Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.

[thornspear]

When I attempt to play a store-bought dvd using mplayer I get the following error:

Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.

I found that some folks were editing their .mplayer/gui.conf file to read vo_driver = "x11" and were having success with it. The link to that thread is here :

Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device. [Archive] - Ubuntu Forums

my .mplayer/gui.conf file reads vo_driver="xmga"

changing xmga to x11 doesn't help. I'm running 64bit Karmic. Anyone have any ideas?

[waterhead]

You may need to specify a different output option. This can be done by starting mplayer from the terminal, and specify the -vo. To see a list of the options available in your version of mplayer, use this command.

mplayer -vo help

You also may need to specify a specific codec to use, with the -vc option. To see the codecs available, use this command.

mplayer -vc help

As always, try reading the mplayer man pages for more info.

man mplayer

[thornspear]

Hey Waterhead, thanks once again for your help. Those are some handy commands, although I don't really know how to use the info with any sort of surgical precision, I'll read up on the manual though and see what I can decipher.

[waterhead]

Those two commands will only tell you what was compiled into your version of mplayer. You can't choose an option if it isn't available.

For example, I have a Zotac ION system. The nVidia ION chip uses vdpau for video acceleration. I have a version of mplayer that was compiled with vdpau support. It is a special build, and vdpau support is not in a regular mplayer build.

I just purchased the Blu-ray DVD of the latest Star Trek movie, and ripped it to a file. This is the exact command that I used to play that file.

mplayer -vc ffh264vdpau -vo vdpau /movies/Bluray/MainMovie/STARTREK11D1AC/BDMV/STREAM/00000.m2ts

A regular DVD is completely different than a Blu-ray, so that exact command won't work. A regular DVD is a type of mpeg2 file, so maybe try those options.

[thornspear]

i will definitely try those out. I also have a blu-ray player and have installed windows pretty much just to play blu-rays since I couldn't seem to find any sort of support for it. What software did you use to rip the blu-ray disc?

Also, the new star-trek movie rocks!

[waterhead]

I use DVDFab (get the Beta version). It is actually a Windows application, but it runs just fine under Wine. The only part that works in wine is the full movie copy. You have to copy the movie to your hard drive first, then play the copied file. Don't try to purchase a full version, as activation doesn't work in Linux. Just use the free stuff.

There is a new way to play it as a stream, using MakeMKV, but I haven't tried it yet. More info on that can be found here:

Blu-Ray Playback in Linux | The Media Viking