read. You should get a playlist of what's on the VideoCD.
       </para>
       <para>
        If not something's wrong, possibly you configured the wrong drive.
        You might try to read a disk image of a VideoCD and thus elimate any problems
        with hardware. You can get a test VideoCD disk image to test here:
        <ulink url="http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip">
         http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip
        </ulink>.
        After unzipping this there should be files <filename>test_svcd_pal.cue</filename> and
        <filename>test_svcd_pal.bin</filename>. Run xine with the MRL
<!-- FIXME: This MRL needs to be changed -->
        <filename>vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue:E0</filename>.
        If you see something playing then this is a hardware problem. 
        You might also want to try starting playback-control with
<!-- FIXME: This MRL needs to be changed -->
        <filename>vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue:P1</filename>.
       </para>
       <para></para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        There should be at least one "track", and one "entry" listed for
        the VideoCD and the names of these in the MRL list will end with
        "T1" and "E0" respectively. Often there are other playlist items,
        and if you have menus or still frames there will be
        "segments" as well. The simplest things to check are probably
        "entries" and "tracks". If there are no entries listed or none of
        the tracks or entries play, then there may be a problem with
        that particular medium. So as in the step above, you can try a known good
        sample and perhaps burn a CD from that. More likely if you get this
        far, some of the items listed work and some do not. There are a
        number of debugging switches that you can dynamically turn on and
        off that may be able to help in isolating more specific problems.
        See the <link linkend="vcddebug">section below</link>.
       </para>
       <para></para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Something plays now, but you do not get any menus? Well, first is there
        supposed to be a menu? In the last step you should have seen what is on
        the VideoCD. Still frames are always "segments" so see if you can find one in the MRL
        list and select that.
       </para>
       <para>
        If there are no segments listed, there aren't any still-frame
        menus. It's also possible to have menus in looping MPEG's. Use the
        <command>vcddump</command> tool to find loops. <command>vcddump</command> is
        also part of VCDImager. Another program that can help you examine the contents
        of a VideoCD is <command>vcdxrip</command>.
       </para>
       <para>
        To troubleshoot, start out with the known SVCD example that has a
        still-frame menu at the beginning:
        <ulink url="http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip">
         http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/test_svcd/test_svcd_pal.zip
        </ulink>
        Inside this is a largish file called <filename>test_svcd_pal.bin</filename> and another
        short text file called <filename>test_svcd_ntsc.cue</filename>. These are CD disk
        images; that is, something that could be burned to a CD drive such
        as with <command>cdrdao</command>. However you don't have to create a CD to view these
        with the xine VCD plugin. You should be able to play the VideoCD by running the MRL
<!-- FIXME: This MRL needs to be changed -->
        <filename>vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue</filename>.
        If you see a still frame on startup. Great! If instead you see what
        looks like the beginning of a movie (Blue Streak with Martin Lawrence)
        then go to the next step.
       </para>
       <para></para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        You have a VideoCD with menu and can see it, but there is no menu on startup?
        If you have the VideoCD from the last step, then run the MRL
<!-- FIXME: This MRL needs to be changed -->
        <filename>vcd:/test_svcd_pal.cue:P1</filename>
        If this shows a still frame, but it just does not show when you 
        hit either the "VCD" autoscan button or give a MRL without the P1 at
        the end then go to the next step.
       </para>
       <para>
        If you have another VideoCD, from the MRL list, you should also see "playlist"
        entries. Try selecting the one that ends "P1". If you don't see an entry with P1,
        then your VideoCD does not have playback control (PBC) and although there may
        be a still frame on the VideoCD it may have been authored so it is not easily
        accessed. Again <command>vcddump</command> or <command>vcdxrip</command> can help here.
       </para>
       <para></para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        You have a VideoCD with menu at beginning and can see it using an MRL 
        with P1 at the end, but you want to see it by hitting the "VCD" autoscan button
        as well? Check to see that you have the configuration entry
        <parameter>media.vcd.autoplay</parameter> set to <parameter>playlist</parameter>.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </sect3>
    <sect3 id="vcddebug">
     <title>VideoCD debugging</title>
     <para>
      To facilitate tracking down problems we let you see what's going on dynamically.
      Various debugging settings will cause output to appear on xine's plugin log
      and/or on standard error output. See the config entry <parameter>media.vcd.debug</parameter>
      for details.
     </para>
     <para>
      The tool <command>vcd-info</command> from the cdio branch of vcdimager can be used to
      show the entire contents of a VideoCD or selected portions of that. Until the cdio
      branch of vcdimager is completely merged with vcdimager, the cd-info branch version
      has a few more features. (However consult vcdimager for complete version of the program.)
     </para>
     <para>
      <command>vcdxrip</command> can be used to extract portions of a VideoCD and or create an
      XML description file of the VideoCD. This XML file and the extracted
      files can be used by <command>vcdxbuild</command> to recreate another VideoCD.
     </para>
     <para>
      And finally see also tools <command>cd-info</command> and <command>cd-read</command> from libcdio.
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="quicktime">
    <title>Can I watch Quicktime (.mov, .mp4) files using xine?</title>
    <para>
     Quicktime is just a system layer (container format) which can contain various 
     different audio and video formats. The system layer itself is fully supported
     in xine. However, some quicktime audio/video codecs are not natively supported yet.
     Luckily, if you are using a x86 compatible machine (any recent PC hardware should do)
     you can install and use the original Quicktime DLLs and watch most streams
     (trailers) that can be downloaded from the net.
    </para>
    <para>
     Possibly the most convenient way to get the Quicktime DLLs is to download
     them from the MPlayer website
     <ulink url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html">
      http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
     </ulink>.
     The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you find
     inside to <filename>/usr/lib/codecs</filename> (actually you can place them
     anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll
     have to set <parameter>decoder.external.win32_codecs_path</parameter> in your
     xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be
     able to watch Quicktime trailers.
    </para>       
   </sect2>

   <sect2>
    <title>Real Network files/streams</title>
    <sect3 id="realfileplayback">
     <title>Can I watch Real (.rm, .ram) files using xine?</title>
     <para>
      The situation with real files and streams is pretty similar to the situation
      with Quicktime Streams (see above). The newer real audio and video formats
      are only supported by using binary-only codecs which are not included in
      xine.
