[Speex-dev] Xiph.org Call for Student Projects

[Conrad Parker]

Xiph.org/Annodex.net seeking Summer of Code student applications!

2009 is an important year for free codecs: Ogg Vorbis on every Android
device, Ogg Theora support in development for Mozilla Firefox 3.5, and
expanded Ogg hosting by the Internet Archive and Wikimedia. Xiph.org
and Annodex.net, who develop free codecs (Ogg Vorbis, Theora, Dirac,
Speex, CELT, FLAC) and web video support for them, have been selected
as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code 2009.

We are actively seeking student projects for Summer of Code.
A list of project suggestions is at:

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code_2009

Students should feel free to select one of these, develop a variation,
or propose their own ideas! Some examples:

 * Develop a conference bridge or reference SIP client for CELT, the
new, ultra-low delay audio codec that bridges the gap between Vorbis
and Speex for applications where both high quality audio and low delay
are desired. If you enjoy hacking on networks, you'll have fun with
these CELT projects.

 * Develop components to support all Ogg codecs for OpenMAX IL, the
media plugins used in Maemo, Android and LIMO mobile devices. This
touches on many interesting projects, and is perfect for anyone with
an interest in mobile and embedded systems who wants a broad
introduction to multimedia codecs.

 * Write a JavaScript Library for Subtitles, Captions and other
time-aligned text. The main focus of this project is around enabling
video accessibility for Ogg in Firefox. The project requires a student
with experience in JavaScript development, HTML and CSS, but also with
some understanding of C for liboggplay and libkate, and of C++ for
Firefox.

 * Make a Proof of Concept for HTML5 Ogg Video support in the Chromium
Browser, using liboggplay (our Ogg Theora playback library, as used in
Mozilla Firefox). Full support for HTML5 <video> is a lot of work, but
let's get the ball rolling with a proof of concept for Theora frame
decoding and rendering.

 * Add support for import and export of XSPF playlists to Songbird, the
Mozilla-powered open music player. This project requires good XML foo, the
opportunity to work with cross-platform XUL and JavaScript, and perhaps
some C++.


Submissions

The student application period starts on Monday (March 23):

http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/program/google/gsoc2009/timeline

and runs for a little under 2 weeks, until Friday April 3.

Details of our application process are at:

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code_Applications

Interested students *must* get involved with the project development
community, on project mailing lists and IRC, before the application
deadline. When selecting projects, preference will be given to
students who have submitted at least one patch to a Xiph.org or
Annodex.net project before the application deadline.

Students will receive a grant from Google for successful work on their GSoC
projects. Hacking on free multimedia projects is fun and can have a big impact.
We need students who love to hack, to help put support for free codecs
into more applications, browsers and networks.