KPlayer - a KDE media player

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: 0.5

Notes:
KPlayer is a KDE media player based on MPlayer, www.mplayerhq.hu.

With KPlayer you can easily play a wide variety of video and audio files and
streams using a rich and friendly interface compliant with KDE standards.

Features include
- video, audio and subtitle playback from file, URL, DVD, VCD,
  audio CD, TV, DVB, etc., as well as KDE I/O Slaves;
- volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation controls;
- zooming, full screen and fixed aspect options;
- status and progress display and seeking;
- playlist;
- configuration dialog and file specific options;
- KPart for integration with Konqueror, KMLDonkey, etc.

New in KPlayer 0.5
- per-file options: fine tune KPlayer and MPlayer options
  for individual files;
- playing from KDE I/O Slaves: transfer and play files from
  SSH connection or Zip archive without storing them locally;
- media file meta information in Konqueror file manager;
- support for mms:, pnm: and rtsp: URLs in Konqueror browser;
- zoom in and out with mouse wheel;
- smooth seeking when dragging the progress slider;
- tons of minor improvements and bug fixes.

Requirements
------------

A recent MPlayer

   KPlayer uses the famous MPlayer as the backend for playing audio and
   video files and streams. This ensures the maximum variety of supported
   types of files and encodings.

   You need to have MPlayer version 0.90 or later. Of the stable MPlayer
   releases 0.90 was the least buggy, but it has security issues. The same
   issues were present in recent unstable releases up to and including
   1.0-pre3, so if you are concerned about security (as you should be),
   your choice would be MPlayer 1.0-pre4 or later. However, 1.0-pre4
   introduced a fresh set of bugs, in particular in remote URL handling
   and FTP support.

   If there are good binary packages for your distribution, use those.
   For example on Debian unstable you would do

   echo 'deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
   apt-get update
   apt-get install mplayer-k7

   Substitute unstable for stable or testing as required, and k7 for 386,
   586, 686 or k6, according to your processor type.

   As always compiling from source is an option.

   If you got an mplayer.conf in /etc/mplayer or a ~/.mplayer/config,
   check them to make sure that they do not have a line like "gui=yes".
   Kill it dead if you find it. Use 'gmplayer' if you ever decide to
   use MPlayer's own GUI (not recommended).

   It is perfectly fine if you want to remove the MPlayer config files
   entirely. However, they may be useful as an alternative way of
   specifying options that KPlayer does not yet support directly.

X11 and XVideo

   X11 is required. Recommended versions are XFree86 4.2.x and 4.3.x, as
   well as X Server versions released by X.org.

   XVideo extension is recommended. You can check your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file for a line that reads

   Load "extmod"

   This is the line that loads XVideo extension, so make sure it is not
   disabled. Also check /var/log/XFree86.0.log to make sure that XVideo
   is loaded without error.

Qt and KDE

   KPlayer 0.5 supports KDE 3.2.x and 3.1.x, so you need to either run
   a relatively recent KDE (recommended) or at least have KDE libraries
   and the corresponding Qt libraries on your system.

Installation
------------

See INSTALL.

Configuration
-------------

KPlayer's initial settings have been tuned to the optimal values so that
the program should be fully usable out of the box. In fact, version 0.2
did not have a configuration dialog and was quite useful nevertheless.

For advanced users the configuration dialog offers a lot of different
settings affecting both the KPlayer user interface and MPlayer options.
If you mess KPlayer up by playing with them, the Defaults button is there
to help you out.

However, if KPlayer does not work for you in the first place, please first
test MPlayer itself from the command line to see if it needs any command
line options to work on your system. Then you can set those options in the
KPlayer configuration dialog.

Before you put anything into the Additional Command Line Arguments box,
please first look around the dialog to make sure the option you need is not
yet supported directly. For example, the only time you'll ever need to put
-ao, -ac, -vo or -vc in there is when you want to list more than one output
or codec separated by a comma. In that case please first set the respective
option on the Audio or Video page to 'auto'.

Warning about -vo sdl and -vo svga: if you set these anywhere other than the
Video page in the KPlayer config dialog, you will likely have to either wait
for your file to finish playing or kill your X session. If you really have
to, you can edit or remove the input.conf file in share/apps/kplayer, but
that is not recommended, nor are -vo sdl and -vo svga for that matter.

File properties
---------------

Starting from KPlayer 0.5 each file and URL has its own set of properties.
They include information that KPlayer found out about the file, like time
length, video size, frame rate, bitrates, and so on, as well as various
options you can set, like name, video aspect, subtitles, and many more.

