[MPlayer-users] mplayer -ss overshooting

[Nico Sabbi]

Heitzso wrote:

> Using -ss to position mplayer to a particular place in
> a VBR mpeg2 file, mplayer typically overshoots and
> starts playing significantly farther into the mpg file
> than asked.  I don't need frame accuracy.  GOP level
> or ± half second is fine.
>
> Is there a workaround?  Or can someone suggest another
> Linux video viewer that I can drive from the command
> line to start at a particular place (roughly GOP level
> accuracy) in a video file?


it's not guaranteed to work, but you can try a very bad workaround that 
often works for me:

$ mencoder -o /dev/null -nosound -ovc copy file.mpg

take notice of the final average bitrate (between squares), then remux 
the file with

$ mencoder -of mpeg -o file2.mpg -oac copy -ovc copy -mpegopts 
vbitrate=AVGBITRATE -mc 0 file.mpg

and at this point if you are lucky -ss will work better

>
> Does the problem go away with CBR encoding?


no