
This is a port of the Berkeley MPEG Video Software Decoder v2.0 to Linux.

Two binaries are provided. They require the ld.so shared library loader.

mpeg_play

A binary compiled from the stock sources, using the XFree86-2.0 libraries.
It was compiled with the flags: -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -m486 (implicit)
using gcc 2.5.4, with some debugging code left out. Uses the X shared memory
extension that XFree86 v2.0 provides, which is a big win. The stock sources
compile cleanly and trivially.

mpeg_vga

A non-X version that uses svgalib. It is slightly faster than the X version
with shared memory and can use low resolution graphics modes. Also, with
truecolor graphics cards that svgalib supports (Cirrus, ET4000), full color
dithering can be used, which is very pretty. The graphics mode to be used can
be set with the GSVGAMODE environment variable. Requires svgalib 0.91 or
later installed.

For full color dithering (-dither color), 320x200x16M graphics mode is used
if it is available and the picture is small enough; if not, 640x480x16M is
used if available. 32K mode probed similarly.

For most other dithering methods, 320x200x256 standard VGA graphics mode is
used if the picture is small enough; 640x480x256 otherwise.

For mono dithering, 640x480x2 VGA graphics mode is used.

[NOTE: The previously uploaded version contained patches for some hacked
version of the stock sources; sorry for that.]
Patches for the stock sources are included (mpegvga.patch). It removes X
references, and uses svgalib instead. Also, the speed of gray dithering and
full-color dithering has been improved. svgalib v0.91 or later is required to
compile; it can be found on sunsite.unc.edu, directory /pub/Linux/libs.


mpeg_play -h (or any other invalid flag) displays dithering and other options.

Note that with gray dithering, very little time is spent converting from the
raw uncompressed data to a screen bitmap suitable for display, making it
significantly faster than the other methods.

The v2.0 source is available on sunsite.unc.edu. For sample MPEG data,
toe.cs.berkeley.edu, /pub/multimedia is one place to look.

hhanemaa@cs.ruu.nl
