Native Sorenson Playback Comes to Linux

Pivot writes: "With the release of Xine v0.9.11a, it is now possible to play back Quicktime movies encoded with the Sorenson SVQ1 encoding natively. There are still some minor issues with sound, and still no support for SVQ3 encoding, but overall this is a major achievement. Downloads are at xine.sf.net. I wonder what apple will do about this." Note: you may have to cut and paste that "movies" link into a new tab or browser.

Comments

Re:Does it really matter?

[Pathwalker]

Apple's QT streaming server is free and open source, and runs well on both Linux and FreeBSD.
You can download a precompiled version from here and the source code from here or by checking it out of their public CVS server.

Re:Linux is catchings up...

[1010011010]

>> font support
Already prety damn decent, if you use freetype 2.1.1


Yes, some display support has improved. How about printing? How about font installation? How about obtaining font metrics and outlines from the font system -- oh, wait, you have to ask X for the path and then read the font file yourself, that's right, duh.


>> alpha blending support
Keith has also included this in his set of X updates, alpha support is included


Where? Link? I'd love to see it. All I've seen to this point is his "twm" demo, which was slow and limited (according to Keith).


>> usable configuration (Think Mac, Windows, ven BeOS)
Actualy redhat, mandrake, etc are comming a long way with this. (admitedly not there, but closing in)


This must be one of those invisible features. How do you install a driver, change the refresh rate, color depth, resolution, etc. without editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4? Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?


>> changing resolutions on the fly
Configure your X for multiple resolutions, and switch between them with ctrl-alt +/-

This does not change the resolution of the display, only the size of the viewport.


>> vnc (or other RFB) server support, so I can view my desktop -- the one shown on the monitor from another computer
VNC was made by AT&T, had has clients & servers for almost every platform, including linux


I'll refer you to my other post about this... see below.


Most of the stuff you mention is pure FUD, or outdated.. (so outdated that you should be comparing linux to windows95 then)
Please research a bit more before trying to spread more FUD

It's not FUD, and you're actually the one who's mostly wrong, not me. Plus, you're a little touchy, aren't you? I mean, X isn't a sacrament or anything, and I'm not even suggesting that it has to be replaced.

please contact me

[jbridge21]

Please contact me at your earliest convenience at jeffrey AT firehead DOT org. I run the site listed in my .sig and am used to dealing with all sorts of legal BS. I would very much like to see this code out there, and could definitely help with a proper release of it.

Re:Saving the videos : how can I do it?

[kubrick]

Yes.

QuickTime Streaming Server

RTP/RTSP Tutorial

Re:Linux is catchings up...

[nathanh]

Why does X require a specific definition of each suitable resolution? can't it query the current monitor like Macs and Winders do (DPMS)?

DDC. Yes, XFree86 supports DDC level 1 and level 2. Look in XFree86.0.log and you'll see XFree86 talking to your monitor, discovering refresh rates and supported resolutions, then populating your modelines with what it found. It's all automatic and has been for at least a year.

Re:Linux is catchings up...

[The Mayor]

The Unix VNC server does not mirror the current display. It provides a seperate remote display. On Windows VNC lets you use the current display which can be very usefull. I wish the Unix VNC server could provde this feature.

Try x0rfbserver This does what you want. It's been around for years and years.

VNC's approach of setting up a separate display is a design feature, designed to take advantage of X's natural ability to support more than one output display. You can also start the regular old AT&T VNC server such that it also starts X in the same session, giving you the same effect as x0rfbserver. This has been there since day one with VNC.

I only wish the Windows and Mac versions of VNC let you start a session that *didn't* control the current display. This is a failure of the design of the windowing systems under Windows and MacOS. Please don't attribute your lack of knowledge of VNC as a failure in the design of the X Window System or the Unix version of VNC.

Re:who cares

[Afrosheen]

Uhmm, I don't know about your experience but I've never, ever found pr0n in Quicktime format. It's always Real (crappy), mpeg or some bastard AVI format. In the olden tymes it was ViVo or Real..but never Quicktime.

The only good this does is let linux users watch quicktime trailers (after they download no doubt).

YAXSP (Re:Linux is catchings up...)

[po8]

Oh man. Yet another "X sucks" troll. I have no idea why I waste my time with these, but here goes... (and in HTML, no less :-)

• Font support: Been out for a year. See Xft. Easier to use now with Xft2 and fontconfig.
• Color management: Been in Xlib for 15 freaking years. See XCMS in the documentation. Application developers never use it, because users never cal their monitors on PC hardware. But it works fine.
• Alpha blending support: Documentation on the Render extension has been out for a year. Implementation got done two weeks ago. Will be mainstream in a couple of months.
• Usable configuration: Working on it. "XFree86 -configure" is a step in the right direction. This is probably the most valid complaint on the list, but note that PC graphics and input hardware is notoriously hard to configure, even with Windows.
• Changing resolutions on the fly: part of the ResizeAndRotate extension. A working implementation of this part is done. Will be released shortly, when the rest of R&R is stable. Note that the ability to change resolutions on the fly has been around for as long as XFree86 via <ctrl><alt><keypad-+>, although the viewport property and the fact that existing apps don't rescale has made it less useful for some needs. It is fairly useful for accessability, though.
• VNC (or other RFB) server support: This wants to be done via client-side replication, not by bitmap-copying, which is wrong on so many levels. This work is starting now: I would guess about a year to completion. In the meantime, there are plenty of solutions for replicating the server side to another X display: do a web search if you are serious about this.

I could really stand folks spending 15 minutes doing research before writing these critiques. OTOH, I guess I was successfully trolled, so what do I know?

Re:Does it really matter?

[pjrc]

how many people do you know that have a Quicktime streaming server? .... Windows Media Services on NT(free as in beer) or Real's Realserver (~$1000+) on Linux. Considering a copy of NT/2000 is about the same as a copy of RealServer, you're shelling $1000 either way.

As nearly as I can tell, you need to also lay out a similar wad of cash for an encoder to produce "hinted" quicktime video that's usable with Apple's free streaming server.

If someone knows of a free or cheap way to encoder or convert video to include "hinting" for use with Apple's open-source streaming server, please speak up!