[vorbis-dev] New Directshow filters preview...

[illiminable]

Comments inline....

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stan Seibert" <volsung at xiph.org>
To: <vorbis-dev at xiph.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: [vorbis-dev] New Directshow filters preview...

<p>> After SXSW, I decided to check out the current state of WMP plugins
> (including yours) for Vorbis and friends.  I've recorded the results of
> my testing here:
>
> http://wiki.xiph.org/WMPPlugins

Thanks for testing them out. Just to adress a few things in your
comments....

Firstly, yes i have found out about the audio defects... there does appear
to be a slight problem with the decode process.

Secondly  with regard to streaming. Currently my filters will not stream
over a network... only work with local files. This is only a temporary
problem, basicly there is no network code included.

I'm curious as to why it wouldn't open .ogg files when done with "open
with", i'll look into it... this is working on my machine and a few other
people have used this fine. Are you sure that both my filters and the tobias
filters aren't installed at the same time... there is some incompatability
and both will compete to open the file, causing a conflict. In later
releases i will strengthen my file association so this conflict does not
exist. Again more registry keys.

As for media player, yes currently windows doesn't by default recognise .ogg
files as media files... in all dialogs in media player you need to select
"Show all files" in the drop down box. However if you really want it to show
up properly, you can add these registry keys, which i have on my machine. I
have just limited the amount of registry keys i install. Also the keys need
to be installed for recognition in media player dialog boxes must be added
programmatically, due to the way the key is structured, an installer can't
reliably do this, so for now i don't do it by default

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Descript
ions
Look in this key and add a string value with number one higher than the
existing highest (this is why a static installer can't do it, because it may
overwrite your settings if it's not careful... my machine this is number 9)
and put this in the string vaue

Ogg Media (*.ogg;*.spx;*.speex)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\MUIDescr
iptions
Using the same number as you created a key before c reate another string
value of this number and this string value
Ogg Media

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Types
Again with the same number, create a string value
*.ogg;*.spx;*.speex

Be careful if you mess with your registry... follow the format of the other
keys... if you aren't sure don't change it ! :)

<p><p>>
> So far, results have not been good.  I have not been able to locate any
> plugin that can stream from an icecast server, and there is a weird
> warning that WMP 9 displays whenever you play an Ogg file that we really
> need to figure out how to disable.

This is also just a matter of setting the appropriate registry keys... once
the libraries become more stable i will start including code to dynamically
create all these registrry entries dynamically at component registration
time.

<p>> The speex support in your plugins looks promising, though.  I haven't
> tested it yet.
>

The speex actually seems to work better... it appears to be the vorbis (and
only in some files) that is suffering more with the audio defects.

<p>> Long term, we want to have a Xiph.org codec pack for WMP that people can
> just install and have (at minimum) decode support for Vorbis, Speex,
> naked FLAC, Ogg FLAC and Theora stored both locally and streamed.
> Encode support would be nice, but not as essential.

I am already looking at a theora decode filter... i haven't had a look at
the flac api, but i don't think there's any reason a flac decoder couldn't
be pretty easily done. And yes eventually i do intend to support all the
xiph codecs.

The streaming is a slightly different issue... most directshow filters are
implemented as transform filters and allow directshow to supply the source
filter... there are several limitations to doing this, and this
implementation imlpemnts the demuxer as a source filter for various reasons.
This does however mean that i have to write the network support myself
rather than leveraging the existing URL source filter. This was a conscious
decision as a beleive the benefits of havin the demux as a source outweigh
the small amount of work i will need to include network code.

And yes i also do intend to add encode support, however for the moment
decode is more important to me... There are already lots of other encoders
around, my initial aim is to get decode support for all these codecs into
media player/ds... providing support in what for most windows users is their
default media player.

<p>>
> Any ideas on how to get there would be appreciated.  :)
>
> ---
> Stan Seibert
>
>
> ---
> Stan Seibert
>
>
>
> --- >8 ----
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<p>--- >8 ----
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