my understanding is that n900 runs mplayer (command prompt) + sib(gui)

as for n9, where is the sib(gui)?

There should be ~/.mplayer/mplayer.conf where you can turn off screensaver and add default video output (vo)
As well it can be added by default

kmplayer is your GIU

as per my incessant nagging, mplayer now supports synchronized playback between devices - you can sync playback of music and video between n900 and pc for example.

note this is just syncrhonizing the playback of files accessible to both devices; it is not streaming audio.

if we could get a new mplayer build uploaded we could do this!
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Multiple instances of MPlayer can synchronize playback over a network. This is useful for creating "video walls" with multiple screens controlled by different computers. Each MPlayer instance can play a different video, but they all will try to stay at the same time offset in the file. It is recommended but not necessary to encode the video files using the same codec and parameters.

The relevant options are -udp-master, -udp-slave, -udp-ip, -udp-port, and -udp-seek-threshold.

If -udp-master is given, MPlayer sends a datagram to -udp-ip (default: 127.0.0.1) on -udp-port (default: 23867) just before playing each frame. The datagram indicates the master's position in the file. If -udp-slave is given, MPlayer listens on -udp-ip/-udp-port and matches the master's position. Setting -udp-ip to the master's broadcast address allows multiple slaves having the same broadcast address to sync to the master. Note that this feature assumes an ethernet-like low-latency network connection. Your mileage may vary on high latency networks.

For example, assume 8 computers are on a network, with IP addresses 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.0.8. Assume the first computer is to be the master. Running ifconfig on all the machines lists "Bcast:192.168.0.255". On the master, run:

On each slave, run:

Seeking, pausing and even playback speed adjustment (see the -input option) can be done on the master, and all the slaves will follow. When the master exits, it sends out a "bye" message which causes the slaves to exit as well.

For those still using mplayer from the kmplayer garage site, you may want to update to mplayer_1.0svn20120427-1 to get the latest mplayer/ffmpeg improvements.

wow thx, how to play video from cmd line?

Thanks for info, grabbed it right away.

MPlayer is one of my all time favorite software, but the screen blanking prevents me from utilizing it fully. (and the KMPlayer doesn't offer wide range of playback options). Is there any known way to get rid of the screen blanking?

The most simple is:
$ mplayer <path to file>

But there's lots and lots optional flags to adjust playback from drawing the video with ASCII charachters to flipping around the image, selecting subtitles and whatever.

Few basic ones you see by typing mplayer --help The rest you can read from the manpages: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html

Maybe a python guru may help you. In C the function to call is MeeGo::QmDisplayState::setBlankingPause(). A simple script that you start in the background might do the job.

latest kmplayer and mplayer dont have sound, weird, uninstall it already

Thanks, though I already figured another way.
In case anyone else needs to disable or adjust screen blanking here it goes.

First to list available gconf options for the screen:
As you see there's quite many display related options you can tune from gconf.

For example we can add a new possible dim timeout of 10800sec (3 hours) to N9's display settings menu:
Done. That's it. Now you can go to N9's settings menu (Settings->Device->Display) and select the 180 minute timeout whenever you need it.

If you want to disable blank mode completely, try changing the respective value in gconf to 1:
To enable screen blanking again, just return the value to 0:
As usual at *nix CLI, you can get additinal info about the command by the --help flag: