Fix for Video Playback Problem in Compiz-Fusion
Posted by admin on May 6th, 2008 
Email This Post
* GStreamer Users (The default video player in Ubuntu, totem-gstreamer, and any video player that is based on the gstreamer backend)
o Open a terminal and type “gstreamer-properties”. Press Enter.
o Click the Video tab.
o Under Default Video Plugin select “X Window System (No Xv)”.
o Click Test to verify that video playback is working (you should be able to see the standard TV testing colour stripes).
o Click Close
* VLC Users (VLC is not installed by default)
o Start VLC and click on Settings, then Preferences.
o Expand Video and then expand Output modules. You will notice several options for output device.
o Select the item Output modules, and notice the checkbox at the bottom right that says Advanced options. Check the box, and now you have the option to select a different output device.
o Pick X11 video output
o Click on Save and you are set!
* MPlayer Users (Mplayer is not installed by default)
o Start Mplayer
o Right-click on the screen and select Preferences
o Select the Video tab and under Available Drivers select “X11 (XImage/Shm)”
o Click Save and restart the program for the setting to take effect.
+ Some times MPlayer may not be able to show videos in full screen.
* Xine users
o Start xine
o Click File, then Configure and then Preferences
o In experience_level select “Master Of The Known Universe” so that all available settings are visible.
o Select the tab for video.
o Under Driver select “xshm”.
o Restart xine.
+ The same process enables Totem that has the totem-xine backend configured.
If you want to be notified the next time we write something please subscribe to our RSS feed.Thanks for Visiting!
May 6th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Your recommendation is flawed, hopefully not many people have followed it.
Xv is the driver that your want your graphics/video apps to use, and there is a reason for that. It uses the graphics’ card hardware for image scaling and colourspace conversion (aka 2-d acceleration). Xshm does the same in the main cpu of your computer which is *a lot* slower and makes your system much less responsive.
So following your advice, people will end up with poor performance in their computers. Fix a little issue and introduce a bigger one, not a good deal IMHO.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Agreed this is not all that great… However if you’re not doing much in the way of 3d stuff using the open source ati driver can be a good fix. It gets things to working better but the performance for stuff like google earth and what not goes to hell.
Or you can simply run “metacity –replace” in an Alt+F2 box then watch your video then run “compiz” in an Alt+F2 box when you’re done and want the visualizations back. That way you get to run fglrx (or the nvidia equivalent) I think its just called “nvidia” in the xorg.conf file… Anyway small potatoes… Nothing is really perfect yet but at least ATI has been working toward it. The Intel chipsets are about as close to perfect as one can achieve.
PS: THANK YOU INTEL FOR THE HARDWARE SUPPORT! (and the XvMC support)
May 6th, 2008 at 11:35 am
nvidia driver users (nvidia-new at least…) should already have perfect compiz video, fully wobbly windowed, fully transformable accelerated video.
I also second the recomendation that switching to x11 is a bad idea, *especially* if you run at a high resolution (anything over 1024 really);
if you do that not only will your cpu have to resize in software the video image (can be quite costly) it also has to upload a much larger image to your graphics card to be displayed which depending on your motherboard can be hugely costly.
I would recomend either switching to when you want to view a video or making sure that unredirect fullscreen videos is checked in the compiz settings.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Video quality is gettin pixelated with the settings u hav suggested.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:03 am
You could also use the compiz switch icon which gives you a quick right click menu to switch your windows manager. This is what I do when playing games that conflict with compiz.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Thanks man!
I just start nix. Your article hallp me too much.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:38 am
you are my hero!
May 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Really thanks good information worked with me
June 15th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Thanks man, it works with me, also for RealPlayer i do the below
open realplayer -> tools -> Preferences -> Hardware (tab) -> Uncheck “Use XVideo”
this works also with me
June 30th, 2008 at 5:20 am
Exelent information Thanks a lot