MPlayer and Arachne
MPlayer, the open-source multi-media player for Linux (and
Windows), has been ported to DOS by
Michael Kostylev. You can get hold of it from
his website, about a 5 MB
download.
You will also need the DOS port of 7za to unzip the archive. Get it
at the same website.
This port is being kept up to date with the original
sources, so make a note of the URL and check regularly for updates.
(If not found, try this link, or this link.)
So, what does it do ?
It will play multimedia files - more kinds of multimedia
files than has ever been possible in DOS before. It plays video (e.g.
avi, mov, qt, mpeg, wmv, rm, asf, viv, flv, Ogg-Theora and more), and
audio files (e.g. mp3, ogg, ra, wma, wav).
And it can download and play streaming media ! That has
also not been possible in DOS before !
(And you can save the streamed media.)
So, does it work with Arachne ?
Yep !!!
And here is how to do it.
You will need:
- A working installation of a recent
Arachne browser for DOS.
- The downloaded mplayer.7z package, un-archived.
- The APM which will create the directory structure for accommodating
mplayer.exe, the support files for MPlayer, and add the necessary
additions to your MIME.CFG.
Note: The APM is not yet available, so please jump to the next section: Manual Installation.
Manual Installation
NOTE: Until the APM is prepared and proven to be good,
here are some instructions on how to do that
manually.
Streaming Media
Once you have MPlayer working on local media files, might be
time to have a go at streaming media from the internet.
- Links that connect directly to an .asx file are handled just fine by MPlayer.
- Links that connect with a .ram file are also handled by MPlayer.
Here is a screenshot of MPlayer downloading a streaming .ra file.
Here is a screenshot of MPlayer downloading a streaming .wmv file.
However:
There are some websites that have their media files with advertising
to play first. If this is the case, then it is likely that ONLY the advertisement
will play. An example is the BBC website in UK. (Or, was !! See below !)
But there is a way around that. :)
You will notice, if you hover the mouse over the link, that the URL
ends with something other than .asx, in fact it has a ? and some other
code after the .asx.
So, right click on the link to place the complete URL into clip.tmp.
Move the mouse cursor to the URL line at the top of your screen, clear
it with Ctrl+Y, then load the media URL with Ctrl+V.
Erase the far right of the loaded URL including the ?, leaving the address ending in .asx.
Then press ENTER, and MPlayer will download, then play, the media file as usual.
NEWS UPDATE: The BBC is moving its media files to Flash-only and guarding them by javascript !
If you find this annoying, then by all means tell them so !
RTSP:// Links
- Links that link directly to a media file ending in .RM or .RA often have an
address that starts with rtsp://, which is not a protocol normally available
to Arachne.
For Arachne 1.93 (or higher) this is handled by core.exe, which passes
the address directly to MPlayer.
For older Arachne versions, this is easiest handled with an .OOK file:
Right-click on the URL to place it in clip.tmp.
Invoke the .OOK file, either with a user-defined hotkey
combination, or by going through Arachne_desktop\Your_Applications\mp_rm.ook -
thus feeding the rtsp:// URL directly to MPlayer.
Something to Read
For extensive documentation on MPlayer itself, here it is. But be aware that this documentation
is written for Linux users, and not all of the features or functions are
available in DOS.
The same applies to the man page.
For saving a streamed media file, see here.
This page is supported by AUSREG Consultancy, an Arachne user.
