Fun with VFW

Yes, its still there. I decided to play with the old API and do simple frame compression. Inspired by the NSV sdk, I’ve always wanted to play with Dll’s in that way. Well, here is the project code and test code. What it does is load the x264 VFW compressor, synthesizes fake frames, and compresses them into NAL units. Then the test app parses those nal units exposing their unit-type. To use the bits, you would need to have x264 codec installed with VFW interface enabled.

I was playing with the compressor inside a NetscapePlugin. I thought it would be fun to try to integrate the codec into my own web-broadcasters. Well, it does work but I must move on for a while before I can revisit this project. Ideally the compressor would be self contained and not link to VFW, but I have to start somewhere. The Mozilla plugin code is not available at this time, but it really was not too difficult to pull off. I used the nsScriptableSample plugin to trigger the calls.

The code

Shoutcast Red5 Application V2 w/H264 jar

Whats new with the Application

This release includes the application rewritten to handle both server and client mode operation. This should help you if you are not inclined to set up the Java development environment to use it as a client. In red5-web.xml you can set up either without rebuilding the classes. Also there has been basic publish security that denies all other types of broadcasts. If you want to remove that, you would have to recompile.

Whats new with the Jar
I think the biggest improvement in the jar is the speed at which video decoding begins. I’m hoping the methods hold up under heavy cooking. Now the video will appear no later than the buffer length you have chosen.

Also there is a new interface available to the application to implement which will allow notification of connection events between the server and encoder or shoutcast server in client mode. Also the interface includes access to the auxiliary data. Check out IStatusListener.EVENT_CONNECTED and IStatusListener.EVENT_DISCONNECTED for the status values received.

Logger
Some minor logger action is now available. here’s a snap of the logback.xml file entries.

Using the jar with stream proxy and AVC/AAC content

Take a look at what you could do to send the configuration packets out to insure the receiving server gets it all. This works well with FMS systems. The idea is to send out the aac audio configuration upon receiving an AVC confiruration packet. So, assuming you have added a stream listener to the ICYStream you could process the packets as pictured below.

Download

Link