Le fourre-tout à Geo - VideoLAN

Utterly useless uses of VLC

Geoffroy Couprie — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:22:00 +0000

Last time, I told you how to take a video from some website and see it in VLC media player. Pretty cool, huh?

Yesterday, I was trying to think of funny and useless thing to do with VLC, and it occured to me that Lua gives a lot of opportunities to do that.

So, it is my pleasure to present you with the "Flickr diaporama Lua script for VLC"!

--[[

 Copyright © 2009 the VideoLAN team

 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 (at your option) any later version.

 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 GNU General Public License for more details.

 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston MA 02110-1301, USA.
--]]

-- Probe function.
function probe()
    if vlc.access ~= "http" then
        return false
    end
    vlc.msg.info( vlc.path )
	koreus_site = string.match( vlc.path, "www.flickr.com" )
    if not koreus_site then
        return false
    end
    return (  string.match( vlc.path, "sets" )  )
end

-- Parse function.
function parse()
    _,_,artist = string.find( vlc.path, "photos/(.-)/sets/" )
    vlc.msg.info( artist )
    while true do
        line = vlc.readline()
        if not line then break end
        if string.match( line,"<div id=\"setThumbs\"") then
            start = 0
            pl = {}
            line = vlc.readline()
            while true do
                _,start,url = string.find(line, "<img src=\"(.-)_s.jpg\"", start)
                if start == nil then
                    return pl
                end
                _,_,description = string.find(line, "alt=\"(.-)\"", start)
                opt = { ":fake-duration=5000"; ":fullscreen" }
                pth = "fake://" .. url .. ".jpg"
                table.insert(pl, {path = pth; name = start; title=description; 
                description = description; artist = artist;options=opt})
            end
        end
    end
end

So, how does it work? Give some Flickr album url to VLC, like this one with the funny cats. VLC will parse the page, find all the thumbnails urls (the ones finishing with _s.jpg), deduce the urls of the the full pictures (replacing "_s.jpg" by ".jpg"), and show them. As simple as that.

The fake access module is used to tell VLC that "hey, this is not one picture, it's a video with a lot of frames like this picture". I added the "fake-duration" option, to choose how much time (in ms) the picture will be displayed, and the "fullscreen" option. You can of course tweak it, and, let's say, use the directx wallpaper mode to have a flickr diaporama as your wallpaper!

To use this script, you can either place it in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist, or in C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\vlc\lua\playlist.

I strongly encourage you to try and write your own Lua scripts, it's really easy! Come to the Videolan forum to share your scripts or ask for help.

VLC: now with DxVA support

Geoffroy Couprie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:55:00 +0000

So, this is it. My summer of code has been merged into the main tree, thanks to Laurent's hard work!

You may test and enjoy the GPU acceleration for your H.264 videos using future nightly builds!

So you want to contribute...

Geoffroy Couprie — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:30:00 +0000

...But you don't want to go through the (sometimes painful) process of building the whole VLC. Well, you can build your own plugin separately. Here is how to do it (this tutorial is Windows centric because 1: I'm too lazy to launch my VM right now; 2:it's easy to do on Ubuntu for the linux trolls):

Ingredients

The plugin headers. You can find them in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\sdk\include\vlc\plugins on Windows.
The libraries. Copy libvlc.dll and libvlccore.dll (you will find them in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC)
A building environment (on Windows, use Mingw+MSYS)
Some coffee

Recipe

At the time of writing, the wiki page wasn't really explicit, so I'll detail all the steps, for an example audio filter that switch the left and right audio streams (adapted from the trivial channel mixer plugin).

Let's begin by taking a look at what code you can find in a VLC plugin, like the trivial channel mixer plugin.

Preamble

First, the copyright and license:

/*****************************************************************************
 * trivial.c : trivial channel mixer plug-in (drops unwanted channels)
 *****************************************************************************
 * Copyright (C) 2009 the VideoLAN team
 * $Id: 3ecc0dd8363a50c40f7f123a9e2724a943c0c83c $
 *
 * Authors: Name <email address>
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston MA 02110-1301, USA.
 *****************************************************************************/

That's not useful to run the plugin, but you'll have to add it when you send a patch to VideoLAN.

Next, the headers:

#ifdef HAVE_CONFIG_H
# include "config.h"
#endif

#include <vlc_common.h>
#include <vlc_plugin.h>
#include <vlc_aout.h>
#include <vlc_filter.h>

the config.h file is generated from the configure step when you build the whole VLC. Each module must include at least vlc_common.h and vlc_plugin.h. The other headers included depend on the type of plugin you want to build (find it in the code of plugins from the category you want).

