The end of xp? mplayer audio track selection.

This evening, I double clicked an audio file in explorer, to play it. It's long filename resulted in the file extension running off the screen edge: I scanned the filename and icon and concluded it was a .mp3.

It wasn't. It was a compressed executable which promptly ran and infested my machine, turning off the firewall; slowing the machine to a halt; triggering multiple warnings (credit to Microsoft for one of their patches managing that, at least) and eventually (10 seconds or so) blue screening.

On reset, wallpaper change and lots of warnings.

Fuck it. Back to linux. Grab all the data off the drive and reinstall.

No. This was XP on sda5 or so. Do I trust the windows installer not to interfere with the other (perfectly operational) linux partitions? In short, no.

So, good bye XP. You had your chance, but if double clicking a single file is enough to hose my system, I'd be acting irresponsibly if I were to use it. It was only for games anyway.

So, now, World of Warcraft on Linux. First, mplayer audio track selection.

mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -v filename | grep audio

shows the audio tracks available. To run `2' (if it's there):

mplayer -aid 2 filename

For example:

mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -v VTS_02_1.VOB | grep audio

shows

==> Found audio stream: 128
==> Found audio stream: 129
==> Found audio stream: 130
==> Found audio stream: 131
==> Found audio stream: 132

So, try

mplayer -aid 129 VTS_02_1.VOB

or even add some lf cut EQ:

mplayer -aid 129 -af equalizer=-12:-6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 VTS_02_1.VOB

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9787

is interesting.

Dont forget full screen!

mplayer -aid 129 -af equalizer=-12:-6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 -fs VTS_02_1.VOB

and finally, deinterlace:

mplayer -aid 129 -af equalizer=-12:-6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 -fs -vf lavcdeint VTS_02_1.VOB

The obvious thing to do is to substitute a command, say `play',
to execute all that spuff, followed by the filename.

Set up the mplayer defaults!

http://liquidweather.net/howto/index.php?id=98

shows ~/.mplayer/config

if created, contains the defaults. Great! Send all mplayer screen output to
the file ~/.mplayer/output and refer to it from conky!

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ALSA stuff.

Avoid OSS, as it seems the hardware gets locked during use.

aplay -l

to list the playback devices connected. There will be card numbers,
devices and subdevices.

mplayer addresses them as,

mplayer *.mp3 -ao alsa:device=hw=0.1

where this addresses card zero, device 1. At least, I think so.