How can i playback avc (h264,.x264) video?

[therock003]

Hi i'm new with linux and i want to ask a couple of questions.How can i playback avc (h264,.x264) video,and which linux supported players support external subtitle files?

[redwudz]

I'm not a Linux user, but I would try VLC media player. It works with quite a few OS's and plays most anything.

EDIT: And therock003, in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,
Moderator redwudz

[therock003]

Well as fr as avc goes it didnt.At least tha linux distro i'm running the only way for avc,was to downgrade the mplayer,which i did,but due to an underclocked 630 intel cpu playback is laggy so i wanted to consider alternatives.

[therock003]

If there isnt an alternative to the avc playbac is there at least a way to improve performance?

-As for subs,i didnt find an option on vlc.Mplayer has an option to load external files,but isnt there a way like the vobsub to load automatically the subs?

[GMaq]

Hi,

Well VLC, Totem, Xine, Kaffeine, KMplayer, SMPlayer and Mplayer, with w32 Codecs should all playback H.264, I personally use Totem-xine however if you are meaning a 630mhz CPU, then that is where your problem lies. Linux is using many of the same basic libraries as Windows to decode H.264 so it has no "faster" decoders than Windows, In fact CoreAVC is the fastest one I know of and as far as I know it is not available for Linux. As for subs I don't ever use them myself but I believe VLC and (S)Mplayer handle them quite well, perhaps the others I mentioned but I haven't tried them all.

[therock003]

Handle them you mean automatically by having the the sub file named as the video file,or should i have to load them every time?

I have all the aforementioned players but how do you install the codecs so i can try on the other players the playback?

[GMaq]

OK,

Sorry, I can't answer the subs question, my guess would be you would have to load them. I could be more specific about installing codecs if you could tell me what distro of Linux you are using. They all have different repos etc to obtain non-free codecs.

[FulciLives]

@therock003

What distro and version of Linux are you running?

For instance a popular distro is Ubuntu and right now the most recent version is 8.04

Another popular distro is Fedora and right now the most recent version is 9.0

These are just examples by what I mean when I say "distro" and "version"

So what are you using?

However as other people are saying your CPU might not be fast enough. It is unclear to me what CPU you have. You say you have a "630 intel" here in the thread but your computer specs simply say, "850" for the CPU. To me this means you either have an Intel Pentium 4 "E" 630 (Prescott) but why you have "850" in your COMPUTER DETAILS ... well it makes no sense. You might want to update your COMPUTER DETAILS with more accurate and concise information.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[therock003]

Sorry guys that i wasnt more specific in giving details.I'm a complete beginner in linux,but the first thing you get to know is what distro is, so no worries on explaining about that!Thank you for doing it though.

Anyway my distro is the Xandros,customized for the asus.The one that ships with the model initially.For now i've stayed with it (even if its annoying) for its fast booting time and waiting periods,but i'm seriously thinking of getting the ubuntu 8.04.

Well my specs are completely outdated,these were concerning an old pc on my dads office.The computer i'm refering to now is an asus eee umpcwith a supposedly 900 intel processor underclocked to 630.(It was supposed to be 100fsb x9,but they underclocked the fsb down to 70 thus resulting a 630mhz frequency).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_eee

A little information about the model.Processor is Intel Celeron-M ULV 353.

One last bit of information.The new bios revision overclocks the processor,or may i say set its straight to the actual 900 speed,but problems are reported and i didnt try it.Other than that there are a couple of windows overvlovkers but i vaent found yet a way to overclock inside a linux distro.

[FulciLives]

I may be wrong here but my understanding is that the Asus EEE computers are not very powerful computers and are ill suited for "demanding" ummm computing for lack of a better word.

In short I don't think you will ever be able to get proper playback of h264/x264 as the decoding needed for this video codec is very demanding on the CPU/GPU of the computer.

Perhaps someone else reading this will prove me wrong ...

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[GMaq]

OK,

1. I agree with FulciLives, Regardless of Software, you don't have enough CPU as stated before

2. I am familiar with Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE, I'm not familiar with Xandros, would guess they would have a user forum that would address your question, A search like "DVD Playback" or "Non-free Codecs" should point you in the right direction.

[tekkieman]

I may be wrong here but my understanding is that the Asus EEE computers are not very powerful computers and are ill suited for "demanding" ummm computing for lack of a better word.

You're not wrong. The EEEs are built to be lightweight email/internet machines.

In short I don't think you will ever be able to get proper playback of h264/x264 as the decoding needed for this video codec is very demanding on the CPU/GPU of the computer.

...and they're not likely to get much more powerful now that MS has entered the fray and made contract demands limiting what they will allow Windows on. Since these UMPC vendors want the cheap ($20-$30) XP Home MS is selling them for these devices, they are now forced to limit CPU speed, memory/storage, and screen size so MS doesn't lose out on more Vista sales and PC manufacturers don't lose out on sales of higher end (forced Vista) machines.

[therock003]

Well surely its not for demanding tasks,but i didnt know that avc encoded videos,demanded that much more.Anyway i've adressed this on the eee user forums and the only solution was to downgrade the mplayer version.Seriously there's no other claim on doing anything else on the preinstalled xandros,but i thought i sould ask here as well.

Also do you know of any linux overclocking ways so i could check performance on 900+ mhz?Pepole state that on windows they've reached oc speed of up to 1170mhz!

[tekkieman]

Also do you know of any linux overclocking ways so i could check performance on 900+ mhz?Pepole state that on windows they've reached oc speed of up to 1170mhz!

Here is a link to an article I just read that talks about overclocking the EEE