Looking for advice on mplayer or mpv issues

[Tenshin]

1. Mplayer has buffering problem when trying to twitch streams via livestreamer. Increasing the cache doesn't help. Basically it keeps buffering very few seconds and audio is out-of-sync, it's even worse on lower stream quality, it's just impossible to watch. It's not my internet, and I tried different video output and hardware acceleration settings. It plays smoothly on vlc and mpv, which brings to the 2nd point.

2. Mpv: I installed mpv to see if it works better for streams and I was happy to see it runs just as good as vlc, maybe even better. But then when I tried watching a movie I saw the subtitles are not like my settings. The custom style doesn't apply at all, font, size, nothing. I'm thinking maybe it doesn't read installed fonts or what? There's no problem in mplayer.

This is on Arch Linux x64. On an Acer 6930g laptop, Core 2 Duo 2.00 Ghz, 4Gb RAM, Nvidia 9600m GT 1Gb Vram and Samsung EVO 840 120Gb SSD.
I've been using Arch Linux as my main operating system for almost a year, but for some unknown reason I just can't like VLC as much as I like MPC-HC on Windows, so I was looking for alternatives and I found Smplayer. I'm looking for some advice regarding the 2 issues I have, maybe someone encountered them before and has some tips on how to fix them. Right now I have to switch from mplayer to mpv all the time or make a config for livestreamer to open the stream with mpv instead of smplayer. I'll lose the GUI but I only need volume controls for a stream and I can do that with the keyboard.

Thank you!

[rvm]

[Tenshin]

/usr/bin/mpv --no-config --no-quiet --terminal --no-msg-color --slave-broken --no-fs --vd-lavc-threads=2 --hwdec=no --sub-auto=fuzzy --vo=opengl --ao=alsa --no-input-default-bindings --input-x11-keyboard=no --no-input-cursor --cursor-autohide=no --no-keepaspect --wid=41943061 --monitorpixelaspect=1 --osd-scale=1 --sub-ass --embeddedfonts --ass-line-spacing=0 --sub-scale=1 --ass-styles=/home/tenshin/.config/smplayer/styles.ass --sub-codepage=utf8:ISO-8859-1 --sub-pos=100 --volume=15 --cache=2048 --osd-level=0 --audio-channels=2 --af-add=scaletempo --af-add=equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 --softvol=yes --softvol-max=110 --ytdl=no --term-playing-msg=MPV_VERSION=${=mpv-version:}
INFO_VIDEO_WIDTH=${=width}
INFO_VIDEO_HEIGHT=${=height}
INFO_VIDEO_ASPECT=${=video-aspect}
INFO_VIDEO_FPS=${=fps}
INFO_VIDEO_BITRATE=${=video-bitrate}
INFO_VIDEO_FORMAT=${=video-format}
INFO_VIDEO_CODEC=${=video-codec}
INFO_AUDIO_BITRATE=${=audio-bitrate}
INFO_AUDIO_FORMAT=${=audio-format}
INFO_AUDIO_CODEC=${=audio-codec}
INFO_AUDIO_RATE=${=audio-samplerate}
INFO_AUDIO_NCH=${=audio-channels}
INFO_LENGTH=${=length}
INFO_DEMUXER=${=demuxer}
INFO_TITLES=${=disc-titles}
INFO_CHAPTERS=${=chapters}
INFO_TRACKS_COUNT=${=track-list/count}
METADATA_TITLE=${metadata/by-key/title:}
METADATA_ARTIST=${metadata/by-key/artist:}
METADATA_ALBUM=${metadata/by-key/album:}
METADATA_GENRE=${metadata/by-key/genre:}
METADATA_DATE=${metadata/by-key/date:}
METADATA_TRACK=${metadata/by-key/track:}
METADATA_COPYRIGHT=${metadata/by-key/copyright:}
INFO_MEDIA_TITLE=${=media-title:}
--term-status-msg=STATUS: ${=time-pos} / ${=length:0} P: ${=pause} B: ${=paused-for-cache} I: ${=core-idle} /mnt/storage/TorrentsLINUX/Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP/Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP.mkv

