SMPlayer 0.6.9 beta1 README

(W) Christian Hennecke, Oct 5, 2009
last update Jan 29, 2010


0. CONTENTS OF THIS FILE
========================

1. INTRODUCTION

2. REQUIREMENTS

3. INSTALLATION

4. LICENSE, COPYRIGHT, DISCLAIMER

5. CONTACT

6. CREDITS

7. SUPPORT AND DONATIONS

8. HISTORY


1. INTRODUCTION
===============

Welcome to SMPlayer 0.6.9 beta1 for OS/2 and eComStation.

SMPlayer is a GUI front-end for MPlayer, a command-line movie player that is
available for many systems and supports a wide range of formats and codecs,
either natively or via Win32 DLL codecs. For instance, you can watch VideoCD,
SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5, WMV, and even H.264 movies.

SMPlayer intends to be a complete front-end for MPlayer, from basic features
like playing videos, DVDs, and VCDs to more advanced features like support for
MPlayer filters and more.

One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of
all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave...
don't worry, when you open that movie again it will resume at the same point
you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume...

Other additional interesting features:

  * Configurable subtitles. You can choose font and size, and even colors for
    the subtitles.
  * Audio track switching. You can choose the audio track you want to listen.
    Works with avi and mkv. And of course with DVDs.
  * Seeking by mouse wheel. You can use your mouse wheel to go forward or
    backward in the video.
  * Video equalizer, allows you to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue,
    saturation and gamma of the video image.
  * Multiple speed playback. You can play at 2X, 4X... and even in slow motion.
  * Filters. Several filters are available: deinterlace, postprocessing,
    denoise... and even a karaoke filter (voice removal).
  * Audio and subtitles delay adjustment. Allows you to sync audio and
    subtitles.
  * Advanced options, such as selecting a demuxer or video & audio codecs.
  * Playlist. Allows you to enqueue several files to be played one after each
    other. Autorepeat and shuffle supported too.
  * Preferences dialog. You can easily configure every option of SMPlayer by
    using a nice preferences dialog.
  * Possibility to search automatically for subtitles in opensubtitles.org.
  * Translations: currently SMPlayer is translated into more than 20 languages,
    including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese....
  * It's multiplatform. Binaries available for Windows, Linux, and now OS/2.
  * SMPlayer is under the GPL license.


2. REQUIREMENTS
===============

* klibc 0.6.3 or later

    ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/gcc/libc-0_6_3-csd3.wpi

* Qt4 dll

    see http://svn.netlabs.org/qt4 for more information whats needed

* MPlayer

    http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=mplayer&pushbutton=Search

  WARNING: To use the combination of SMPlayer and MPlayer to its full extent,
           at least version mplayer-dev-SVN-r27724-OS2-4.3.2.zip is required.
           Earlier versions do not support scaling, i.e., you will always
           see a video in its original size, regardless of the zoom setting
           or fullscreen mode.

* Win32 codecs (optional)

    http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html#binary_codecs

  MPlayer is able to use Win32 codec DLLs for codecs it does not support
  natively.


3. INSTALLATION
===============
       
To install SMPlayer, do the following:

klibc
-----

  1. Download klibc 0.6.3 csd3 or later.
  2. Install the package by double-clicking on the WPI file.


Qt4 dll
-------

  1. Download the package
  2. Extract all dll to your libpath. preferable x:\ecs\dll or x:\os2\dll where x: is your boot drive
  3. Install the xsystray plugin as noted in the readme.os2 and also in readme.xsystray


MPlayer
-------

  1. Download a recent version of MPlayer.
  2. Create a new directory for MPlayer.
  3. Extract the MPlayer package to the new directory.
  4. Copy the .mplayer subdirectory -- if included -- to your HOME directory.
  4. To be able to use subtitles, copy a TrueType font of your choice to the
     %HOME%\.mplayer directory and rename it to subfont.ttf.


Win32 codecs
------------

  1. Download the codec package from the MPlayer site.
  2. Go to the directory where you installed MPlayer and create a "codecs"
     subdirectory.
  3. Extract the package to the "codecs" subdirectory.
  4. Add a SET MPLAYER_CODECS_DIR statement to your CONFIG.SYS, and point it
     to the "codecs" subdirectory you create above.


