[vlc-devel] Re: future of the vlc web-browser plugin

[Michael Dale]

so I put together a simple play head, and status control but the
document.video.seek() does not appear to work on annodex streams. It
appears that it does not allow for seeking in the vlc app either, so I
guess I will file a bug report for that. The plugin does ofcourse work
for other media that vlc can seek in.

http://metavid.ucsc.edu/bleeding_edge/test3.html

(you will notice if you view source that the code has been set up so
that all the complicated stuff happens in an external file and users can
input only what they need)

--michael



Damien Fouilleul wrote:
>
> answers below
>
> Damien
>
> Michael Dale wrote:
>> First let me thank you guys on your great work that has been done so
>> far on the VLC plugin. It has enabled great things for the all open
>> source metavid (http://metavid.ucsc.edu) project. For the metavid
>> project we implemented a drag and drop sequencer that works with vlc
>> play-lists and we send the vlc timestamps to the server via ajax and
>> retrieve relevant metadata which can then be ran through a script or
>> query another server. For example we pull in the campaign
>> contributions to be displayed next to the representative thats
>> currently speaking in the video played back via the vlc plugin in
>> real-time.
>>
>> For a Summer of Code project I worked with wikipedia's mediaWiki
>> software adding inline ogg theora embed video playback. It uses
>> javascript to detect if you have the vlc plugin, if not it sends the
>> cortado player. I also want to ask you ( Damien) about the activeX IE
>> version of the plugin and if its stable enough for inclusion? (i have
>> not run into a lot of online documentation about the activeX
>> component. I would be interested in integrating it into the metavid
>> system.
>>
> As far as I know, the ActiveX plugin is quite stable, the main issue
> that I know of is when you insert multiple plugin instances within a
> page, you may get a crash or a lock up.
>> The main reason I am emailing you is to ask about the the future of
>> the vlc browser plugin?
>>
> Currentlty, the vlc browser plugin(s) future is bright, I am currently
> the maintainer of both ActiveX & Mozilla versions, and I am working on
> improving their stability and usability, this entail
>
> - porting mozilla plugin to Unix/X11, Windows and MacOSX (mozilla only)
> - improving compatibility with FireFox, Safari and Opera for mozilla,
> IE for ActiveX
> - common and richer scripting APIs (currentlty the ActiveX & Mozilla
> have different APIs)
>
> The above should be available in release 0.8.6
>
> on the long finger, I'd like to have some basic control of the plugins
> through an embedded GUI interface, but no effort has been committed to
> that end yet, actually I'd welcome some help in this area
>
>> I wrote up this document the other day
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Firefox_Ogg_Support that details some
>> of the features we would like to see for the plug-in as it evolves.
>>
>
> Quoting your document:
>
>     * /Obey DOM object layer order: video objects would obey their
>       z-index order like other elements in the page./
>
>     This is only achievable with 'windowless' plugins, which isn't
>     currently supported. This requires some rework in the video output
>     modules to stop them from creating their own child window, I've
>     done some preliminary work in that area, but this is pretty low in
>     my list of priorities
>
>     * /A full screen display mode/
>
>         supported
>
>     * /*JavaScript hooks* be able to access info such as: /
>           o /how much of the clip has been buffered (to show progress
>             bars in progressive playback)/
>                 + WIP
>           o what frame or time the video is currently at.
>                 + time info is available, frame isn't
>           o be able to Stop, play, pause the video (enabling css/html
>             styled video playback controls)
>                 + all there
>           o be able to jump to arbitrary time in the video stream.
>                 + yep
>     * /Alpha video layers? To enable transparent video overlays on
>       other video or background images?/
>           o requires windowless plugin
>
>
>>
>> Anyway hope to hear back from you, and thanks again for your great work.
>>
>> --michael
>>
>> -- 
>> Michael Dale <http://danm.ucsc.edu/%7Edale/>
>> phone: 831.750.6277
>> Social Computing Lab
>> <http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/SocialComputingLab/index.htm>
>> Junior Researcher
>> <http://danm.ucsc.edu/>University of California Santa Cruz
>> <http://ucsc.edu> 
>


-- 

-- 
Michael Dale <http://danm.ucsc.edu/%7Edale/>
Social Computing Lab <http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/SocialComputingLab/>
Junior Specialist
University of California Santa Cruz <http://ucsc.edu>

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