Re: [SLE] Can't get video clips to play from laptop through projector -- long, sorry.
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On Monday 08 May 2006 16:40, Gil Weber wrote:
Hello, everyone. ...
The Powerpoint displayed perfectly on the large screen for the audience. And when I switched desktops and launched Totem, the audio component of the video clips played through the speakers. But, in the Totem window where the video was supposed to be, I only had a blue screen up on the wall for the audience.
...
Hi Gil,
I believe that this problem might be related to the fact that most video application use some 'work arounds' to speed up the video output when playing movies. This means that they do not use the standard X server but simply create a window on the desktop an then fill that window by writing more or less directly into the graphic card's memory. That will not work with a dual-head set-up. The only way I can imagine here is to use a standard output method which does not go around the X server but uses it. If you use kaffeine, the xine program is used to do the real work. Call xine directly with --help and it will display a number of options for the video output methods. Try these and have a look whether any of these will give a display on the second head. Most likely, the output will be pretty slow if it works at all.
Bye, Jürgen
Jurgen, thanks for the reply. I looked at
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday 08 May 2006 17:41, Gil Weber wrote:
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On Monday 08 May 2006 16:40, Gil Weber wrote:
Hello, everyone. ...
The Powerpoint displayed perfectly on the large screen for the audience. And when I switched desktops and launched Totem, the audio component of the video clips played through the speakers. But, in the Totem window where the video was supposed to be, I only had a blue screen up on the wall for the audience.
...
Hi Gil,
I believe that this problem might be related to the fact that most video application use some 'work arounds' to speed up the video output when playing movies. This means that they do not use the standard X server but simply create a window on the desktop an then fill that window by writing more or less directly into the graphic card's memory. That will not work with a dual-head set-up. The only way I can imagine here is to use a standard output method which does not go around the X server but uses it. If you use kaffeine, the
xine
program is used to do the real work. Call xine directly with --help
and it
will display a number of options for the video output methods. Try these and have a look whether any of these will give a display on the second head. Most likely, the output will be pretty slow if it works at all.
Bye, Jürgen
Jurgen, thanks for the reply. I looked at
and found lots of options. But nothing jumps out at me as applying to second head displays. Perhaps I'm not experienced enough to know what I am looking at?
Are you saying that viewing the videos in Xine (with a special option for the video output) might work where neither Totem nor Kaffeine did work? Or am I not understanding?
Maybe a major stumbling block in figuring this out is that I do not have a projector to test possible solutions. I will get my first chance in 2 weeks, when I fly 1500 miles to lecture and only then connect to a projector. Yikes! What a mess.
Gil, my idea behind using xine directly is to make things simpler. As kaffeine is only the graphical front-end for xine, using it directly will remove one step of complexity. If you get it to work with xine directly, you can then edit the setting in kaffeine so that you can use it as the front-end. xine has serveral video drivers (option -V or --video-driver). You should try all of them and see whether you get any picture at all on your notebook and if that works on an external monitor (try to get a monitor which allows similar settings as your projector). For more information about xine's video drivers you can go to http://xinehq.de/index.php/faq#VIDEODRIVER My guess would be that xine -V XShm might provide the best chances but depending on your graphics hardware another of the drivers provided might also work. You could also try to use another graphics driver for your X server if any is available. Sorry, you will have to put some time into trial and error here and the outcome is pretty unsure. This is one of the points where 'that other OS' is much better supported by the hardware producers. Bye, Jürgen - -- BR Technologies GmbH & Co.KG Im Bahlbrink 11-13, D-30827 Garbsen, Germany Tel : +49-5131-4404-20 - Fax: +49-5131-4404-56 e-Mail: mell@br-tech.de - Internet: www.br-tech.de -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEX25hB4NmPJNW5OERAgiuAJ9hPQSZfstQNERxZQc3m5zkMHLJgACfZ+us xhdb7tf+gPq9ccWNKJdmOu0= =f/yU -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Monday 08 May 2006 10:41 am, Gil Weber wrote:
Maybe a major stumbling block in figuring this out is that I do not have a projector to test possible solutions. I will get my first chance in 2 weeks, when I fly 1500 miles to lecture and only then connect to a projector. Yikes! What a mess.
gil
Projector or not, if you have a spare monitor laying around (like the one that your wife isn't using right this very moment) will do for now. That way you'll gain more experience with dual-head and getting what you need displayed where you want it with this laptop. I believe what happened was that totem is defaulting to the laptop screen. You haven't told it to display to the other screen/projector/monitor. Figure out how to tell totem/xine/mplayer/ogle/tetris to use the other head/display adapter is the key. I don't have a dual head configuration right here, right now to help with this. Just helping with the hardware troubleshooting setup. Stan
On Mon May 8 2006 1:16 pm, S Glasoe wrote:
On Monday 08 May 2006 10:41 am, Gil Weber wrote:
Maybe a major stumbling block in figuring this out is that I do not have a projector to test possible solutions. I will get my first chance in 2 weeks, when I fly 1500 miles to lecture and only then connect to a projector. Yikes! What a mess.
gil
Projector or not, if you have a spare monitor laying around (like the one that your wife isn't using right this very moment) will do for now. That way you'll gain more experience with dual-head and getting what you need displayed where you want it with this laptop.
