Native Port of Webcam Studioio

[RobertLJ]

Patrick I was listening to your interview on floss weekly. I the
conversation you mentioned having an interest in a native port of
WebcamStudio. I have been looking into what this may take and I would
like to try to work on a prototype. Is this something that you are
currently interested in having done? If so should I focus on the
latest code in subversion ?

Thanks

Robert

[JoeHillen]

I hope by "native port" you mean not written in Java. I would be very
much in support of this idea since Java frustrates me to know end. I
would also like to see libVLC used instead of gstreamer.

[Patrick Balleux]

Hi

I think that someone already started a native project called
qWebcamStudio in C/C++. The first thing you want to solve is being
able to capture the webcam, and mix other sources with that and
outpout to the loopback device.

Start small, and then, once working, add features.

I would say that the hardest part is the mixing because you have to
manipulate images and java is pretty good on that level.

Keep me informed on the native project as we could integrate that
project as a sub forum here.

[Patrick Balleux]

Hi,

Of course that native does not mean in java :)

The main reason I used java was that's what I know best. And it's
really fast to develop in java compared to C/C++.

Let's hope that a true native project will take the lead. It would be
more efficient.

Why use VLC instead of gstreamer? I know that VLC is powerful but
gstreamer is also and is meant to be integrated into projects as a
framework.

[JoeHillen]

In my experience (as a user) libvlc is a more powerful and more
reliable for video decoding, though I have no idea for mixing. I've
never done any development in either so I can't
speak for their ease of development.

What I would really like to see is a simple tool that takes any
network video stream (such as rtp or mms) and writes it to a loopback
device. There are already a plethora tools for generating and mixing
network video, and such a tool would be able to harness this power
without having to reinvent it. The entire webcamstudio interface
could be replaced with: netvloopback 127.0.0.1:12345

[Patrick Balleux]

Hi Joe

What you are describing is gstreamer. WebcamStudio is using gstreamer
for several features like output to a shout cast server. You can use
gstreamer from the console to do what ever you want quite easily.

Where WebcamStudio shines is in the video mixing part. All other
solutions can do video mixing but in a static state, meaning that you
cannot remove or add a video source live while the mixer is running.
Another area that WebcamStudio is addressing in trying to be easy to
use. Not everybody is comfortable with scripts and parameters. Vast
majority of ws4gl users are regular users who really don't care about
the power of the command line or how much memory they could save.
They just want it to work in a click.

I'm a power user, but at the same time, I don't see my self reading
the docs of gstreamer each time I want to do a broadcast with a
specific need.

Have a look at the gstreamer syntax and compare it with the VLC syntax
(parameters). You'll see that gstreamer is a lot easier on complex
settings