     </para>
    <para>
     Possibly the most convenient way to get the Real codecs is to download
     them from the MPlayer website
     <ulink url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html">
      http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
     </ulink>.
     The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you
     find inside to <filename>/usr/lib/codecs</filename> and set the
     <parameter>decoder.external.real_codecs_path</parameter> in your xine config file
     to <filename>/usr/lib/codecs</filename> (actually you can place them
     anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll
     have to set <parameter>decoder.external.real_codecs_path</parameter> accordingly).
     Restart xine then and you should be able to watch Real files/streams.
    </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3 id="realnetworkstreams">
     <title>What about (live) network streams (pnm://, rtsp:// style urls)?</title>
     <para>
      xine supports both pnm and rtsp streaming. However, digging out the actual
      pnm/rtsp url can be tricky as they're often packed into heavy JavaScript and
      HTML code on most websites. You can either use a combination of your
      browser's "save source" function and wget or use a xine browser plugin
      (currently the gxine frontend comes with a simple mozilla plugin,
      for example). When you decided to dig out the url by hand don't get fooled
      by the many redirectors that are often placed around the actual url.
      Use wget to download any http://-style urls and use less to look inside
      the downloaded .ra/.ram files where you will find the actual pnm/rtsp
      url which can be opened using xine.
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="wmv">
    <title>Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?</title>
    <para>
     While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias)
     is fully supported in xine, for newer windows media 9 based streams
     you'll need to install windows binary codecs (.DLLs).
    </para>
    <para>
     Possibly the most convenient way to get the Windows DLLs is to download
     them from the MPlayer website
     <ulink url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html">
      http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
     </ulink>.
     The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you find
     inside to <filename>/usr/lib/codecs</filename> (actually you can place them
     anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll
     have to set <parameter>decoder.external.win32_codecs_path</parameter> in your
     xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be
     able to watch windows media streams.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="dvb">
    <title>Can I watch Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcast) using xine?</title>
    <para>
     At the time of this writing DVB support is a very new and experimental
     feature in xine. The number of supported cards is pretty limited at the moment.
     See <filename>doc/README.dvb</filename> (in the xine-lib tarball) for details.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="stdin">
    <title>How do I play streams from STDIN?</title>
    <para>
     Use something like:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>cat stream.mpg | gxine stdin:/</command></screen>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="avisubtitles">
    <title>How can I watch files with external AVI subtitles?</title>
    <para>
     In xine 0.9.13 this used to be:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine foo.avi%bar.sub</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     Latest xine-lib modules (1-beta3 or newer) support external subtitles
     for any media file, not only AVI. In order to use it you can pass a
     special MRL construction like:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine test.mpg#subtitle:file.sub</command></screen>
     The external subtitles support can also be used by any xine frontend.
     Currently xine-ui and kaffeine implement this feature with a subtitle
     selection dialog.
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="running">
   <title>Running xine</title>

   <sect2 id="speedup">
    <title>I have a lot of dropped frames - what can I do?</title>
    <para>
     Your hardware might be too slow for xine. Make sure you turn on all
     speed optimizing options. A few things you should check (in order of
     importance):
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        First of all, run the <command>xine-check</command> script included in xine
        package (probably already installed in your system).
        <command>xine-check</command> will report several of the most common problems
        listed here. Sample output from xine-check:
        <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine-check</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Please be patient, this script may take a while to run...
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] you're using Linux, doing specific tests
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] looks like you have a /proc filesystem mounted.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] You seem to have a reasonable kernel version (2.4.18)
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] intel compatible processor, checking MTRR support
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] you have MTRR support and there are some ranges set.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found the player at /usr/local/bin/xine
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] /usr/local/bin/xine is in your PATH
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found /usr/local/bin/xine-config in your PATH
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] plugin directory /usr/local/lib/xine/plugins exists.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found input plugins
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found demux plugins
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found decoder plugins
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found video_out plugins
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found audio_out plugins
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] skin directory /usr/local/share/xine/skins exists.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found logo in /usr/local/share/xine/skins
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] I even found some skins.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] /dev/cdrom points to /dev/hdc
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] /dev/dvd points to /dev/hdc
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] DMA is enabled for your DVD drive
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] found xvinfo: X-Video Extension version 2.2
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] your Xv extension supports YUV overlays (improves MPEG performance)
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] your Xv extension supports packed YUV overlays
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ good ] Xv ports:  YUY2 YV12 I420 UYVY</screen>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Try to use the Xv driver, it greatly improves performance and quality
        because your graphics card does image scaling and colourspace conversion. The
        <link linkend="video">video section</link> contains important information
        about several Xv drivers. 
       </para>
       <para>
        If Xv cannot be used for some reason, make sure your display is set up
        to 16bpp, not 24 or higher (reduces memory bandwith). Some Xv drivers
        may also have better performance with 16bpp.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Make sure the hard drive (or cdrom/dvd drive) which supplies the
        video data is in DMA mode (if supported).
       </para>
       <para>
        On most linux-based systems, you can use hdparm to check this:
        <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>hdparm /dev/hda</command>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[...]
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;using_dma    =  1 (on)
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[...]</screen>
       </para>
       <para>
        You can enable DMA mode with the following command:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>hdparm -d1 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data</command></screen>
        In some cases where this fails it helps to specify the dma mode
        to use, for example:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>hdparm -d1 -X 66 device_of_your_drive_that_supplies_video_data</command></screen>
        In RedHat 8.0 an additional entry in /etc/modules.conf
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;options ide-cd dma=1</screen>
        should help (reboot for this change to take effect).
       </para>
       <para>
        More information about this may be found here:
        <ulink url="http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html">
         http://oreilly.linux.com/pub/a/linux/2000/06/29/hdparm.html
        </ulink>.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Use a recent kernel which is optimized for your hardware. Old kernels
        may lack support for accelerated instructions like SSE, for example.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Close other applications (use a tool like "top" to find out
        what applications are using up CPU power). Programs that update the
        system clock like ntp should also be disabled.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        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.
       </para>
       <para>
        If you're using X.org or XFree 4.x, enabling MTRR support in your kernel should
        be enough (use a recent kernel!).
