[FFmpeg-devel] GSoC with FFMpeg waht a combination!

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 3:12 PM, M?ns Rullg?rd <mans at mansr.com> wrote:

> What is an ISV?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_software_vendor

Commonly (in the computer field) referred to as an ISV.


> > For it to matter in this particular question ("let's develop a UI for
> > xyzzy"), it needs to be mainstream. None of them are.
>
> A sane application will run under *any* window manager.


It will.

Also, it won't integrate, especially given the complete lack of desktop
standards on Linux (I have to give some credit to FDO here, they really do
understand the problem domain, it's just that they work as by-committee
steering bullers and thus don't get anything done).

Here's some ideas on what I'm looking at when I say integration:
- use "ffmpeg" (without knowing it, for all I care) to watch a video from
youtube, from my online movie rental store, a tv station (e.g. online
archive), from some porn supplier or whatever in my web browser
- use "ffmpeg" (ibid) to convert a file from one file type to another in my
file manager (or console) in some given format (e.g. "burn this mp4 to dvd"
or stuff like that)
- use "ffmpeg" (etc.) to preview a song that I'm about to buy in some online
store (like itunes) and then listen to it after that

Right now, all I can do is either download it, dump it to a file (using
mplayer...) and then use ffplay / ffmpeg on the commandline to do one of the
above, or write a script, i.e. stone age stuff. The above can be done by
properly integrating in the desktop, be that GNOME, KDE, OSX, Win32 or
something else, and *that* would really expose some of the neat features in
ffmpeg to a broader, ignorant (but loving) audience. For that, you need
desktop APIs.

Ronald