Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer vs mplayer2

[John Campbell <jdc.rpv@cox.net>]

On 03/29/2011 08:01 AM, 7v5w7go9ub0o wrote:

> While I've been quite pleased with mplayer as tweaked by Nikos
> Chantziaras to allow Multi threading on my core-I7 (Nvidia) (and I
> realize that MT will now be in the upstream distribution), I'm wondering
> if mplayer2 is now stable and better enough to merit switching.

Mplayer2 installs in parallel, so try them both.

I moved to mplayer2 some time ago, before the name-change to mplayer2. 
I've had fewer issues with it than with mplayer but your mileage may vary.

After a quick comparison I'd say they use about the same amount of CPU 
but mplayer still has problems with fontconfig freezing the video for a 
few seconds whenever fonts change in subtitles.  This can be a real 
problem when subtitles contain a lot of UTF8 extended characters not 
actually found in the selected font.  You also see a lot of "Glyf not 
found in font, choosing another font" warnings.

Mplayer2 doesn't have this problem as it shifts fontconfig into another 
thread.  Mplayer itself isn't multithreaded yet, just ffmpeg.  Mplayer2 
also handles mkv chapters, which aren't really all that useful anyway.

So I'd say just install mplayer2, add threads=5 to your config and try 
them both.