Theora Codec Ported to Java

fons writes "These guys have ported the Theora codec to Java. This means that ANY Java-capable browser can now be used to watch video streams on the net (clients don't have to download a player!). You can watch a demo showing some boring guys sitting in the office. At least the music is ok :) On their site you can find a link to an interesting interview with the boss, and it looks like more cool stuff is coming soon."

Comments

Slashdotters will agree...

[bogaboga]

...that this time, this is a good development. Am I right? I hope so.

Cb..

Wondering why this hasn't been done previously

[Anonymous Coward]

Given all these reports that Java code can be made almost as quick as c/c++ (especially when number crunching), if not faster, why hasn't this happened before?

Is it just that bit hackers are more comfortable in c?

I would there would be a big benefit to having decoders/endcoders in java. On that note it would be nice if there were one defacto decoder/encode instead of ffmpg, jpegtools, transcode etc.

Sorry for the ramblings, I guess everyone likes to re-invent the wheel ;)

Re:Wondering why this hasn't been done previously

[fred fleenblat]

Given all these reports that Java code can be made almost as quick as c/c++ (especially when number crunching), if not faster, why hasn't this happened before?

Java was very slow for several years. It still suffers from a large memory footprint, and if you are processing a stream or large data set you have to be somewhat intelligent about how you write your code so as to prevent copying lots of data unnecessarily.

In my view, it's probably more important that whatever reference algorithm is specified, that it be written so that people can read it. Then, if necessary, others can rewrite it in the same or different languages to improve it.

Re:Wondering why this hasn't been done previously

[Guspaz]

We may not know if the java version is of alpha quality, but as it's extremely buggy and unstable (It even says as much on the site), it's not stable.

Re:Wondering why this hasn't been done previously

[LnxAddct]

Hmm.... what OS? On my Fedora core 2 system its barely using anything, I mean along with a Tomcat and Apache server running, and a few other things, my laptop isn't getting past 35.7% use in userland. Regardless, that is a damn clear stream, I've never seen a stream like that, especially while slashdot is pounding away. I mean something that clear with only a 35KB stream, its nuts. I am really impressed. Oh and as a side note, keep an eye out for the new Java VM to be released by Sun, I'm running the beta (although my applet plugin is still 1.4.2) and there are many significant improvments thus far. Its stable enough already that I'm using it to develop on.
Regards,
Steve

Re: open source with mpeg-4 in Java

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy has been working on an mpeg-4 and mpeg-1 Java player for several years and has said that it will be released within the month. The demos on thsi site, although basic, look promising. His Mpeg-4 video can apparently go full screen given enough cpu. The good bit? it's going open source.

Cool ... but

[Combuchan]

The demo on Firefox w/ XP professional (i'm at work) keylocked the machine (eg, press caps lock, no light) and it appeared completely frozen until a couple three-finger-salutes woke the machine up enough to use the Back button to get out of the page.

I didn't hear any audio, but the video quality was wonderful. I'd love to dump Real et al. for this sort of thing--streaming media servers just tend to suck (anybody who's installed RealServer on a unix box will likely agree with me).

Moreover, if you have any sort of secure web application that has streaming video, you can just stick this in rather than trying to wrap the same security concept around two different application servers. That alone is Very Cool.

Re:Audio

[irokitt]

Sometimes we turn off the audio because we are discussing stuff we don't want you to hear.

Says this right there on the site. So I wouldn't worry.

Re:Its it just not working for me or...

[Glenda Slagg]

It is working. They're playing Sonic Youth right now. No sign at all of Slashdot effect. Amazing really.

Compilable with GCJ?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Makes me curious - at this point, apparently, what Theora most needs is optimization of the code to make it work faster.

How optimized is this Java port of the codec, and will it be possible to compile it to 'native' code using GCJ for maximum performance?

Reminds of of Hello Network

[ElForesto]

I used to work at that place during the dot com explosion, and they had some pretty neat Java-based video stuff that ran very nicely even on modems. They even ended up making the broadcast software Java-based so that they didn't need to install software anywhere. Of course, the downturn took it's toll and I think it's run out of some person's house now or something.

Same Idea but with BitTorrent

[KrackHouse]

The guys at BannedMusic.org are using a similar system to make it simple to use BitTorrent. This combination of technologies could be the kick in the butt that Open Source needs to reach the mainstream.

A quote:
The best solution seemed to be a simple modification of BitTorrent: an installer that runs BitTorrent and begins download of an included torrent file. Windows users can click on the "Easy Download" button on an album's download page to get a 3mb executable. When they launch this executable it installs BitTorrent (which happens very quickly in the background) and immediately begins downloading the album they were seeking. After they've used the "easy download" once, they can simply click on the .torrent files to begin downloading. And they'll be able to use other sites that require BitTorrent.

Hey These guys just invented the player we created

[John Sokol]

Reinvented really.

The Livecam server we developed in 1995 and dominated the adult industry already did all this and supported more viewers with better quality.
We supported Motion JPEG or H.236 in 1999 with GSM audio, with 20Kbps to 70 Kbps streams.

I just love it when someone else come out with it all over again and everyone thinks it's new.

----Original Message-----
From: James S
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 5:18 PM
To: sokol@videotechnology.com
Cc: Jesse Monroy
Subject: Hey These guys just invented the Java player we created in 1999

Check this out. It's our player.

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04 /0 9/10/2053245&tid=108&tid=97&tid=95&tid =1

James

Re:Its not futile!

[Jardine]

Don't discount the business value of these open formats - for a hardware or tools vendor it is one less license to pay.

Same with games. Why compress your audio with mp3 and have to pay a fee when you can use ogg vorbis for free?

Ugh. Something Like Antitrust

[Doug Dante]

In the movie Antitrust, the protagonist's best friend develops an innovative video codec. Because of all of the potential endpoints from which the codec could be run (cell phones, PCs, video game systems), he embeds the code for decoding the code in the stream itself. This is somewhat similar to downloading an applet containing the codec and all of the data.

The villian, his boss, rips off the codec and has him killed.

This technical detail was probably the most interesting part of an otherwise thoroughly mediocre movie.

BTW, I kind of had the impression that his codec generated some sort of code. That code is then transmitted to the client and executed, and is ouput is the set of pixels seen on the screen.

Not a new technique

[ReKleSS]

Just for interests' sake, that technique (code that creates the pixels) does exist, but isn't in common use any more. Back in the days of dos games, when performance was critical, self-drawing sprites were used - the code would output some executable code that would drop the sprite into video memory. Since it was moving direct values into memory, instead of reading memory and writing back, it was faster. However, as I said, the technique isn't used any more, because it's just too troublesome for what is now a minimal performance gain.
-ReK

Re:clients still have to download a player

[Tim C]

Unless, of course, someone develops an applet and signs it with full privileges - then it can do anything it wants, as long as you click the "ok" button to let it.

(Unless that's changed since I last did applet stuff, which is a few years now)