The Last Frontier : a good multimedia application

[Chris Rees]

2009/4/11 Manish Jain <invalid.pointer at gmail.com>:
>
> Hi all,
>
> After weeks of fumbling and struggling, I have made my full transition from
> Linux to FreeBSD, thanks in no mean measures to the assistance of this
> forum. I've got my FreeBSD 7.1 x86 system set up exactly as I wanted it and
> now I am looking to move one step further - and that is one big step. I wish
> to get rid of my Windows installation too, which exists purely for the
> purpose of multimedia entertainment - one area where I think GNU-based
> systems still have some way to go before they catch up with Win32
> applications.
>
> However, I am willing to give it a try. I already have xmms set up, which
> takes care of the audio part reasonably well. The big hole that remains is a
> video application. What I looking for is something on these lines :
>
> 1) I hardly ever play movies directly from the CD/DVD drive (/dev/dvd ->
> /dev/acd0, courtesy devfs.conf). First I copy them to the hard-disk (after
> decrypting any DVD's if needed). So I ideally want an application that can
> play .dat and unencrypted .vob files directly from a hard disk ntfs
> partition without incessently complaining about missing plugins. (If
> necessary, I can reformat the ntfs partition as ffs). Actually, to be more
> accurate, I don't even have any .vob files. What I have is unencrypted .iso
> images of the DVD's, which I guess I will need to mount via mdconfig. But if
> the application strictly needs .vob files, I'll extract them from the iso
> images for its benefit.
>
> 2) Since my DVD drive is capable of reading DVD's from all regions, it would
> be great if the application could also, if needed, directly play encrypted
> DVD's from the drive itself. I have libdvdnav, libdvdread, libdvdcss and
> libdvdplay installed.
>
> 3) The final point to be considered is the quality of the video/audio
> playback compared to, say, PowerDVD on Windows - which I have used (version
> 2.55) with absolute delight and satisfaction since I purchased my first DVD.
>
> Any tips/input would be greatly appreciated. To keep the discussion simple,
> HD/Blu-Ray are not in my plans for the current century.
>
> --
> Thank you and Regards
> Manish Jain
> invalid.pointer at gmail.com
> +91-99830-62246
>
> NB : Laast year I kudn't spell Software Engineer. Now I are won.
>

Have you tried vlc for video? I'm sure it's not something you've
completely overlooked, but it's probably worth another.

You seem settled on xmms, have you also tried out musicpd for music?
You can use Sonata as a frontend, very nice to use, or even over HTTP.
It also carries on fine should X crap out :)

Chris


-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?