       </para>
       <para>
        Try a <command>cat /proc/mtrr</command> - if the file exists and you find an entry
        corresponding to the amount of graphics memory you have, everything
        should be fine.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Have your X-server (usually X.org or XFree86) running with higher priority.
        Most recent linux distributions (like RedHat 8.0 or Mandrake 9.0) should
        do that for you, improving not only xine but desktop responsiveness
        in general. 
       </para>
       <para>
        Use the "top" utility and verify under the "NI" column if
        the X process has a negative value, this indicates a higher priority.
        See "The X Window User HOWTO - Performance considerations" for 
        further instructions 
        <ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html">
         http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO/performance.html
        </ulink>.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Use the latest or a known-good gcc version and build an optimized xine-lib for
        your architecture.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Besides boosting X-server priority, sometimes it's possible to avoid
        discarding frames by making xine itself higher priority. This is not
        a recommended  pratice since it will require to run xine as root,
        but you may give it a try if you want:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>nice --5 xine</command></screen>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        xine needs high speed memory access which depends on your chip set.
        Make sure you enable all speed-improving options. 
       </para>
       <para>
        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):
        <ulink url="http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp">
         http://www.overclockers.com/tips105/index03.asp
        </ulink>
       </para>
       <para>
        This website centers around a windows-tool to tweak the chipset, you
        can do the same on FreeBSD with <command>pciconf</command>. 
        On some linux distributions there are similar tools.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        a nice performance tuning tool can be found here:
        <ulink url="http://powertweak.sourceforge.net">http://powertweak.sourceforge.net</ulink>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Set up and use raw devices for DVD access. Please note that the
        actual performance gain during playback is very small if any, but
        since raw devices are bypassing the kernel's buffer cache, Linux
        will not try to cache the DVDs you play. This would not be useful,
        because xine does its own caching and you usually play DVDs
        sequentially, which means you won't reuse anything from the cache.
        But the problem would be that Linux throws everything out of the
        cache that might be in there.
       </para>
       <para>
        Raw devices should be available in linux kernel 2.4.x and there are
        patches for older kernels available from:
        <ulink url="ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/">
         ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sct/raw-io/
        </ulink>
       </para>
       <para>
        To use raw devices, first connect a free raw device to your dvd
        device, use something like:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>raw /dev/raw1 /dev/dvd</command></screen>
       </para>
       <para>
        Then create a link named "rdvd" pointing to that raw device:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ln -s raw1 /dev/rdvd</command></screen>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
         For slow / high-latency dvd drives it might help to increase
         the number of video buffers xine allocates. Try setting
         <parameter>engine.buffers.video_num_buffers:500</parameter>
         to a higher value (e.g. 1000 or 2500).
       </para>
      </listitem>	  
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="smoothness">
    <title>Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really smooth!</title>
    <para>
     Video output can be further improved by tuning your linux kernel:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Set HZ to 1000 in
        <filename>/usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/param.h</filename>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Try applying scheduler patches, especially the O(1) and the preemptive
        patches have proven useful at the time of this writing (spring 2003).
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
     Linux 2.5/2.6 will probably have these improvements out of the box.
    </para>
    <para>
     Miguel Freitas has written a nice
     <ulink url="http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/~miguel/multimedia_sim/">
      article about his kernel multimedia experiments
     </ulink>.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="ports">
    <title>I have problems when using xine on FreeBSD, Solaris, ... !</title>
    <para>
     Check out the the corresponding README files in the directory <filename>xine-lib/doc</filename>.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="aaxine">
    <title>What is aalib? How do I use it in xine?</title>
    <para>
     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 ;> ... another nice option is to preview movies
     on a remote server in your shell over ssh.
    </para>
    <para>
     To use it make sure you have aalib installed correctly before you
     configure/build xine-lib and xine-ui. In addition to the <command>xine</command> binary a
     binary named <command>aaxine</command> should get built and installed. You can then use
     something like:      
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>aaxine foo.mpg</command></screen>
     to use aalib video output.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="dxr3">
    <title>Does xine support my dxr3 / hollywood+ card?</title>
    <para>
     While xine's focus is clearly on software decoding, the dxr3 is supported.
    </para>
    <para>
     You can find more information about using xine with the dxr3
     <ulink url="http://www.amalthea.de/xine/">here</ulink>
     (also covers how to do tv output using the dxr3).
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="audio">
   <title>Audio related questions</title>

   <sect2 id="audiodrivers">
    <title>What audio drivers does xine support? OSS? Alsa? Arts? Esd?</title>
    <para>
     Currently xine support audio output via OSS (kernel audio drivers),
     ALSA 0.9.x (ALSA 0.5.x is no longer supported), arts (KDE's sound daemon)
     and esound (esd, gnome's sound daemon - not recommended because it has
     serious issues with a/v sync).
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="compressor">
    <title>When I'm watching a movie, the sound effects are much higher in volume than the voices!</title>
    <para>
     Congratulations, you seem to have an original movie audio track there.
    </para>
    <para>
     Uhm. So you don't like it. Well, there are two things you can do:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        You can enable xine's audio compressor. Most frontends have
        a settings window and in that you'll find a slider for the
        compressor setting. The values are percent values, so a 
        slider setting of 200 means that xine will double the volume
        of silent parts of the movie (loud parts stay the same).
       </para>
       <para>
        If your frontend does not have such a compression slider,
        you can pass the value with the MRL:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine dvd:/#compression:150</command></screen>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        If you have a dolby digital (AC3) soundtrack, you can try
        to enable liba52's dynamic range compression setting
        <parameter>audio.a52.dynamic_range:1</parameter>
        in your xine config file (or use some gui config dialog).
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="noaudio">
    <title>When I play this stream, xine shows video but there's no audio!</title>
    <para>
     If this happens with any video, first try a different audio driver
     (<command>gxine -A oss</command>, <command>gxine -A arts</command>,
     <command>xine -A alsa</command> ...). 
    </para>
    <para>
     If this problem only occurs with one specific stream, maybe switching to
     a different audio channel (using the gui) helps. Some DVD streams have
     audio on strange channels.