Note: you will probably need something more like the following for your audio plugin.

#define _(str)  (str)
#define N_(str) (str)

#include <vlc_common.h>
#include <vlc_plugin.h>
#include <vlc_messages.h>
#include <vlc_aout.h>
#include <vlc_filter.h>
#include <vlc_fourcc.h>
#include <vlc_block.h>

Don't hesitate to grep the include directory if you have some missing functions or unknown structures.

Module descriptor

static int  Create    ( vlc_object_t * );

static block_t *DoWork( filter_t *, block_t * );

vlc_module_begin ()
    set_description( N_("Audio channel inverser") )
    set_capability( "channel inverser", 1 )
    set_category( CAT_AUDIO )
    set_subcategory( SUBCAT_AUDIO_MISC )
    set_callbacks( Create, NULL )
    add_shortcut( "channel_inverser" )
vlc_module_end ()

First, you see the prototypes of functions used in this plugin. Create is used, well, to create the plugin, and DoWork will handle all the audio data.

Then, the part between vlc_module_begin and vlc_module_end is a set of macros used to declare the plugin structure. This part is used to define which type of module it will be. These macros create a function exported by the plugin and called when VLC looks for a suitable plugin.

If the module can be used, the core of VLC stores the callback (here, the Create function) and calls it later to initialize the plugin.

Create function

static int Create( vlc_object_t *p_this )
{
    filter_t * p_filter = (filter_t *)p_this;

    if ( (p_filter->fmt_in.audio.i_physical_channels
           == p_filter->fmt_out.audio.i_physical_channels
           && p_filter->fmt_in.audio.i_original_channels
               == p_filter->fmt_out.audio.i_original_channels)
          || p_filter->fmt_in.audio.i_format != p_filter->fmt_out.audio.i_format
          || p_filter->fmt_in.audio.i_rate != p_filter->fmt_out.audio.i_rate
          || (p_filter->fmt_in.audio.i_format != VLC_CODEC_FL32
               && p_filter->fmt_in.audio.i_format != VLC_CODEC_FI32) )
    {
        return VLC_EGENERIC;
    }

    p_filter->pf_audio_filter = DoWork;
    return VLC_SUCCESS;
}

The initialization function is used to set some configuration options, initialize memory structures, etc. Look at other modules to see how you can store variables, and how to create preferences variables.

Here, we verify that the number of channels, the format and the bitrate in the input and output are the same, and that the audio isn't stored in float numbers. If it's ok, we give to libvlc a pointer to the DoWork function, which will be called when audio data is available.

DoWork function

static block_t *DoWork( filter_t * p_filter, block_t * p_in_buf )
{
    int i_input_nb = aout_FormatNbChannels( &p_filter->fmt_in.audio );
    int i_output_nb = aout_FormatNbChannels( &p_filter->fmt_out.audio );

    block_t *p_out_buf;
    if( i_input_nb >= i_output_nb )
    {
        p_out_buf = p_in_buf; /* mix in place */
        p_out_buf->i_buffer = p_in_buf->i_buffer / i_input_nb * i_output_nb;
    }
    else
    {
        p_out_buf = filter_NewAudioBuffer( p_filter,
                              p_in_buf->i_buffer / i_input_nb * i_output_nb );
        if( !p_out_buf )
            goto out;
        p_out_buf->i_nb_samples = p_in_buf->i_nb_samples;
    }

    int32_t * p_dest = (int32_t *)p_out_buf->p_buffer;
    const int32_t * p_src = (int32_t *)p_in_buf->p_buffer;


    /* Reverse-stereo mode */
    int i;
    for ( i = p_in_buf->i_nb_samples; i--; )
    {
        *p_dest = p_src[1];
        p_dest++;
        *p_dest = p_src[0];
        p_dest++;
        p_src += 2;
    }

out:
    if( p_in_buf != p_out_buf )
        block_Release( p_in_buf );
    return p_out_buf;
}

The DoWork function manages the buffers and copy them from the input to the output.

