[vlc-devel] Update on the VLC browser plugins

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:21:32PM +0200, David Glaude wrote :
> I am right when I understand this is "just" a "git trick" and it should not
> change much?
More or less, yes.

> Will there be a separate installer for plugin only?
> Will the VLC installer still install the plugin?
As far as Windows installer is concerned, and as the de-facto packager
for this stupid platform, it will not change a thing.

> How will the release number mix and match between player and plugin and will
> the LibVLC version be indicate?
Plugin will need a minimum version of libVLC, like before.

It means a future version of the plugin might compile against an older VLC
(plugin 1.2 working on libVLC 1.1)

> Are there expected problem that installation of one or the other will
> disturb the installation of the other if both do not rely on the same
> version of LibVLC? (If the answer seems to platform dependant... I am mostly
> interested into Windows version and maybe IE plugin).
No.

> We have invested a lot of time testing the vlc plugin for particular use
> case and to verify it's stability. However when facing bug or problem we
> were relying on the vlc player to gather logs and such. Does this change
> mean that in the futur we could have different behaviour in the player and
> the plugin.
No. VLC and the plugins are interfaces to libVLC.
Same libVLC => same bugs :D

> > Many of you surely noticed that the web plugins in
> > VLC 1.1 were not on the level of quality that you should expect, and not as
> > good as previous versions by any measure.
> 
> This seems a bit odd to me as the page "
> http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:WebPlugin" contain many (supported in
> vlc version >= 1.1.0). This did made me believe that there was a lot of work
> on the plugin side of VLC. Obviously I was wrong.

Well, what Rémi meant is that, while there was a lot of work on 1.1.0
version of the plugins, there are unacceptable bugs that haven't been
fixed since VLC 1.1.0, and we are already at 1.1.5.
During the 1.1.x branch, there was quite some development about the
plugins, but some things weren't fixed in time.

Maybe the companies that really need about vlc plugin could help fund
it...

> PS: Maybe HTML5 will sign the end of video plugin... could this be true?
lol
I thought so too. Which is why I didn't care about it so far.
But let's face it: it is crap:
 - Chrome, Firefox and Opera don't do fullscreen on Windows
 - Noone uses the same API
 - Firefox supports Ogg/Theora, Opera Webm, Safari H264 and chrome a bit
   of everything.
   Not to mention that h264 isn't supported the same way by Safari,
   Safari Mobile, Android devices, and Chrome desktop.
 - APIs aren't finished
 - Chrome doesn't handle AR correctly
 - No correct video players play live Webm streams
 - Very few servers are actually able to send correct live streams
 - No API for capture
 - tons of JS Media Players that abstract all the mess..
 - IE8 without <video> and it will be the default on XP until 2014
 - Should I really go on?

Best Regards,

-- 
Jean-Baptiste Kempf
http://www.jbkempf.com/
+33 672 704 734