YJL

Recently I kept playing a MV on my screen, so I decided to turn on Desktop Effects, then I will have alpha channel. I can make video window a little transparent and I can read stuff beneath that window. I have tried to keep system as simple as possible, therefore I didn't install other players besides the default, totem. Funny thing is after turned the Desktop Effects on, I also installed Xine (front-end), MPlayer, and VLC. Why I installed them? because I can't stand with the quality of gstreamer, Xine, or VLC, only MPlayer can satisify my eyes.



I will start to note about how to let each player play with Desktop Effects first:




Make sure you switch to gstreamer (as root)

totem-backend -b gstreamer

Choose video driver

gstreamer-properties

Switch to Video tab, choose X Window System (No XV), Test, then Close.




Go to Setup, Choose Master of the known universe from Configuration experience level in gui tab, Switch to video tab, Choose driver xshm.




Tools/Preferences, Video, Display/Output X11 video output.




In Preferences/Video. x11 may work, but the fullscreen doesn't work for me. gl2 is sort of working, but have other issues.



The quality of them, I rank them in this order: MPlayer > VLC >>> Xine = gstreamer. Although VLC seems to be better than Xine or gstreamer, but it gives me few glitches on audio, that is not acceptable to me.



MPlayer is not really fully working with Desktop Effects, I wonder if this is also about open source video driver. I can't recall the status when I still use ATI driver.



Since I only have a small window playing, I will stay with Desktop Effects using Totem + gstreamer, I can accept the quality when window is small. When I need the fullscreen playing, I will turn off Desktop Effects and use MPlayer.