[Vorbis] A Macromedia Shockwave Flash-based Ogg player?

[Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves]

On 1/16/07, Tor-Einar Jarnbjo <tor-einar at jarnbjo.name> wrote:
> - Java applets are platform independent, runs on virtually any platform
> and/or browser combination, but require Java to be installed (and
> properly integrated with the browser) on the client computer to work. If
> Java is not installed, the installation is not particulary trivial for
> inexperienced users, may require administrator privileges under Windows
> and the download size is relatively huge. There are already a few Vorbis
> decoders available for Java and integrating them in an applet is
> trivial. I managed to tweek my Java Vorbis player into less than 10kB of
> code, so applet download size should not be an issue.

Although,on the web Java is not as predominant as Flash, if you could
get your Java player to work with the other formats in the Ogg family,
and keep the size down like that, half the battle would be won.

> - Flash movies are platform independet, run on at least Windows, Mac and
> Linux (and hence cover a vast majority of the intended audience). The
> Flash player is already installed on most computers and if not, the
> installation procedure is in most cases trivial and easy to perform,
> also for inexperienced users. Drawbacks are of course that Flash does
> not have native support for Vorbis and that the poor-performing
> ActionScript engine requires much CPU power to run an ActionScript
> implementation of a Vorbis decoder. Download size is also here not a
> great issue, the ActionScript Vorbis decoder itself is only 20-25kB when
> compiled.

This is a problem with no easy solution, or rather, it pretty much
depends on Adobe.

One can't make an ECMAScript player.  It's a scripting language.  It
has too many limits to make it possible, especially concerning all the
CPU cycles that would be involved.

Support on Flash simply needs to be built-in.

> - ActiveX controls run only in IE on Windows (is ActiveX available at
> all in IE for Mac??) and are considered by some as a potential security
> threat. If the control is available and signed by a somewhat seriosly
> looking entity (e.g. Xiph.org), I would however assume that most users
> allow the control to be installed, without conserning too much about
> security issues. Implementing an ActiveX control for Vorbis streaming
> and playback should not be particulary difficult and the control is only
> downloaded once when first used. Download size should hence also here
> not be a great issue.

There's this shareware solution, so far:
http://www.brothersoft.com/software_developer/active_x/audio_player_activex_50287.html
and it plays Vorbis only.

And then there's:
http://wikiproject.sourceforge.net/
and it plays all of our formats... but although it uses ActiveX on the
browser side, it depends on illi's DirectShow filters.

> One idea my brain is currently working on, is to implement both Java,
> Flash and ActiveX versions of a kind of streaming, decoding and playback
> engine without its own user interface. This would make it possible to
> wrap everything in a JavaScript library and make it feasible for web
> content authors to integrate Vorbis streaming on any web side, requiring
> only either Java, Flash or ActiveX to be available on the client
> computer. The JavaScript wrapper would decide which "core engine" to
> actually use depending on which software extension are actually
> available.  It is becoming more and more common anyway to hide the
> actual playback component and use HTML for the player GUI and JavaScript
> to interact with the player engine and this would be required by my
> approach, but not necessarily a show-stopper for common usage of the
> software suite. Feedback on this idea is extremely appreciated.

Javascript detection and player UI, eh?  It might work, but are you up
to the challenge?  If you would ask me, I would suggest that you keep
working on the Java player, because that by itself is a monstrous
task; to get support for Theora, Speex and the others--assuming this
is what you are aiming for.  Whatever you decide to do, however, seems
you will have a lot of work in your hands.

-Ivo