Release VLC 2.0.5

[Galaxis]

http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=vlc2-2QDG

[edit] updated for release 2

After removing the pkg-config wrapper from codeblocks, VLC builds much more cleanly. I had to touch mabe half a dozen of the rules.mak files in contrib/src with minor fixes.

Main change in this release is that VLC uses it's own version of ffmpeg instead of the lib that's included with codeblocks. Also enabled acouple more plugins, and disabled lua and httpd, which didn't work anyway...

 

[Galaxis]

Still working on this, but unfortunately the latest results are actually worse than the first attempt. Although I presumably enabled some more ARM-specific optimizations in various libraries, I don't see any positive effects (and sound from AAC files is now completely unusable).

 

[ptitSeb]

libxml_plugin looks for liblzma.la in /mnt/utmp/codeblocks/usr/bin/lib/liblzma.la (yeah, whatever?) - just created a symlink because I was too lazy to find out what libtool was doing there.

Yes, I confirm. I tried to recompiled xv-5.0.4, double checked parameters, and still don't understand why it goes there ?!!! The liblzma.pc is good. I also created an hugly symlink (will be in next code::blocks pnd)...

 

[ptitSeb]

Still working on this, but unfortunately the latest results are actually worse than the first attempt. Although I presumably enabled some more ARM-specific optimizations in various libraries, I don't see any positive effects (and sound from AAC files is now completely unusable).

Do you use the "-Ofast" parameter (+ the usual suite of param to define the plateform). I have found this to be effective sometimes.

 

[Galaxis]

Do you use the "-Ofast" parameter (+ the usual suite of param to define the plateform). I have found this to be effective sometimes.

As far as I know, -Ofast is the same as -O3 (which I use), except that -ffast-math is added. Might help with some things, but I have no idea which modules rely on standard-conforming math...

 

[ptitSeb]

Do you use the "-Ofast" parameter (+ the usual suite of param to define the plateform). I have found this to be effective sometimes.

As far as I know, -Ofast is the same as -O3 (which I use), except that -ffast-math is added. Might help with some things, but I have no idea which modules rely on standard-conforming math...

Yes, this is what I've read too. I assumed VLC was using intensive math, so that -ffast-math would help.

 

[Galaxis]

Bump for second release.

I would be happy to know if it works for anyone besides myself, and if there are problems that should be fixed before I build another update (won't happen before 2.0.6 is out, though).

Also, this version is built with a lot of features that probably are of little use on the Pandora (all the disc-based codecs, and encoders for various formats, for example). Should I just drop those for the next attempt?

 

[F_Slim]

Hopefully I find some time to test it over the weekend (I'm pretty busy atm).

I mainly use VLC for my DVB-T USB stick to watch TV on the Pandora, but I also have all sorts of video files. Unless the disk-based codecs cause trouble I'd probably leave them in. There may be people using a USB-DVD drive to watch DVD's, or think of some other crazy things which magically work with VLC due to those codecs but fail with SMPlayer2  ^_^  

It will show up as "VLC2", so I can have this and the old VLC (1.xx) on the same card, right?

For the first release of VLC2 you said that the video might be choppy(?) is this fixed in your second release using the propper ffmpeg version?

 

[Galaxis]

Yes, the PND is called vlc2, and the menu entry also contains VLC2, so it's no problem to install this one in parallel to the older VLC.

The test video I mentioned is probably not a very good example, as it turns out - it was encoded for iPhones, so it has AAC sound, and in addition it's at a different bitrate and needs to be resampled. Switching off high-quality resamplig already helps with this one. I do not really have good data about which kind media files work up to which resolution.

There are a few NEON assembler snippets in the VLC and plugin sources, which I think I managed to enable - but then some of them aren't used in the end. For example, there are files for accelerated colorspace conversion, but none of them seems to match what's needed on the Pandora.

 

[F_Slim]

Thought I'll give it a quick test this evening, but it doesn't start. Looks like several libaries are missing or broken(?)