    </para>
    <para>
     If all this doesn't help, maybe you're missing an audio codec or you found
     a bug. If you decide to post your problem on the xine-user mailing list,
     make sure to include all console output xine produced and also clearly 
     state what type of stream you tried to play back or, even better, make 
     a test stream available somewhere for developers to download and try.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="surroundsound">
    <title>Can xine produce 4-/5-channel surround audio output?</title>
    <para>
     Yep, it can do that using OSS or ALSA drivers, provided that the driver
     supports it. However, since xine cannot detect if there are actually speakers
     connected to the additional channels, you'll have to activate that feature manually.
    </para>
    <para>
     You can do this either in the config dialog while xine is running (press
     the config button on the xine panel and go to the AUDIO tab) or have it
     the complicated way by editing the config file yourself which is located
     in your home directory in <filename>.gxine</filename> or <filename>.xine</filename>:
     <programlisting>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Surround 4.0
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Surround 4.1
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Surround 5.1</programlisting>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="spdif">
    <title>What about ac3 output via spdif to an external ac3 decoder?</title>
    <para>
     xine can do that too. Pretty much the same story as for 4-/5-channel
     surround (see above). You can either use the config dialog or edit
     the config file (<filename>~/.xine/config</filename> or <filename>~/.gxine/config</filename>)
     yourself:
     <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Pass Through</programlisting>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="sblivespdif">
    <title>Getting SPDIF output from a SBLive 5.1 using OSS drivers</title>
    <para>
     The following explains how to get the above configuration 
     going with xine. Some parts of it may applicable to other 
     configurations (cards that use the EMU10k1 chip) as well.
    </para>
    <sect3>
     <title>Requirements</title>
     <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>xine-lib >= 1.x.x</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>OSS driver</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>an external decoder</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>a cable to connect the SBLive to the external decoder</para>
      </listitem>
     </orderedlist>
     <para>
      The configuration described was tested using a Soundblaster live 5.1 (rev 7)
      with a Yamaha DSP-AX620 external decoder.
     </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3>
     <title>Retrieving the driver</title>
     <para>
      The OSS driver is maintained by creative and can be downloaded at
      <ulink url="http://opensource.creative.com/">http://opensource.creative.com/</ulink>.
      The driver package contains documentation on how to install it. 
      Besides that I'd like to add the following notes.
     </para>
     <para>
      In order to compile and install these drivers, you need a valid kernel
      configuration file. For RedHat Linux's pre-compiled kernels these
      configuration files can be found in 
      <filename>/usr/src/linux/configs</filename>.
      After you've located the correct config file for your kernel,
      you need to copy it to <filename>/usr/src/linux/.config</filename>
      For example, when you run the 2.4.18-i686 kernel do :
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>cp /usr/src/linux/configs/kernel-2.4.18-i686.config /usr/src/linux/.config</command></screen>
      Make sure that the emu10k1 module that is currently installed is 
      not loaded. To unload the modules:
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>/sbin/modprobe -rv emu10k1.o ac97_codec.o</command></screen>
      If this mentions that the device is busy, some program is 
      using the driver. Some example could be a mixer application 
      or sound daemon like artsd. You'll need to close down the 
      applications before continuing.
      At success it should print something like:
      <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;# delete emu10k1
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;# delete ac97_codec
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;# delete soundcore</screen>
      Run make in the directory where you unpacked the driver and follow the
      instructions printed at the end of each step.
      The last step should be: 
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>make install-tools</command></screen>
      As the README of the driver package mentions the SPDIF AC3 
      output doesn't work by default. In the directory 
      <filename>utils/scripts</filename> an <filename>emu10k1.conf</filename>
      file can be found which need to be placed in the default
      installation directory (<filename>/usr/local/etc</filename>). 
      After this the <filename>emu10k1.conf</filename> needs to be modified.
      The following settings worked fine for me (I don't use the analog 
      outputs of the card):
      <programlisting>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;CARD_IS_5_1=yes
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;USE_DIGITAL_OUTPUT=yes
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_TONE_CONTROL=yes
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;AC3PASSTHROUGH=yes
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_LIVEDRIVE_IR=no
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;INVERT_REAR=no
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;MULTICHANNEL=yes
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ROUTE_ALL_TO_SUB=no
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ANALOG_FRONT_BOOST=no
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;SURROUND=no
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PROLOGIC=no
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_CD_Spdif=yes  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_OPTICAL_SPDIF=no 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_LINE2_MIC2=no    
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_RCA_SPDIF=no     
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ENABLE_RCA_AUX=no</programlisting>
      After modifying the <filename>emu10k1.conf</filename>, 
      you need to modify your <filename>/etc/modules.conf</filename> and
      make sure the following lines are in there.
      <programlisting>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;post-install emu10k1 /usr/local/etc/emu-script</programlisting>
      After saving the changes to <filename>modules.conf</filename>, run 
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>/sbin/depmod -a</command></screen>
      Now, you're ready to load the new modules and set the correct 
      options for it. To load the modules run:
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>/sbin/modprobe emu10k1</command></screen>
     </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3>
     <title>Setting up xine for SPDIF (AC3 passthrough) output</title>
     <para>
      You can either use the config dialog of your frontend or edit
      the config file (<filename>~/.xine/config</filename>) yourself:
      <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Pass Through</programlisting>
      In case the setting is not in the file you can add it.
     </para>
    </sect3>
    <sect3>
     <title>
      The cable used for the SBLive can easily be self-made 
      or buy a stereo 3.5mm jack to dual RCA cable.
     </title>
     <para>
      What you need to make the cable yourself:
      <itemizedlist>
       <listitem><para>stereo 3.5mm jack plug</para></listitem>
       <listitem><para>RCA plug</para></listitem>
       <listitem><para>shielded cable (video coax 75 Ohm will do)</para></listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
      Connect them as follows :
      <programlisting>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;center pin jackplug ------|----- center pin RCA plug
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;                GND     __|__    GND</programlisting>
     </para>
     <para>
      In order to test it use a DVD with AC3 or DTS track
      start xine and select the right audio track 
      from user interface or start xine as: 
      <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine dvd:/1 -a 0</command></screen>
      The external decoder should display something like 
      "Dolby Digital" in case the selected audio track contains
      AC3 data or "DTS" in case the selected audio track
      contains DTS data. Of course stereo audio also goes
      through the SPDIF output, so the analog outputs of the
      SBLive 5.1 are not needed anymore.
