why can I watch it with gnome-mplayer but not with mplayer?

Question

This should be a very elementary question. I have a URL like http://SERVERNAME/file.wmv. When I enter it in "Open Location" in gnome-mpLayer it connects to the server and plays the stream. But when I run

mplayer "URL"

in the terminal I get a crazy endless loop of

Playing URL.
Resolving SERVERNAME for AF_INET6...
Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: SERVERNAME
Resolving SERVERNAME for AF_INET...
Connecting to server SERVERNAME[xxx.xx.xxx.xx]: 80...
Cache size set to 320 KBytes

I think my usage of mplayer in the terminal is correct, since I can watch other URL's. It's only this specific one that doesn't work (I am not authorized to write the URL because they want it to be private!!!).

So my question is: Does anyone know why I get this loop? Or is it possible to see how mplayer is called by gnome-mplayer and what output messages it generates?

I use gnome-mplayer 0.9.9.2 and mplayer 1.0rc4-4.4.5 on Ubuntu 10.10.

Thanks, Mahdiyar

Answer 1

Hmm... I think I found the answer. I ran gnome-mplayer in a terminal with -verbose option and found out that it seeks the URL as mmshttp://HOSTNAME/file.wmv. This resolves the problem.

But actually now I face a different problem (I don't know if I have to post a separate question): The -dumpstream option of mplayer doesn't work. I get the following message

Playing mmshttp://HOSTNAME/file.wmv.
STREAM_ASF, URL: mmshttp://HOSTNAME/file.wmv
Resolving HOSTNAME for AF_INET6...
Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: HOSTNAME
Resolving HOSTNAME for AF_INET...
Connecting to server HOSTNAME[xxx.xx.xxx.xx]: 80...
Resolving HOSTNAME for AF_INET6...
Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: HOSTNAME
Resolving HOSTNAME for AF_INET...
Connecting to server HOSTNAME[xxx.xx.xxx.xx]: 80...
Cache size set to 1125 KBytes
Stream not seekable!

and then it halts (doesn't even show the prompt).

Edit: I guess I was too quick to conclude that there's an error. True, it halts; but it's actually downloading the file :).