--slave-broken is deprecated (see manpage).
[input_file] Client connected
Playing: /mnt/storage/TorrentsLINUX/Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP/Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP.mkv
(+) Video --vid=1 (h264)
(+) Audio --aid=1 --alang=eng (*) 'English' (ac3)
Subs --sid=1 --slang=rum (*) 'Romanian' (subrip)
Subs --sid=2 --slang=eng 'English' (subrip)
(+) Subs --sid=3 'Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP.srt' (subrip) (external)
Subs --sid=4 'Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP_en.srt' (subrip) (external)
File tags:
Title: Stranger Than Fiction
[sub] Using subtitle charset: ISO-8859-1
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz stereo 2ch float
VO: [opengl] 1280x694 yuv420p
INFO_VIDEO_DSIZE=1280x694
MPV_VERSION=mpv 0.9.2
INFO_VIDEO_WIDTH=1280
INFO_VIDEO_HEIGHT=694
INFO_VIDEO_ASPECT=1.844380
INFO_VIDEO_FPS=23.976025
INFO_VIDEO_BITRATE=0
INFO_VIDEO_FORMAT=h264
INFO_VIDEO_CODEC=H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 [lavc:h264]
INFO_AUDIO_BITRATE=0
INFO_AUDIO_FORMAT=ac3
INFO_AUDIO_CODEC=ATSC A/52A (AC-3) [lavc:ac3]
INFO_AUDIO_RATE=48000
INFO_AUDIO_NCH=2
INFO_LENGTH=6775.776000
INFO_DEMUXER=mkv
INFO_TITLES=
INFO_CHAPTERS=16
INFO_TRACKS_COUNT=6
METADATA_TITLE=Stranger Than Fiction
METADATA_ARTIST=
METADATA_ALBUM=
METADATA_GENRE=
METADATA_DATE=
METADATA_TRACK=
METADATA_COPYRIGHT=
INFO_MEDIA_TITLE=Stranger Than Fiction
INFO_CHAPTER_0_NAME=Before Wednesday
INFO_CHAPTER_1_NAME=Extraordinary Day
INFO_CHAPTER_2_NAME=The Baker
INFO_CHAPTER_3_NAME=Talking Leaps
INFO_CHAPTER_4_NAME=Trees Are Trees
INFO_CHAPTER_5_NAME=Alarming News
INFO_CHAPTER_6_NAME=Little Did He Know
INFO_CHAPTER_7_NAME=Transit Encounter
INFO_CHAPTER_8_NAME=Ruling Out the Possibilities
INFO_CHAPTER_9_NAME=Comedy or Tragedy
INFO_CHAPTER_10_NAME=Harold the Tax Guy
INFO_CHAPTER_11_NAME=Milk and Cookies
INFO_CHAPTER_12_NAME=Harold's Day Off
INFO_CHAPTER_13_NAME=The Plot Thickens
INFO_CHAPTER_14_NAME=Musical Conviction
INFO_CHAPTER_15_NAME=Breaking the Protocol
INFO_TRACK_0: sub 1 'rum' 'Romanian' no
INFO_TRACK_1: video 1 '' '' yes
INFO_TRACK_2: audio 1 'eng' 'English' yes
INFO_TRACK_3: sub 2 'eng' 'English' no
INFO_TRACK_4: sub 3 '' 'Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP.srt' yes
INFO_TRACK_5: sub 4 '' 'Stranger Than Fiction 2006 PROPER 720p BluRay DD5.1 x264 ROSubbed-EbP_en.srt' no

The custom style doesn't apply to neither internal nor external subtitles. If you need, I can take some screenshots for how it looks with the custom style applied in mplayer and one where the custom style doesn't apply at all in mpv.
P.S. All my software is up to date from the Arch official repositories: Smplayer v. 14.9.0.6690-1, Mplayer v. 37379-3 and Mpv v. 0.9.2-1. Thanks for looking into this.

[rvm]

You need at least smplayer r6798.

There were changes in mpv and now it's necessary to use different options to change the style of the subtitles. That was fixed in that version.

[Tenshin]

I understand. Thanks for the quick replies.

It's funny that I read this earlier, while I was trying to find a fix, but I didn't check my smplayer version because I presumed it's the newest, since I just installed it.

Thanks again and have nice evening!