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="volumecontrol">
    <title>Changing the volume with the GUI control has no effect! What's up!?</title>
    <para>
     Some xine drivers do not support volume changing although the GUI
     will show the volume bar. Usually this is not xine's fault: aRts C
     API, for example, doesn't offer any volume property to applications.
     Similarly, with ac3 pass through it is not possible to set the volume.
    </para>
    <para>
     Note that recently we added support to "simulate" volume in aRts by
     changing sample values on-the-fly before delivering them to the driver.
     Not as good as having access to sound card's mixer but at least users 
     will not complain about lacking of volume bar anymore! :)
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="stuttering">
    <title>Audio is stuttering and i see a lot of "metronom: fixing sound card drift by -2115 pts" on the console output</title>
    <para>
     Might be a soundcard problem, if it only comes in longer intervals.
     Your soundcard does not keep it's sampling frequency accurately 
     enough, which results in audio and video
     getting out of sync and xine has to compensate. If you see the message
     only from time to time, you might remedy it by using the resampling sync
     method. You can do this by setting the configuration entry
     <parameter>audio.synchronization.av_sync_method</parameter> to <parameter>resample</parameter>.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you receive the metronom message more often,
     maybe switching to different drivers (alsa to oss or vise-versa)
     can help here. It has also been reported that setting the configuration
     entry <parameter>audio.synchronization.force_rate</parameter> to the native sampling
     rate of your soundcard (try 44100 and 48000) helps sometimes.
    </para>
    <para>
     Another, whole different possibility is that you have some background
     process running which is messing with the clock (like some ntp client -
     chronny, ntpd, ...).
    </para>
    <para>
     Occasional messages of "fixing sound card drift" may happen on start and
     when playing a long stream (like a movie). This is normal behaviour, 
     nothing to worry about.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="soundloss">
    <title>xine seems to lose sound arbitrarily during playback, especially with DVDs</title>
    <para>
     You are using the OSS audio output plugin, right? In order to keep video and audio
     in sync, xine regularly queries the audio driver for the amount of delay induced by
     the current length of the driver's audio buffer. Unfortunately some OSS drivers seem
     to be broken because the can return strange values here. This confuses the xine audio
     subsystem and makes it drop audio.
    </para>
    <para>
     You should try the various settings of the
     configuration entry <parameter>audio.oss_sync_method</parameter>. The options
     <parameter>getodelay</parameter> and <parameter>getoptr</parameter> ask the driver and
     might therefore show the problem. But chances are that only one is broken and the other
     works, so you should try them both first, since they are the most accurate.
     The option <parameter>probebuffer</parameter> does not ask the driver directly but
     tries to determine the buffer length from outside. This should work with any driver
     and is the way to go, of the driver dependent methods fail.
     <parameter>softsync</parameter> is the least accurate and should be used only in
     emergency situations.
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="video">
   <title>Video related questions</title>

   <sect2 id="novideo">
    <title>I can hear the audio - but I don't see a picture!</title>
    <para>
     Probably your hardware is simply too slow - see above for some
     hints on how to speed things up.
    </para>
    <para>
     Another possibility is that you using a buggy Xv driver, see the next
     questions.
    </para>
   </sect2>
   
   <sect2 id="bluescreen">
    <title>I only see a blue (or green or black) video image most of the time.</title>
    <para>
     You are either watching a very boring video (just kidding) or you are
     suffering from a bug in the Xorg 6.7 implementation of X11.
    </para>
    <para>
     The workaround is to add the line
     <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"</programlisting>
     in the <varname>Device</varname> section of your X server configuration (usually
     <filename>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</filename> or <filename>/etc/X11/XF86Config</filename>).
    </para>
   </sect2>
   
   <sect2 id="buggyxv">
    <title>The image looks strange, it is shifted, cropped or shows weird lines!</title>
    <para>
     This points to a problem with the Xv extension, which is used by xine
     to display the video image. To verify this, try running xine with the XShm
     video output plugin:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -V XShm</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     If that works fine, you just proved, that the Xv extension is buggy. xine will
     remember the last used video output plugin, so the setting will stay at XShm.
     You could simply continue using this, but XShm is a lot slower than Xv, so
     read on and see if you can get it working. Usually you should look for
     updated versions of the X driver module that belongs to your graphics card.
    </para>
    <para>
     Other possibilites are limitations in either your X driver module or your
     graphics hardware. If your card could somehow be running out of ressources (graphics
     RAM perhaps) and displays an incorrect Xv overlay because of that, try reducing
     the display resolution and/or colour depth.
    </para>
    <para>
     Consult the next question for more details on Xv.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="xvextension">
    <title>How can I make xine use the Xv extension and what drivers do I need?</title>
    <para>
     xine will normally use Xv by default if it is available. In some cases
     you might need to choose Xv playback manually (when the <filename>~/.xine/config</filename>
     file for some reason says that you want to use XShm):
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -V Xv</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     If this doesn't work for you, it may be possible that Xv is not present
     on your system.
    </para>
    <para>
     First you need to install/use X.org or XFree 4.x. Once you got that you have to
     make sure the X drivers you're using are supporting Xv on your
     hardware. Here are some hints for individual gfx chips:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        3Dfx: if all you get is a solid black window, upgrade to X.org or XFree 4.1.0 or later.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>   
        ATI: if you only get "half a picture", try lowering your resolution
        or bit depth, disable DRI (looks like you ran out of video RAM)	    
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        Trident card: If you see vertical bands jumbled, upgrade to the latest
        xfree/experimental trident drivers (for the CyberBlade XP
        a driver exists here:
        <ulink url="http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/">http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/ </ulink>)
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        nVidia: With newer GeForce cards, Xv should work with XFree 4.2.0 or
        newer, for older RivaTNT cards use the binary drivers from nvidia
        (of course the binary drivers work as well for GeForce cards)
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        Mach64/Rage3D (not Rage128/Radeon) cards/chips get no XVideo with
        standard drivers, try 
        <ulink url="http://gatos.sourceforge.net/">GATOS drivers
        </ulink> instead
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        intel: i815 has Xv support in XFree 4.x, others unknown
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        Permedia 2/3 has Xv support in XFree 4.x
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        Savage: at least some older drivers tend to lock up the whole machine,
        try the drivers available from 
        <ulink url="http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html">
         http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html
        </ulink>.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        SIS: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in XFree 4.x
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        Chips and Tech 6555x, 68554, 69000, 69030 have Xv support in XFree 4.x
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        NeoMagic: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree 4.x
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        SiliconMotion: certain controllers (more info needed!) have Xv support in Xfree 4.x
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para> 
        Matrox: G200 or newer (but not Parhelia) have Xv support in XFree 4.x.
