[MPlayer-users] How to pause mencoder

[Adam Nielsen]

> Windows moves the mouse cursor from the interrupt handler, i.e.
> including video code in serial/ps2/usb interrupt handler!

Hmm...that's not terribly surprising actually.

> This is rather bad design and leads to crashes, but it looks "pretty" for
> users.

Well, I don't see how it could lead to crashes, but if your main priority is 
looking pretty for users, I think it would be quite a good design.  It 
certainly makes the GUI look responsive, however dodgy the implementation 
might seem.

> On the other hand, if your X server is swapped or not getting cpu time for
> some other reason, it won't be able to update the graphical cursor until it
> runs again.

That's what I was thinking.  When there's heavy disk use, all the time is 
spent in the kernel waiting for disk operations which leaves little time for 
the X server to run.  It is a little annoying though, having 0% CPU usage but 
still being unable to type into a console window simply because you're 
copying a large file...

> For 2.4, the -ck patch series replaced nice levels 19/20 with a true
> idle priority. I don't know if it still exists for 2.6. You might want
> to try it.

Yes, I'll definitely have to look into it!

> As for seti/distributed.net/etc., you should think about whether you really
> want to pay a higher electric bill and wear out your hardware quicker just
> to help them compute something. "Spare" cycles aren't spare; when they're
> not used, the cpu powers down and conserves a lot of energy.

Well, given that I leave my computers on 24/7 anyway, often running mencoder, 
uploading/downloading, etc. I like to have something in the background to 
keep the CPU in use when mencoder finishes.  Also, with the possible 
exception of hard drives, your hardware becomes obsolete long before you can 
wear it out ;-)

Cheers,
Adam.