The Last Frontier : a good multimedia application

[Manish Jain]

Chris Rees wrote:
> 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
>
>
>   

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the input. I certainly am not settled on xmms. It's the only 
one I was aware of so far. Further to that, I WAS actually for something 
that could do without X, because I work a lot on the console. I'll start 
the musicpd build right away.

-- 
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.