I believe what happened was that totem is defaulting to the laptop screen. You haven't told it to display to the other screen/projector/monitor. Figure out how to tell totem/xine/mplayer/ogle/tetris to use the other head/display adapter is the key.
I don't have a dual head configuration right here, right now to help with this. Just helping with the hardware troubleshooting setup.
Stan
Thanks, Stan! I'll work on this. Gil
On Mon May 8 2006 1:16 pm, S Glasoe wrote:
On Monday 08 May 2006 10:41 am, Gil Weber wrote:
Maybe a major stumbling block in figuring this out is that I do not have a projector to test possible solutions. I will get my first chance in 2 weeks, when I fly 1500 miles to lecture and only then connect to a projector. Yikes! What a mess.
gil
Projector or not, if you have a spare monitor laying around (like the one that your wife isn't using right this very moment) will do for now. That way you'll gain more experience with dual-head and getting what you need displayed where you want it with this laptop.
I believe what happened was that totem is defaulting to the laptop screen. You haven't told it to display to the other screen/projector/monitor. Figure out how to tell totem/xine/mplayer/ogle/tetris to use the other head/display adapter is the key.
I don't have a dual head configuration right here, right now to help with this. Just helping with the hardware troubleshooting setup.
Stan
Stan, Jurgen, and everyone who offered help with my problem. Many thanks. I have found a workable solution. Here it is. First, Totem simply doesn't have the configuration options necessary, so I switched players. I found that both Mplayer and KMplayer will allow necessary configuration. Here's what I did. I opened KMplayer > settings > configure KMplayer > general options > output. Here I selected "X11Shm" and clicked apply, and then closed everything. Then I set the file associations for all my videos so that they would open using KMplayer. Then I clicked on a video clip and it opened on my laptop AND the desktop monitor connected to the laptop! Success!! Then to get the video to display full-screen I toggle "f" and I can get exactly what I was missing when I gave my presentation last Friday. I chose KMplayer over Mplayer simply because I find the control buttons (start/stop/pause/etc) easier to use in KMplayer. The only thing left is to figure out how to create a playlist in KMplayer so that I can click on the list of file names one-at-a-time to play the videos rather than closing and opening each video from the folder of video clips. Gil
On Wednesday 10 May 2006 14:41, Gil Weber wrote: <snip> Congratulations, Gil! I'm actually filing your "howto" under hardware>multihead for future reference. Nice job!
The only thing left is to figure out how to create a playlist in KMplayer so that I can click on the list of file names one-at-a-time to play the videos rather than closing and opening each video from the folder of video clips.
This is pretty easy. Open a text editor to a new, blank document and 'shape' the window so it fits in the left half of your screen. Then copy and paste the following template into it. Be sure to remove the quotation right-angle brackets I've inserted for this e-mail:
<html> <!--start line--> <head><title>Local Links</title> <body>
<h1>Local Links</h1> <p><a href="LINK PATH, BETWEEN -QUOTES">DISPLAYED LINK NAME</a></p>
</body> </html><!-- end line-->
Save the text document with a name like 'playlist.html'. Open Konqueror and 'shape' it so it fits in the right half of your screen and navigate to the directory containing the clips that you want in your playlist. Right-click on each file that you want in your playlist, select "Copy", then "Paste" the it into the text document (html page.) Note it pastes the **location** (link address) since you're editing a text-based document. The location belongs, as indicated, between the quotation marks and after the 'a href='. The link title, as it will appear in your playlist when viewed in a browser, is entered where I've put 'DISPLAYED LINK NAME'... between the angle brackets. Here's an example link from my system: file:///home/carlh/scratch/264699.pdf I'll name this link 'A Random .pdf File' Here's what it should look like (remove the left-hand right-angle bracket!):
<p><a href="file:///home/carlh/scratch/264699.pdf">A Random .pdf File</a></p>
That's it. The "<p></p>" tag pair represents a paragraph 'wrapper' for your links. Each link is comprised of an anchor "<a href=""></a>" tag pair. The text that is displayed when you view the playlist in a browser appears between the opening and closing anchor tags: "<a href="">Displayed Text Goes Here</a>" Have fun and good luck! Carl
Addendum: I should say making a browser-based playlist is easy ;-) Carl
participants (4)
-
Carl Hartung -
Gil Weber -
Jürgen Mell -
S Glasoe