Here's the pndrun output:

Spoiler

[ START ]--- Mount the PND ----------
Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/vlc2-2QDG"
Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,dirs="/media/ext4/pandora/appdata/vlc2-2QDG=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/vlc2-2QDG=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/vlc2-2QDG"
[sUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ----------
[ START ]--- Starting the application (scripts/vlc.sh ) ----------
[0x9b028] main stream error: corrupt module: /mnt/utmp/vlc2-2QDG/lib/vlc/plugins/stream_filter/libstream_filter_dash_plugin.so
[0x9fef0] main demux meta error: corrupt module: /mnt/utmp/vlc2-2QDG/lib/vlc/plugins/meta_engine/libtaglib_plugin.so
[0x91b18] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x120c8] main libvlc error: interface "globalhotkeys,none" initialization failed
[0x120c8] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
[0x91b18] main interface error: corrupt module: /mnt/utmp/vlc2-2QDG/lib/vlc/plugins/gui/libqt4_plugin.so
[0x91b18] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x120c8] main libvlc error: interface "default" initialization failed
[sUCCESS]--- Starting the application (scripts/vlc.sh ) ----------
[ START ]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------
[sUCCESS]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------
[ START ]--- uMount the PND ----------
[ START ]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------
[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------
auplinklink.c:223: AUFS_CTL_PLINK_MAINT: Inappropriate ioctl for device
rmdir: failed to remove `/mnt/utmp/vlc2-2QDG': Device or resource busy
[ START ]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------
[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------
cleanup done
[sUCCESS]--- uMount the PND ----------

 

[Galaxis]

Damn. Thanks for the info, disabled download for now - won't have time to check what's wrong until later on Saturday...

 

[Galaxis]

Ok, looks like the libstdc++.so.6 from codeblocks is not compatible with the one from /usr/lib (and I deleted all the shared libs that are available in system directories too)...

Repackaged as 2.0.5.2-1, should work now.

 

[F_Slim]

Thanks!

I tried a bunch of different video-formats and so far everything is working fine. I'm not at home and forgot my DVB-T stick, so I'll test this some time next week.

 

[captain_coconut]

There may be people using a USB-DVD drive to watch DVD's, or think of some other crazy things which magically work with VLC due to those codecs but fail with SMPlayer2  ^_^

I know playing DVDs from a USB drive is possible with SMPlayer2 on the Pandora, but if its not working, please let me know.

 

[F_Slim]

I finally had time to test my DVB-T stick with VLC and VLC2. Here you really see a speed difference on the 1GHz unit, unfortunately the old VLC wins.

Without hardware acceleration the video will stand still with VLC2 and it lags with hardware acceleration enabled.

With the old port video runs smoothly with hardware accelearation and only lags without it ... :unsure:

@pder: I don't have a USB-DVD drive, just a TV stick. Doesn't seem to be supported by SMPlayer2

 

[Galaxis]

Ouch. That's somewhat uncool, and I can't test it myself currently. Did you try any of the output methods besides the default? I'm pretty shure the GL method doesn't work, but the others might (just used XCB and SDL myself).

 

[F_Slim]

I think I used only default, but I can do some more testing with different output methods. What does the default one correspond to?

It would be nice to have hardware-acceleration and GUI-elements not being hidden behind the video. But I guess this is a "feature" of the graphics-driver?

 

[Galaxis]

Hmm, seems like only the two XCB video output options work at all right now. I think I missed that VLC built it's own SDL libraries and linked against those instead of the Pandora libs. Not shure I can muster the motivation for another go at the whole thing right now - maybe next week...

 

[F_Slim]

oh sorry, totally forgot that I wanted to test the video outputs (was busy with my Xplanet port and installing Fedora on my Notebook).

I'm still very interested in this though, VLC is my favorite video-player!! But I know that these are ugly problems which require a lot of motivation to tackle ... especially when you thought it's done and then find yet another problem and have to start all over again. Try again when you feel like it ^_^