SMPlayer
--------

  1. Create a directory for SMPlayer. This will be called x:\smplayer below.
  2. Extract the SMPlayer package to the new directory.
  3. Create a WPS object for smplayer.exe
  4. Start SMPlayer by double-clicking on the WPS object.
  5. Open the settings dialog via "Options > Settings."
  6. In the left pane, choose "General."
  7. On the "General" tab in the "Paths" group, press the "Browse" button and
     locate the MPlayer executable mplayer.exe.
  8. In the "Output Device Driver" group, choose "kva" for "Video" and "dart"
     for "Audio."
  9. In the left pane, choose "Drives."
 10. Under "Drives," select your CD-ROM and DVD drives.
 11. In the left pane, go to "Subtitles."
 12. On the "Font" tab in the "Font" group, you can either directly choose a
     font file to use or select one of the fonts installed in your system:
     * To select a specific font file, select the "TTF Font" radio button, press
       "Browse," and locate the font file of the TrueType font you would like to
       use for subtitles.
     * To select an installed font, select the "System Font" radio button, press
       "Choose," and select a TrueType font you would like to use for subtitles.
       CAUTION: mplayer.exe will crash if you select a non-TrueType font!
 13. To get prettier fonts, go to the "SSA/ASS Library" tab and enable the
     option "Use SSA/ASS library for subtitle rendering." Optionally adjust the
     color and font attributes.
 14. Press OK to exit the settings dialog.

If you have a slow machine, also do the following:

  1. In the left pane, choose "Performance."
  2. In the "Cache" group, enable the "Use cache" option.
  3. Enable the "Skip frames" option.

If you have a sound card that does not support 48kHz sampling rate, also do the
following:

  1. In the left pane, choose "Advanced."
  2. In the "Audio Filter" entry field, enter:

       resample=44100:0:1


4. LICENSE, COPYRIGHT, DISCLAIMER
=================================

SMPlayer is copyright (C) 2006 - 2007 RVM <rvm@escomposlinux.org>.

The OS/2 port is copyright (c) 2008, 2010 Silvan Scherrer.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as contained in
the file COPYING in the installation directory.

The original source code is available at:

  http://smplayer.sourceforge.net

Changes for the OS/2 version are included in the file:

  smplayer.diff (not included in the beta)

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

For details, refer to the file COPYING.


5. CONTACT
==========

Please send bugreports to:

  ecs@aroa.ch

Only bug reports with a reproducable bug are accepted. :-)

Please enclose the error.log file that is produced with the setup described
above under INSTALLATION.


6. CREDITS
==========

The port was done by:

Silvan Scherrer aka _diver

Thanks go to:

  * Yuri Dario
  * Doodle
  * KO Myung-Hun
  * Herwig Bauernfeind
  * Christian Hennecke

They either helped me when I had some nasty questions or did some testing for
me.


7. SUPPORT AND DONATIONS
========================

SMPlayer is based on volunteer work. If you would like to support further
development, you can do so in one of the following ways:

  * Donate to the Qt4 project: see http://qt.netlabs.org for more information

  * Contribute to the project: Besides actual development, this also includes
    maintaining the documentation and the project web site as well as help
    for users.


8. HISTORY
==========

2010-06-30
  * fixed a nasty 1 second delay

2010-04-29
  * updated to Qt4 4.6.2
  * added support for mplayer -ao kai (latest mplayer version)

2010-01-29
  * updated to latest Qt4 source
  * enabled colorkey (thanks to KO Myung-Hun)

2009-11-11

  * fixed hang with broken media
  * changed to Qt4 beta4

2009-10-22

  * removed requirement for MPlayer DLLs to be in PATH or SMPlayer directory
    (fixed in Qt)
  * removed requirement for C:\PSFONTS\helv.pfb (fixed in Qt)
  * added Screensaver functionality for Doodle Screensaver

2009-10-02

  * beta1 of newest smplayer version with Qt4 support

2009-01-22

  * fixed a crash when playing audio files

2008-11-24

  * added french and german readme (done by Guillaume Gay and Christian Hennecke)
  * added nice looking icons for exe and folder (done by David Graser)
  * updated Qt DLL with newest version from SVN

2008-11-04

  * fixed a bug in Qt DLL which occured when playing from playlist
  * renamed icon files to match wps behaviour

2008-10-27

  * with newest mplayer from hobbes the resizing problem is fixed
  * fixed a bug introduced when adding more file extensions

2008-10-20

  * switched to custom-built Qt DLL sqt.dll (latest version from svn.netlabs.org/qt)
  * added a couple more file extensions to the open file dialog

2008-10-14

  * initial release