Most properties can be set through the File Properties dialog. The
Properties dialog for the currently loaded file or URL can be opened from
the File menu, or using a button on the main toolbar, or from the right
click popup menu. You can also open Properties dialog for an entry from
your playlist by right clicking on it in the Playlist Editor, or by using
the command on the Playlist menu.

An easier way to set file properties is by holding the Shift key when
changing a setting. For example, if you hold Shift and select Soft Frame
Drop from the Player menu, KPlayer will remember that setting for the
current URL, and use it the next time you play it. After it is done playing
the current URL, it will revert the Frame Drop setting to the default, the
one that was in effect before you changed it with Shift. On the other hand,
if you change Frame Drop without holding Shift, the new setting will become
the default, and will be used for all URLs that do not have it set
explicitly.

Playing DVDs, VCDs, audio CDs, TV
---------------------------------

As advertised on MPlayer manpage, DVDs can be played by passing a URL like
dvd://1 to MPlayer. "1" in this case is the track number you want to watch.
So put that in the Open URL dialog inside KPlayer.

Similarly, a URL like vcd://1 can be used to play a track from video CD.
Use the cdda: prefix to play a track from audio CD, and tv: to play from TV.

Full screen mode
----------------

To return from the full screen mode to the normal mode just hit Ctrl+F or
right click anywhere in the video area and choose Full Screen from the menu.
You can also hit the Esc key, which will stop playback and end the full
screen mode.

History
-------

See ChangeLog.

Known issues
------------

See BUGS.

Online HOWTOs
-------------

Installation
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23142&group_id=71710

Compiling from source
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=22178&group_id=71710

Compiling from CVS
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=22177&group_id=71710

Basic configuration
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23154&group_id=71710

Advanced configuration
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23162&group_id=71710

File properties
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23508&group_id=71710

Full screen and maximized window
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23505&group_id=71710

Playlist
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23506&group_id=71710

Subtitles
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23507&group_id=71710

DVD, VCD, audio CD, TV, DVB
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23240&group_id=71710

HTTP, FTP and Samba
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23242&group_id=71710

KDE I/O Slaves
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=23246&group_id=71710

Translation
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=22175&group_id=71710

Reporting bugs
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=22190&group_id=71710

Changes:
0.5 release
2004-07-02
 - File specific options aka File Properties
 - Playing from I/O Slaves
 - Media file meta information in Konqueror
 - mms:, pnm: and rtsp: URLs in Konqueror
 - Zooming with mouse wheel
 - Smooth seeking when dragging progress slider
 - Many minor improvements and bug fixes

0.4 release
2003-11-05
 - Playlist
 - KPart for integration with KMLDonkey, Konqueror, etc.
 - Seven language translations
 - Many minor improvements and bug fixes

0.3.1 release
2003-08-06
 - Bug fixes
   Playing from dvd://, vcd://, tv:// etc. URLs
   Playing URLs with embedded HTTP authentication
   Length detection and progress display with main branch MPlayer

0.3 release
2003-08-01
 - Configuration dialog with many options
 - Drag and drop support
 - Message log
 - Key bindings dialog
 - More subtitle commands and options
 - MPlayer error detection
 - Bug fixes
   Opening remote URLs from Konqueror
   Handling special characters in file names
   Video aspect detection
   MPlayer shutdown
   Disabling screensaver while playing video
   Numerous other improvements and bug fixes

0.2 release
2003-03-26
 - Options to maintain video aspect ratio
 - Zooming
 - Contrast, brightness, hue and saturation controls
 - Subtitle loading
 - Frame dropping options
 - Persitence of options between sessions
 - Option to use popup sliders instead of toolbars
 - Only one instance allowed to run
 - Many fixes and improvements in several areas including full screen, time
   length detection, status display

0.1 release
2003-02-01
 - Invoke mplayer process, handle slave mode input and output
 - Play movies in embedded window
 - Open File, Open URL, Play, Pause, Stop, Forward, Fast Forward, Backward,
   Fast Backward, Start, Volume Up, Volume Down, Mute, Full Screen, Toggle
   Menubar, Toggle Toolbars, Toggle Statusbar, About, Quit functions
 - Progress slider, seek function, Volume slider
 - Main toolbar, Progress toolbar, Volume toolbar
 - Autosize window to the movie size
 - Context menu
 - Shortcut keys
 - Main window title
 - Status information showing mplayer state and progress
 - Recent file list (non-persistent for now)

2002-11-16
 KPlayer project started, first code written