        For Parhelia, use the binary only drivers available from matrox' website.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="colorkey">
    <title>Some parts of my X Desktop get transparent when xine plays the video!</title>
    <para>
     Looks like some colours on your GUI match the colour key which Xv uses. You can
     change the colour key value to avoid this. There should be a line like:
     <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;video.XV_COLORKEY:2110</programlisting>
     in your <filename>~/.xine/config</filename> file where you can change the colour that's used
     by xine for the video overlay.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="aspectratio">
    <title>The aspect ratio of the video is wrong!</title>
    <para>
     Usually xine discovers the screen aspect ratio by
     querying the X-server and then adjusts the video automatically
     to make it look right. However, if that doesn't work try 
     pressing "a" to manually change the aspect ratio.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you have a wide screen monitor, make sure the X-server
     is correctly configured. The X-server must know the physical 
     size of the screen, which is independent of the resolution
     being used.
    </para>
    <para>
     For X.org, the screen size should be set in the <parameter>"Monitor"</parameter>
     section in the file <filename>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</filename>, as in the example below:
     <programlisting>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Section "Monitor"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Identifier   "Monitor0"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ModelName    "DDC Probed Monitor - ViewSonic G773-2"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;DisplaySize  320	240
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;HorizSync    30.0 - 70.0
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;VertRefresh  50.0 - 180.0
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;EndSection</programlisting>
     For XFree86, the filename is normally <filename>/etc/X11/XF86Config</filename>.
    </para>
    <para>
     Where <parameter>DisplaySize</parameter> specifies, 
     in millimeters, the physical size of the monitor's picture area.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="discardedskipped">
    <title>What is the difference between discarded and skipped frames?</title>
    <para>
     Sometimes xine will output a message like that:
     <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;200 frames delivered, XX frames skipped, YY frames discarded</programlisting>
    </para>
    <para>
     The difference between these counters is a little subtle for the non
     developer. There are two threads running in order to display video:
     the decoder thread will deliver frames to the video output thread. 
     The latter is responsible for scheduling the frames to be displayed at
     the right time.
    </para>
    <para>
     If your system can't keep up with decoding requirements, decoder will
     deliver overdue frames. Imagine if it finished decoding the frame
     tagged for displaying at 11:30 but xine clock marks 11:31. When this
     situation is detected, xine will try to skip decoding a few frames
     to recover. Not every decoder may support this feature.
    </para>
    <para>
     When the frame is decoded to be shown somewhere in future but the
     output thread doesn't get scheduled in time by the operating system
     to complete the operation, the frame is discarded. One cause might
     be the disk access operation, which may halt the system for a few
     miliseconds without DMA. See performance section tips above.
    </para>
    <para>
     Note that if a decoder can't skip frames for some reason, you would
     never see frames skipped (they would be all discarded).
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="contrastbrightnesssaturation">
    <title>My xine is runing in black and white! / I only get a grey video output!</title>
    <para>
     This frequently happens with new Xv drivers or when switching to a
     different video card. Background is that different Xv drivers often
     use different ranges for the contrast/brightness/saturation settings.
    </para>
    <para>
     To fix this, try opening the xine settings window and try adjusting
     the sliders for contrast, brightness and saturation.
    </para>
    <para>
     Please note that some frontends save these settings in their config file
     so when you have found a working combination, make sure you exit 
     xine cleanly so the values are saved.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="videodriver">
    <title>Which is the best video driver to use?</title>
    <para>
     xine supports several video drivers for outputing the image. These will
     differ on how the frames are copied to the video card memory, whether
     colourspace conversion and scaling is done in software or hardware, among
     other things. They may also differ on ease of use and stability.
    </para>
    <para>
     Most of the time, Xv should give the users a good trade-off between
     quality, compatibility and ease of use. This is why xine tries to use
     Xv by default.
    </para>
    <para>
     However some users may want to explore better the available hardware 
     capabilities (eg. syncing frame drawing with monitor refresh).
     Also some Xv drivers contain slow copies and accessing the video card
     directly may yield performance gains.
    </para>
    <para>
     Drivers that access hardware directly includes VIDIX (warning: requires 
     root priviledges or kernel helper) and SyncFB (requires kernel helper - Matrox only).
     User may try one of those, but should be warned that with root access
     they can cause the system to crash hard. The support is also limited to
     a couple of graphics cards only.
    </para>
    <para>
     Graphic workstations like SGI have usually a good support for OpenGL.
     In that case, using OpenGL may be a better choice than XShm. However for
     most desktop systems the performance of OpenGL will be quite bad.
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="overlay">
   <title>OSD and overlay related questions</title>

   <sect2 id="unscaledosd">
    <title>What is this "unscaled" OSD about?</title>
    <para>
     Since version 1-rc3 of xine-lib supports a new method for rendering OSD
     (On Screen Display) and subtitles. This method uses a X11 extension
     called XShape that allows using screen resolution instead of
     stream resolution. It is called "unscaled" OSD because it does not
     scales with the video being played.
    </para>
    <para>
     Suppose you are watching a 320x200 video in full screen. Normal OSD
     would be blended at 320x200 and then scaled to full screen (lets say,
     1024x768), resulting in big and ugly fonts. The unscaled overlay is
     drawn directly to screen, creating a sharper and better looking OSD.
    </para>
    <para>
     There are side effects too. Sometimes the unscaled overlay show some
     glitch just before disappearing. Some people may be annoyed enough
     by that and might want to disable the usage of unscaled overlay
     altogether.
    </para>
    <para>
     Unscaled OSD usage by subtitles and xine-ui is controlled by 
     the following settings
     (<filename>~/.xine/config</filename> or <filename>~/.gxine/config</filename>):
     <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;gui.osd_use_unscaled:0</programlisting>
     <programlisting>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;subtitles.separate.use_unscaled_osd:0</programlisting>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="noosd">
    <title>I can't see the OSD or it leaves a black box over the image!</title>
    <para>
     If you are using xine-lib version 1-rc3 or newer, this is probably
     due buggy XV drivers that do not support 
     <link linkend="unscaledosd">unscaled OSD</link> (the XShape
     extension) properly. 
