From kde-multimedia Wed Jun 26 15:05:08 2002 From: Jason Wood Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 15:05:08 +0000 To: kde-multimedia Subject: Re: KDE/aRts strategy meeting X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-multimedia&m=102510414811322 On Wednesday 26 Jun 2002 1:58 pm, Neil Stevens wrote: > I didn't see any interest in writing a framework for video editing at that > last meeting. If there had been interest, then we'd have heard from > someone working on it by now... I am currently working on a non-linear video editing application for KDE. I am concentrating on the user interface for the moment and progress is slow, but when I am satisfied that it is working well, I will start working on whatever video framework exists in arts at the time to make it capable of what I want it to do. That's at least a couple of months away at least though. > > 3. My interest in a video framework is as a library user. I want to > > write a video codec that is integrated in some multiplexed, multi-codec > > format like AVI with minimum effort. And I want to write apps > > record&playback that video. I also want the perspective that there will > > be apps like video editors in the future that can use my codec without > > requiring me to port it first. > > Then you know what? Why don't you propose something that will make your > life as a library user easier, and get the ball rolling with some coding > to begin implementing it. > > Don't just roll out the ball and say let's "talk." Lay it on the line, say > what you'd like to see.... From my point of view as an app developer, I would like to be able to : 1. have access to multiple decoders without having to worry about the internal workings of them. 2. have acces to multiple encoders without having to worry about the internal workings of them. 3. have effects modules which can accept one or more video streams and output one or more video streams. 4. Be able to pipe streams from one module to another in the same way that is possible with arts sound. 5. Have the synchronisation of video streams with sound handled for me. 6. Have the ability to "play" streams either in realtime, where frames can be dropped to sustain playback, or in non-realtime, which guarantees that the file is decoded and encoded correctly. Moving aside from video for the moment, the aRts sound api as it stands is inadequate in some important aspects: a) some objects such as arts:TraderQuery fail spectacularly (i.e. crash the program) if the correct arts objects have not been set up beforehand. It would be nice if there were safeguards against this happening, even if the program just crashes out with an intelligable error message, as it is a major pain in the ass when you are new to arts and can't figure out which objects you haven't initialised properly. b) Some api functions need to be more rigorously defined, or extended so that they produce the expected functionality. The one that springs to mind is that the overallTime function for a play object returns a bogus time unless the object has already started playing and has "been playing for long enough for it to have been initialised properly". For me, this function is next to useless until it works on play objects without needing to play them first, and I don't believe there is any way to get the overall time of a file in arts without starting to play it first. As I mentioned earlier though, I am a good couple of months away from being able to look at any of this myself, which is why I haven't brought it up before. > ... keeping in mind that you may not care about C++, but KDE is full of C++ > coders who aren't going to hassle with a limited low-level language like > C, nor waste time with an API that is C-like. Unless your wrapper is a > reasonably idiomatic C++ API that allows for extending and using the > environment as fully as in C, you won't win converts from aRts. I agree. Cheers, Jason -- Jason Wood I don't give up, I lose interest Homepage : www.uchian.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk _______________________________________________ kde-multimedia mailing list kde-multimedia@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-multimedia