I have been tinkering with PC's right from the XT - 8086 and I quite clearly remember saying to a friend "we will never be able to watch video on a computer", well now, oops. So when the technology became readily available, I rushed out to pick mine up. I came home with the Creative Encore 5X kit, very excited. However as time went on, and attitudes changed, I found myself a new operating system. Linux. All of a sudden my Encore 5X became a $550 paperweight. Sure it could still be used for a regular CD ROM drive in linux, that wasn't good enough. So for months I waited, and waited... then, just for fun I ran a search on Yahoo looking for 'DVD for Linux', the rest is history.
Using GATOS with 'dvdplay' is exactly like hooking up a VCR to a TV. The ATI-All in Wonder card is the insides or guts of the tv, GATOS, is the screen of the TV. The DXR2 decoder card would be like the VCR.
When you purchase an Encore 5X kit, it comes with a 2 ended cable for TV output. One end is composite video OUT (RCA-plug) and the other is S-Video OUT (PS2 'like' connector). Using either of these will work.
Connect the cable to the back of the DXR2's TV OUT port. Then connect the selected jack to the corresponding INPUT.
Dxr2 Card Ati Card / TV Set / VCR
(or other TV tuner card)
______ _______
| |
| |
|video OUT Video IN|
|------->--------->---------->|
| |
| |
| |
_____| |______
This will work on any equipment that has VIDEO IN.
You can connect your Dxr2 to the VIDEO IN
of you cable converter box if you wanted to!
Start GATOS by typing 'xatitv'. The TV will now be on. In the upper left corner of GATOS is the controls. The 3 most upper left buttons are the INPUT selector, TV, CV, and SV for TV/Cable, Composite Video and S-Video respectively. Select the appropriate input for your setup.
If you are using another TV card then the ATI-All in Wonder Pro, feel free to contact me and I will include the procedure for these cards in this HOWTO.
Finally! Lets play some movies!
Place a DVD in the drive and mount it.
as root
# mount -t udf /dev/hd* /where/ever/you/mount/your/dvd
- /hd*= whatever device is your DVD drive (ie- /dev/hdb)
- common mount point is /mnt/dvd
Make sure that the dxr2 module is loaded into the kernel
as root
# modprobe dxr2
Choose a file to play
If your DVD drive is mounted on /mnt/dvd then the video files will be in a directory called /mnt/dvd/VIDEO_TS (or in all lower-case as I have seen when mounting the dvd as ISO-9660). The files in this folder will be named VTS_0x_y.VOB. The first few files are usually the menu items (eg - VTS_01_0.VOB) your best bet is to try VTS_01_1.VOB.
Play the movie
Now this is the good part.
as root
# dvdplay-curses -cT /mnt/dvd/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB *
*other command line options are listed below
This will start the player and display current status of the player in the terminal while it plays. In the GATOS window the movie should be visible. If not see trouble shooting.
dvdplay - commaand line options
Player command line options (from the ReadMe file)
dvdplay [-cTO] [-s <bitstream type>] [-a <audio stream>]
[-f <audio freq>] [-W <TV type>] [-u <audio type>]
[-w <audio width>] [-r <output ratio>] [-t <output type>]
[-S <subtitle jid>] [-g <geom>] [-p <crop>] [-b <brightness>]
[-A <angle>] <filename>
-c Turns CSS decryption ON.
You will need to be running the player as root to use this.
-a X Select audio Stream.
X should be between 0 and 7 inclusively (by default audio stream 0 is played)
-r X Select Picture ratio.
0 = Letterbox, 1 = normal, 2 = Pan/Scan.
-t X Select TV output format.
0 = NTSC, 1= NTSC 60Hz, 2=PAL-M, 3=PAL-M 60Hz, 4=PAL BDGHI, 5 = PAL-N, 6 = PAL-Nc.
(0 = US NTSC, 4 = w-european PAL)
-q X Select audio frequency.
0 = 44.1 kHz, 2 = 48 kHz, 3 = 96 kHz, 4 = 22.05 kHz, 5 = 32 kHz.
(You should choose 3 (96 kHz) for most DVD AC-3 movies.)
-w X Select audio width.
0 = 16 bits, 1 = 20bits, 2 = 24 bits.
I'm not sure why this is here.
-s X Select bitstream type.
0 = DVD. 1 = CDROM VCD, 2 = MPEG VCD, 3 = CDDA, 4 = Unknown
(Choose 0 (DVD) for playing .VOB files, and 2 (MPEG VCD) for playing VCD .mpg/.dat files)