JWZ Reviews Video on Linux

An anonymous reader writes "The inimitable JWZ goes once again forth and reviews the state of video on Linux. Expect no mercy."

Expect No Mercy

[Samus]

For his server?

Re:mplayer aspect ratio

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, being able to change aspect ratios is a good thing. A lot of the pr0n I grab is encoded out-of-aspect, with the rectangular pixels of NTSC represented as squares, flattening the picture. Changing aspect ratio on resize lets me see pr0n the way the director intended.

EMacs...

[dark-br]

All that said, if you dont like it the way it is, break out your EMacs, and Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!

But i was sure EMacs has its own built in movie player :P

Re:Who is JWZ

[jedidiah]

Why should I care again?

Re:It's a mindset. (Stating the obvious).

[CSG_SurferDude]

But what's the key to change NOW to a previously defined educational movie, for when you unexpectedly hear your spouse, GF|BF|SO, parent, etc. opening up the door of your bedroom/Office while you're watching the latest download of "Debbie Does Dobies!"?

Re:mplayer aspect ratio

[c.derby]

Damn, I can't decide whether to mod this Funny, Insightful, or Informative.

Then again...

[GMFTatsujin]

I just looked at his web page www.jwz.com. With an index page like that, who the hell is he to gripe?

Re:This guy is way off base

[Waffle Iron]

>>> they want a clean and clear interface that affords usage in obvious ways
>>> (for a media player that of course is for VCR like functionality).

Here's your VCR functionality user interface:

#!/usr/bin/python

import curses, curses.wrapper

def vcr(scr):
scr.addstr('12:00', curses.A_BLINK)
scr.refresh()
raw_input('')

curses.wrapper(vcr)

:)

Hey, there is improvement!

[Noryungi]

A few years ago, JWZ used to say that using Linux was OK "as long as your time was worthless"... It's on his web site, you can actually look for it and it's probably there.

So he has made progress! Now he even admits to using Linux! =)

Installing mplayer, ogle, xine in Gentoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I had similar problems installing these programs in Gentoo. It was so difficult to find and install them. I had to go into *gasp* an xterm, su to root, and type "emerge mplayer". Then I had to type "emerge ogle-gui". Then...this was the worst part..."emerge xine". I wasn't finished even after completing these complex steps...no, I had to "run" the programs by "clicking" on their names in the kde menu. It was so horrible...

Re:mplayer aspect ratio

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Actually, being able to change aspect ratios is a good thing."

For ameteur porn, it's fun to make fat chicks skinny.

Re:Who is JWZ

[arose]

Yeah, themes on mozilla are much better then mplayer's. END SARCASM

mod it up

[ArmorFiend]

Moderators: Please mod the parent of this post up up up till it sticks at 5 forever. I don't hold out much hope that the makers of the current crop of themeable crud will undo the fucktardedness they've wrought, but when they get replaced by next generation programs, maybe its developers will read the above post and not make the same mistake again.

Re:Troll

[banky]

>You know, some people really shouldn't be using linux. Honest, not trying to be funny or sarcastic; linux is not for everyone.

I know! I mean, someone came to our local LUG meeting using an iBook running Mac OS X! As we were beating the shit out of him, we faintly heard that he uses Linux on his servers, but I think he was just a Commie plant, sent to weaken our resolve.

If we can't keep out the riff-raff, then what good is running Linux? Not trying to be funny or sarcastic, but what if the Dell kid bought a new Dell running Linux? That would be horrible. What if some random CS student somewhere used gcc instead of the free "Introductory" copy of Visual Studio that came in their textbook? Horrible. That person might not really "get it" and instead just be a user.

I'm so glad that Linux is done, and there is no longer any further need for attention on matters like usability. If regular users got a hold of it.. whew. They might be able to use it. We can't have that.

Re:Hey, there is improvement!

[yppiz]

JWZ used to say that using Linux was OK "as long as your time was worthless" ... Now he even admits to using Linux!

No, he's just admitting that his time is worthless.

Ba-da-bing! Thank you, I'll be here all week.

--Pat

Re:Shouldn't rant about things you don't understan

[jazman_777]

So what if his tone is nasty? His words are what's important, and his words equate to: "Why is this so hard. Make it consistant, make it easy."

Because a nice tone makes for a more civilized world, you absolute idiot moron.

Re:Huzzah!

[Tackhead]

> Amen! The number of software DVD players that try to look my hardware DVD players is amazing. I mean, who actually uses the front panel of their hardware DVD player, other than the "eject" button?
> At the very least, if you feel the need to make your software look like hardware, make it look like a hardware DVD player remote control, which people actually use...

"I did that for TackLinux-TV-Tuner, and these stupid users complain that they want to use the numbers on their keyboard when trying to select Channel 112, rather than mousing to the '1', '2', '3', ... '0' icons! Stupid users!

So I made a new sk1n for the keyboard. Put a real keyboard on the scanner and made a 1600x400 bitmap of it! It looks just like an IBM keyboard, you can mouse over and click on the '1', through '0' keys, or the numeric keypad, provided you mouse over and click on the NumLock icon first! And the stupid users still didn't like my UI! One of them even complained because he was building a home theater with an LCD projector, and at 1280x1024 as his screen resolution and my image of the keyboard was too wide for his screen!

"Stupid user! Like duh he should have just gotten a bigger screen! (Like, doesn't everyone watch movies at 1600x1200?) I mean, what did he want me to do, scan in a Sinclair ZX-80 so the image of the keyboard sk1n would fit in his dinky 1280x1024 layout or what?

I told him I was sorry, but if he couldn't stay current with hardware, he should just go fuck himself and use Windows or something. Stupid ungrateful users! Sometimes I don't know why I bother to code for them!"

