mplayer/mencoder with bwdif

[Selur]

Looking at the source code from mplayer-svn folder, config.h and config.mak do define CONFIG_VF_BWDIF_FILTER and ffmpeg nowadays also comes with the code for it, but when I call: 'mencoder -vf help' bwdif isn't listed and I'm wondering how to enable bwdif during compilation or how to use it with mencoder/mplayer?

Cu Selur

[richardpl]

Mplayer/Mencoder does not have support for FFmpeg libavfilter filters, that is in their politics.

[Selur]

It seems strange that the config.h and config.mak then contain CONFIG_VF_BWDIF_FILTER or is it to disable the support for it during the compilation of libav?

[richardpl]

No, that is irrelevant, that is part of ffmpeg - mplayer builds with ffmpeg in very ugly and evil way, mplayer does not have code to handle libavfilter at all.
Instead if you want to use bwdif use mpv player, it is mplayer fork with sane codebase.

[Selur]

yeah, but the mencoder part is barly usable in mpv which is why I don't use it.
But anyways thanks for the info about mplayer/mencoder not supporting bwdif, no real problem I decode with mencoder and pipe to ffmpeg for deinterlacing in case I want to use bwdif.

Cu Selur

[richardpl]

mencoder is obsolete and no longer maintained, so i really dunno why you still use it.
mpv have encoder support too.

[Selur]

a. vfw support which allows me to open some old files libav can't open
b. it's easy to use
One reason why I don't use mpv is because they dropped mplayers slave mode which allowed to embed it's output in a window without having to use the api interface (and the libaries) which made it simple to write portable GUIs for it.
Normally I use vlc on linux (and mac) and mpc-hc on Windows for normal media consumption. mplayer and mencoder I only use for encoding and preview purposes,...
Not planning to use it any time soon since I don't really see much it's offering to me.

Cu Selur

[Selur]

just wondering who came up with the idea that one needs to call 'mpv' instead of 'mpv.exe' to get a proper command line output!??
(calling 'mpv.exe --vf=help' does nothing, no error nothing, 'mpv --vf=help' does show the available video filter list)
-> sorry, but removing extensions on Windows seems like a not so good idea

[stax76]

mpv.exe is a GUI app, Windows does not allow that one app is both GUI and console at the same time.

mpv.com is a console app, it's an extremely thin wrapper for mpv.exe, I could use it without change for mpv.net by just renaming mpv.com to mpvnet.com.

In Windows com extension has higher priority than exe extension.

More info here:

https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/issues/6827

[Selur]

Okay,.. I personally thing it's unnecessary confusing and would have would it better to use for example: mpv_cli.exe and mpv_gui.exe (or just mpv.exe for the second one), but thans for clearing that up.

[stax76]

Maybe you don't use the shell often, I think people like short and easy commands.

[Selur]

on the contrary I use the shell quite often (given more on Linux than on Windows), but I'm usually use the auto completion feature (even the Windows Command Prompt nowadays supports it).

[stax76]

CMD is garbage OK but PowerShell and Windows Terminal can challenge any Linux tool any day, Linux folks invented many of the concepts, I give you that.

[Selur]

I think that 'any Linux tool' is a bit much, but I give you that PowerShell has become quite useful.

[stax76]

I mean any command shell tool like bash which is an old command language that cannot be compared to a new scripting language like powershell, it's 17 years newer, has a full Microsoft team behind it, full .NET and COM access and first class support in VS code (another outstanding Microsoft tool) including debugger.

[Selur]

Sure, but then at least all Debian based Linux systems by default come with python pre-installed and python is a useful scripting language too.

[stax76]

Agreed, I hope I can do a project with it someday.

[richardpl]

a. vfw support which allows me to open some old files libav can't open

Which codecs that "old" files actually have?

[Selur]

Some old vp3, vp4, Cinepak Video files and some old Camtasia screen captures mostly obscure stuff nobody uses any more.
I should probably convert them to something lossless and delete the originals,...

[richardpl]

Some old vp3, vp4, Cinepak Video files and some old Camtasia screen captures mostly obscure stuff nobody uses any more.
I should probably convert them to something lossless and delete the originals,...

I think all of those are supported natively with mpv, and not with mplayer.
Mplayer even does not anymore support new decoders added by ffmpeg at all.

[Selur]

I'll give it a try when I find the time.