    </para>
    <para>
     There have being reports of some ATI drivers that don't allow 
     displaying anything over the video. The VIA Epia binary drivers
     is reported to leave a black box where the OSD was displayed.
    </para>
    <para>
     The problem may be fixed by either updating the video driver, 
     or disabling xine unscaled OSD support.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="overlaycolorleak">
    <title>Why colours of overlays/subtitles seem to be "leaking"?</title>
    <para>
     xine blends most overlays, specially the ones from DVD discs,
     directly over the image (scaled OSD). Unfortunately most codecs
     (like MPEG2) use a subsampled image format (YV12) that makes
     properly blending an interesting challenge.
    </para>
    <para>
     In short, this is a known xine bug. There have being discussions
     on improving the blending quality but, so far, nobody implemented
     a better (scaled) overlay renderer. Contact developers if you want
     to try doing something about it.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="uglysubtitles">
    <title>Why external subtitles look so ugly?</title>
    <para>
    You are probably using a xine-lib version older than 1-rc3.
    Try upgrading your copy and read the 
    <link linkend="unscaledosd">section about unscaled osd</link>.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="subtitlesoutsidevideo">
    <title>Why subtitles can't be displayed outside the video?</title>
    <para>
    It is possible, but older xine versions may not support it. There are two
    alternatives for rendering the subtitles outside the video image:
    </para>
    <para>
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Use the "expand" post plugin to increase frame height adding
        black bars to it. This will allow blending the subtitles
        over the black bars, since they will be part of the video now.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Use <link linkend="unscaledosd">unscaled OSD</link>, as it
        does not requires any video to render the subtitles on.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
    <para>
    Also notice that DVD overlays (including subtitles) are meant to
    be displayed in a fixed position, this is how the DVD menu 
    highlighting works. xine does not support moving them.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="supportedfonts">
    <title>What kinds of subtitle fonts does xine use?</title>
    <para>
     xine can use two kinds of fonts:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        TTF fonts
       </para>
       <para>
        If xine is compiled with freetype library xine recognizes and uses TTF
        fonts directly.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        xine fonts
       </para>
       <para>
        This is xine's native format. It's better because the font
        generator utility implements more features than the "on the fly" TTF renderer.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
    <para>
     The font for text subtitles is selected via config option
     <parameter>subtitles.separate.font</parameter>. You can specify xine font name
     (<parameter>sans</parameter>, <parameter>serif</parameter>, ...)
     or file name of the TTF font. The directories
     <filename>$prefix/share/xine/libxine1/fonts</filename> and
     <filename>~/.xine/fonts</filename> are searched for the fonts, with
     <filename>$prefix</filename> being the place xine-lib was installed to.
     Usually this is <filename>/usr/local</filename> or <filename>/usr</filename>.
     TTF fonts are also searched for in the current directory.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="generatefonts">
    <title>How to create own xine subtitle fonts?</title>
    <para>
     xine's native subtitle fonts can be generated from TTF fonts with the
     utility <command>xine-fontconv</command>. It isn't compiled and installed by default but
     you can make it manually. You'll need freetype and zlib packages together with
     their versions for development plus a compiler, of course ;)
     Here's how you build <command>xine-fontconv</command>:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Get the source of xine-fontconv utility from the <filename>misc</filename>
        directory within the xine-lib sources.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Compile it:
        <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>gcc xine-fontconv.c -o xine-fontconv `freetype-config --cflags --libs` -lz</command></screen>
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
     You'll need some TTF font for generating. Characters in this font should
     cover all codepages you want supported, otherwise you'll have missing characters.
    </para>
    <para>
     Syntax is:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./xine-fontconf font.ttf font_name [encoding1 [encoding2 [...]]]</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     For example default font <filename>sans</filename> was generated with
     following command:
     <screen>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>./xine-fontconv Aril_Bold.ttf sans iso-8859-1 iso-8859-2 iso-8859-5 \
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;                                   iso-8859-9 iso-8859-15 cp1250 cp1251</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     There are displayed messages about missing characters on the screen
     during generating. It's OK if the missing characters are U+007f..U+009F.
     These characters come from iso-8859-1 and they aren't displayable.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="subencoding">
    <title>Encoding of external subtitles is bad. What is wrong?</title>
    <para>
     The encoding of the external subtitles is expected to be iso-8859-1 by 
     default. You need to set an appropriate encoding in the config option
     <parameter>subtitles.separate.src_encoding</parameter>. Note that you also need
     a font which contains all characters from the given encoding.
    </para>
    <para>
     The default font <filename>sans</filename> and fonts
     <filename>serif</filename> and <filename>mono</filename> cover these
     encodings:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem><para>iso-8859-1</para></listitem>
      <listitem><para>iso-8859-2</para></listitem>
      <listitem><para>iso-8859-5</para></listitem>
      <listitem><para>iso-8859-9</para></listitem>
      <listitem><para>iso-8859-15</para></listitem>
      <listitem><para>windows-1250</para></listitem>
      <listitem><para>windows-1251</para></listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="errors">
   <title>Error Messages: What they mean and what you can do</title>

   <sect2 id="xfreecrash">
    <title>Starting xine crashes X, I am logged out of my desktop!</title>
    <para>
     xine itself is unable to crash X, so when your X server just shuts down or
     restarts with the login screen, there is something wrong with your X setup.
     Most common are problems with the Xv extension. Try running xine with the XShm
     video output plugin:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -V XShm</command></screen>
    </para>
    <para>
     If that works fine, you just proved, that the Xv extension is buggy. xine will
     remember the last used video output plugin, so the setting will stay at XShm.
     You could simply continue using this, but XShm is a lot slower than Xv, so
     consult the <link linkend="xvextension">section on Xv</link> and see if you can
     get it working. Usually you should look for updated versions of the X driver
     module that belongs to your graphics card.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="audiodrivererr">
    <title>Starting xine fails with complains about audio drivers/devices!</title>
    <para>
     You can select the audio driver using the -A option. So try:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -A null</command></screen>
     If you have ALSA drivers installed, try:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -A alsa</command></screen>
     If you run ESD (not recommended), try:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -A esd</command></screen>
     If you run artsd, try:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>xine -A arts</command></screen>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="novideoportfound">
    <title>"no video port found"</title>
    <para>
     You got the Xv extension, but your video card driver doesn't support it.