Good points, but JWZ invokes Goodwin's Law

[Christopher Whitt]

I thought his rant seemed somewhat insightful as to the state of media players on linux (not that I know anything about it). However, in his last paragraph, he makes a fatal error:

By the way, the suggestion to switch Linux distrubutions in order to get a single app to work might sound absurd at first. And that's because it is. But I've been saturated with Unix-peanut-gallery effluvia for so long that it no longer even surprises me when every question -- no matter how simple -- results in someone suggesting that you either A) patch your kernel or B) change distros. It's inevitable and inescapable, like Hitler.

He automatically triggers Goodwin's Law [tripod.com] and therefore he must concede the debate and the discussion is closed.

Christopher
(yes, I'm just poking fun)

The whiney little bitch is right

[nrc]

Like it or not, the whiney little bitch is right. The state of Linux video is pretty dismal. Unfortunately when you rely on geeks scratching an itch to supply your applications you sometimes end up with software only suitble for use by itchy geeks.

Re:that poor bastard...

[demon]

Debian uses binary packages. (Though you can easily build things from source if you like.) And for hardware autoconfig? How about apt-get install discover hotplug usbutils? That should cover all the major bases. And there's a debconf interface for configuring XFree86 - choose the card, choose the highest resolution your monitor supports, and you're done.

Though its install may be a little harrowing, once you get Debian installed, you pretty much will never have to install it again. I last installed Debian on my home box about three years ago, and I can keep it up to date easily.

Re:I like this guy, but...

[MrResistor]

Everytime that phrase comes to your mind I want you to take a deep breath and think whether you would say that to your non-technical mother/father/granny/whatever.

I do say that to my non-technical wife, to which she responds "Fuck you, I'm not doing that!". That prompts me to write a script which I link to an icon on her desktop with a simple name like "play_dvd" (which would be a simple one-liner if it weren't for one stupid Powerpuff Girls DVD where Title 1 is one of the extras with a character voice over).

Granted, this approach won't work for households that don't include a Unix geek, but it will have to suffice until I can get mplayer to compile with a GUI.

I wish...

[Eric Damron]

that Jamie would stop beating around the bush and tell us how he really feels!

Did I claim that it was?

[pb]

JWZ is perfectly capable of installing Gentoo, Debian, etc., etc., although he probably likes RedHat's ease of installation better. And he is by no means a newbie. Also, remember that "the newbie" in general never has to install an OS; newbies buy computers with pre-installed Operating Systems.

Now, I don't really count, since I've been installing the OS myself, starting with DOS. And I have to say that Gentoo was less painful than some other installations, just because it has excellent documentation.

Obviously Gentoo can be more work for the user initially, but in the end it's far less work. And if something breaks, you might have a chance in hell of fixing it yourself! Also, although Gentoo tends to compile stuff from source, I never have to do it by hand--the system does all the work!

I agree with you, though, in that a Gentoo-based distribution geared to newbies that has a friendly installer, does hardware autoconfiguration, helps with package selection, and perhaps has a nice selection of binary packages as well, would be a very nice thing for some people.

Or there's Debian, which I hear also has very sane package management. Or RedHat could get their act together and make their package management system handle dependencies properly -- because that's why RedHat is not for me.

Re:What's the point?

[Hyler]

He is not only incompetent (staying married to an outdated distro and complaining he can't get current software to run seemlessly with it with no effort

I've said it before, some of the Linux aficionados suffer from severe Versionitis. You always have to have the latest version of everything, and often it is the minor version number (i.e. the 15 in 2.15) that matters in unexpected ways. "Oh, you want to use KFlarb 3.1.4.15? Then you have to have Blarglib 6.66. But the update patch for Blarglib has a dependency to Gnitzlib that you have to compile yourself. And Gnitzlib for some reason doesn't have version numbers, the developers for some reason chose a versioning scheme based on color and taste. You need Gnitzlib Blue.Minty, which comes with Debian Potato or is available at SourceForge."

Feel free to draw your own car analogies.

Why can't he use 7.2 if it works for him?

Re:OS X + Fink = bliss

[IamTheRealMike]

he can get xemacs with fink and run it on a rootless X server

What the fuck? And struggle with two fucking competing packaging systems, AND two fucking different fucking display systems? Yeah, THAT'S A COCK-SHAPED GOOD IDEA. You seem to expect me to install MacOS as well. Uh, no.

Fucking hell. I think Windows is looking more and more attractive. At least on Windows everything looks equally crap.

note: that was meant to be sarcasm. i don't actually talk like that :)

J's Home Page Usability

[lanner]

So, this guy is bitching about usability?

Let's take a little look at his website... http://www.jwz.org/

Holy shit, what is this supposed to be? It looks like he was trying to do some Matrix look with a bunch of green code and a black background in a hex editor mode kind of thing. I had to scroll down a page just to find the first link. Apparently he is putting presentation ahead of content in his web design.

I think he needs a little lesson in human interfaces and usability -- maybe he should read this;
http://developer.netscape.com/viewsource/in dex_fra me.html?cp=dev01mmgz&content=archive/archivelist.h tml#humaninterface

Now, having slandered this guy up and down the street, I thought his rant was great and he is completely right about these stupid interfaces. I like this guy, even if I think his home page sucks.

What I don't understand...

[Fizzlewhiff]

With the number of apps trying so hard to look like their Windows or OS X counterparts, why hasn't someone done a GUI for these video players to make them look like Media Player or Quicktime?

I guess once the developers get their players to where it will play their latest pr0n downloads it becomes too hard to code using one hand?