> > I've tested xine on Mdk 9.0: in my opinion it's still slow to open a > > fill, slow to navigate throw a video, and quite buggy. The configuration > > menu is really horrible and very difficult to understand. > > I really prefer MPlayer: fast, simple; it's far better than every video > > players that can be found on windows (it's one of the opensource > > application we can find on linux that make a good impression on windows > > users). Whereas xine is worse that Windows Media Player in terms of > > speed/stability/functionnalities. > > Odd, it's always been more or less exactly the same speed as mplayer for > me. If you don't like the interface it has several skins, and there's > both QT and (three) GTK front-ends to the xine libs (kxine, sinek, > totem, and gnome-xine), which you can't say about mplayer...
I'm not talking about skins, but about the configuration dialog that opens when you start the program the first time (the one with the complex interface with audio/video/...); and also the dialog to open file is not very clear (you have to click file before you can see the list of files; and this list isn't very usable. Moreover I've noticed bugs while using the mousewheel). And I'm not talking about the speed when reading a movie (on my computer there's no differences since I've got XV acceleration), but about the time you have to wait before it plays the films and the time you have to wait when you navigate quickly in the movie (two things which are very impressive with mplayer). I'm not using a GUI for mplayer; it's a lot easier to run it from command line or to attach it to the .avi and .mpg types: then you just have to click on the files you want to read in nautilus/konqueror/... to play them. My point is about speed (navigation and loading) and stability (I've noticed more bugs in xine than in mplayer); and not about the skins. Since I'm not the only one to have noticed that (even friends which are not using mainly linux are impressed by mplayer (and would like a software like this for windows) but dislike xine) I think mplayer should be included in Mandrake if there are no legal problems (I'm not sure about this). ;-) And I have to disagree with you on what you said first ;-): "Xine does just about everything mplayer does..." Firstly, I've used the -aspect option of mplayer a lot and that's a very important option for some movies. I didn't find this option for xine. (I know that's a detail; but that's an important details for some clips) Secondly, xine does not impress the windows users I know; but mplayer does. ;-) (that's very subjective but I think that's important) Thirdly, mplayer has a great OSD ;-) (ok this one is not a very objective argument ;-) -- Stephane SOPPERA http://stephane.soppera.free.fr