     First try to find a driver that does support Xv on your hardware (check
     your graphics card vendor). If your driver has Xv support but you can't
     get it working, try at a lower resolution (1024x768 is enough even for
     anamorphic DVDs).
    </para>
    <para>
     If all that fails, you can still use plain X11/XShm:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>gxine -V XShm foo.vob</command></screen>
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="unabletoopendvddrive">
    <title>"Unable to open dvd drive (/dev/dvd)"</title>
    <para>
     You probably don't have /dev/dvd (check that). If so, simply create a
     link /dev/dvd that points to your DVD device. Something like...
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>ln -s hdc /dev/dvd</command></screen>
     ...should do the job. Also make sure you have read and write access on
     the device the symlink points to.
     See the <link linkend="dvdplayback">dvd playback section</link>
     for more information.
    </para>
   </sect2>
   
   <sect2 id="status0x51">
    <title>My drive doesn't work and the kernel says "status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }"</title>
    <para>
     This error can be fixed by recompiling your kernel with the option
     "Use multi-mode by default" enabled in the IDE settings.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="demuxerror0000">
    <title>"demux error! 00 00 00 (should be 0x000001)"</title>
    <para>
     Probably xine can't access your input source. Most commonly this happens
     when you're trying to play locked/encrypted DVDs. Remember that xine
     can't play such DVDs out-of-the box for legal reasons (see above).
    </para>
    <para>
     If it is legal where you live, you can try to install libdvdcss. Once
     you have done that and re-start xine, it should automatically detect
     and use it to play back encrypted DVDs.
    </para>
    <para>
     Another reason could be that your (RPC-2) DVD drive isn't set up
     for the right region (see above).
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="ossfailed">
    <title>"audio driver 'oss' failed, using null driver instead"</title>
    <para>
     First of all, make sure that your OSS Audio drivers are working (i.e.
     you can play music with other software). Maybe you're using alsa?
     If so, try <command>gxine -A alsa</command> to see if this helps.
    </para>
    <para>
     The most common reason for oss not working is that some other program is accesing
     your audio device. If you're using linux, the command <command>fuser /dev/dsp</command>
     should give you the PID of the process.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you are using GNOME, chances are that this is caused by ESD. Now you
     have two possibilities. Either deactivate ESD (temporarily) by right
     clicking on the sound monitor applet and selecting "Place Esound in
     standby" or just kill it. Then xine will use OSS audio output. The other
     method is to make xine use ESD for audio output with:      
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>gxine -A esd</command></screen>
     This may result in worse playback - exact syncronization is not possible
     with esd, so using oss should be preferred.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you are using KDE, there is the possibility that the aRts sound
     daemon is currently running and thus blocking your sound device. You
     can check that by starting the aRts control (in your KDE menu it should
     be under Multimedia). If it is running, you can either use the aRts
     audio output plugin:
     <screen>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<command>gxine -A arts</command></screen>
     Or you suspend the aRts daemon by checking the appropriate option in
     your aRts control. (recommended)
    </para>
    <para>
     Newer versions of arts have an auto-suspend mode - this can lead to
     some nondeterministic behaviour of xine if it is set up to use
     the audio device directly. Using arts is recommended in that case;
     however, you will lose the ability to do four/five channel audio output.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="throwingawayimage">
    <title>"video_out: throwing away image with pts xxx because it's too old"</title>
    <para>
     This is a performance related problem.
     If you have a fast computer and this message is shown from time to
     time when playing a DVD or CD, it's very likely that DMA is not enabled
     for your drive.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="novideopluginavailable">
    <title>"No video plugin available to decode 'xxxxxx'."</title>
    <para>
     You have tried to play a stream using a unknown or unhandled codec.
     Possibly the file uses some obscure proprietary format and no
     information is available on how to decode it.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you're on an x86 platform (e.g. PC hardware) you might want to
     try installing binary-only windows medial, real networks and
     quicktime codecs (see above).
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="decoderfailedtostart">
    <title>"w32codec: decoder failed to start. Is 'xxxxxx' installed?"</title>
    <para>
     You probably don't have the win32 dll needed to decode this file.
    </para>
   </sect2>

   <sect2 id="xinecrashed">
    <title>xine just crashed on me - i didn't get any error message</title>
    <para>
     OK, yes, that shouldn't happen and you're upset. We can understand that.
     But, to help you and of course to fix this, we need some information.
     So, let's go through the checklist and maybe prepare a nice bug report
     for the xine-user mailing list:
     <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Did xine really crash (segfault) or did it hang (deadlock)?
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Can you reproduce the bug? (e.g. do you remember what you
        did and when you do it again it crashes again?) 
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Is that a specific media file or format which crashes xine? (Have you
        tried other files types?)
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Check the console output (and include it in a bug report), maybe earlier
        there is some output that points to the problem.
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Your X server just froze on you? unfortunately that's a known problem
        with some chipsets and drivers (most commonly Savage chipsets) when
        using Xv. You might want to try running <command>gxine -V XShm</command>
        to see if the problem is related to the Xv driver. This will unfortunately 
        be much slower, as lots of things are now done in software instead of
        hardware scaling/colour space conversion.
       </para>
       <para>
        Maybe at the time you read this, there's an X upgrade which fixes
        this for the Savage driver. If that works for you, please notify the xine crew at
        <email>xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</email>, so they can update this FAQ!
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Even though we try to make each release as bug free as possible, xine is
        still under heavy development (nice excuse, isn't it? *grin*).
       </para>
       <para>
        If you write to the xine user mailing list 
        <email>xine-user@lists.sourceforge.net</email>
        make sure you include a the above information (when applicable)
        and also some information about your machine (operating system, cpu type and
        speed, gfx card, sound card, ...) and please use a meaningfull subject
        line ("xine bug" is bad, "xine fails to play this quicktime trailer in fullscreen mode"
        ist much better).
       </para>
       <para>
        Thanks for taking the time to help improve xine.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </para>
   </sect2>

  </sect1>

 </article>

</book>
