propose to rebuild index and allow to scroll broken .avi files

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Currently Gnome MPlayer will open broken or truncated .avi files without 
allowing the user to scroll them (which is normal). 

You could work around this by detecting, at open time, a truncated .avi file 
with a broken index (and broken scroll mechanism) and ask the user whether to 
"fix" the file before playing. If the user selects this, then Gnome MPlayer 
would first rebuild teh index and then play the file. This way the user would 
be able to scroll through such problematic files. 

As an example, this is how VLC behaves with broken .avi files. 

Original issue reported on code.google.com by landroni...@gmail.com on 23 Jun 2011 at 9:46

[GoogleCodeExporter]

You can add the -forceidx option to the optional mplayer command line options 
in the preferences mplayer tab. By default mplayer, which controls the ability 
to seek in a file does not enable this option as it does not always work.

Original comment by kdeko...@gmail.com on 23 Jun 2011 at 10:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I haven't tried it yet, but this strikes me as a solution inaccessible to many: 
we cannot assume that end users are familiar with the underlying issue 
(truncated AVI or some other) let alone solution (a very cryptic -forceidx 
option). For all they'd care, Gnome MPlayer would be buggy since unable to 
enable scrolling on a file that VLC can "fix". Moreover, gmp doesn't even 
report an error, but scrolling doesn't work. 

Wouldn't the VLC design make sense for Gnome MPlayer: Ask the user whether to 
attempt "fixing" the file and, if yes, re-open using -forceidx? This seems to 
me a sensible solution. 

Original comment by landroni...@gmail.com on 24 Jun 2011 at 2:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I did have the -forceidx option enabled by default and it caused more problems 
than it solved. Mainly slow loading of file and making things worse. This is 
really an mplayer issue as mplayer is controlling if an item is seekable or not.

Original comment by kdeko...@gmail.com on 24 Jun 2011 at 12:46

[GoogleCodeExporter]

fwiw, mplayer's -idx option seems to solve this properly - when the index is 
present, it uses it, otherwise builds it. please consider enabling that by 
default.

Original comment by matej...@gmail.com on 12 Aug 2012 at 7:03

[GoogleCodeExporter]

As stated before it does seem to corrupt certain types of files and it still 
does on my test site.

Original comment by kdeko...@gmail.com on 12 Aug 2012 at 7:06