Now in the oven

(No preheat please)

Here is the content of my Makefile:

all:
	gcc -I/home/Geal/module/include -L/home/Geal/module/ -lvlccore -shared -std=gnu99 \
	-DWIN32 -D__PLUGIN__ -DMODULE_STRING=\"channel_inverser\" module.c -o libchannel_inverser_plugin.dll
/// 

Adapt it to the name of your plugin, and to the path you use, or copy the one from the wiki. My Makefile only contains what is strictly necessary to build your plugin. Now:

Geal@chezmoi ~/module $ make ///

Eat it while it's still hot

Now, you just need to copy your dll in the plugins directory of VLC media player, and try your plugin! I don't guarantee that it will work (more like I know that it doesn't work and I'm too lazy to fix it because I won't commit it), I just gave you the structure and the Makefile you need to be up and running. Note that you can use the following command line options to help in your development:

-vvv: displays a LOT of debug messages
--verbose-objects: helps you filter the messages (example: ./vlc -vvv --verbose-objects=-all,+direct3d to display only the messages related to the direct3d module)

Don't forget to send a patch to VideoLAN (subscribe to the vlc-devel mailing-list and attach it to a message). To integrate your module, please read the HACKING file at the root of the VLC source tree.

Now, show me your code!

VLC tricks: get comfortable

Geoffroy Couprie — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:02:00 +0100

Last time, I showed you how to customize your interface with new skins. I hope you are happy with it :)

Now, I will tell you how to tune VLC to meet your needs. I like it when it just runs, with no tweaking. But what I would like even more is customizing the way it runs once and for all, and forget about it.

So, here is a compilation of VLC settings you may find useful, and info on where you can find them in the preferences:

Always on top: in Video. If, like me, you often watch a video while coding/reading/chatting, having a small video window on top of the others in a corner of the screen is convenient.
Deinterlacing: in Video->Filters->Deinterlace. I have some DVDs with interlaced videos, and it's annoying to set deinterlacing for each video. Here, choose the deinterlacing algorithm you prefer (test with multiple videos).
Sharpening: in Video->Filters->Sharpen video. Here again, set as you see fit (videos will appear a bit more clear).
Subtitles: in Video->Subtitles/OSD. You can choose the folder where VLC will search for subtitles, and choose the color and font in Video->Subtitles/OSD->Text renderer.

Interface tweaks: in Interface->Main interfaces->Qt. Use Automatically save the volume on exit. you can uncheck Show notification popup on track change if the systray popup bothers you.

Last but not least, the hotkeys: you can control VLC directly from your keyboard. You can see them and change them in Hotkeys in the preferences (not that hard to find...). Here are the handy ones:

Play/Pause: space
Fullscreen: F
Leave fullscreen: Esc
Next: N
Previous: P
Mute: M
Increase subtitle delay: H
Decrease subtitle delay: G
Increase audio delay: K
Decrease audio delay: J

There's a lot of configuration settings, so feel free to test the remaining ones and tweak your VLC :)

VLC tricks: customize your interface

Geoffroy Couprie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:20:00 +0100

VLC media player is full of nice features, but the interface is a bit "geeky". It's minimalistic, grey... but you can change it!

Customizing Qt4

Default profiles

In the Qt4 interface, there are a few different looks you can choose. Go to Tools->Preferences->Interface Type->Native->Display mode and then select one of the following profiles:

Make your own profiles

OK, that's not enough. You want more? Then go to View->Customize Interface... and you'll see the Qt customization interface:

Go to Select profile, name it like you want, and then choose what buttons will go in your interface. Here, I have removed some buttons from the "advanced controls" line, and added the frame-per-frame and snapshots buttons to the fullscreen controller.

That's neat, but it's still that grey interface... Now take a look at the skins interface.

Skins

Go to Tools->Preferences->Interface Type->Skins and you'll have a new look for VLC! This theme you see is named "SubX", and was selected in a contest 2 months ago.

Do you like it? If not, you can use another skin. Download it from videolan.org and save it in c:\Users\yourlogin\AppData\Roaming\vlc\skins then go to ''View->Themes" and choose it. As an example, here is the Winamp theme:

There are a lot of skins to download and try! But if you're not pleased yet, you can create your own with the VLC skin editor:

If you create a nice theme, feel free to send it to VideoLAN, we will add it to the list of downloadable skins :)

DxVA in VLC!

Geoffroy Couprie — Mon, 04 May 2009 01:24:00 +0000

I'm doing again a Google Summer of Code, and this time, I'll work on DxVA integration in VLC: decoding MPEG2 or H264 with the graphic card! This plugin will reduce the load on the CPU and speed up decoding. It looks like I'll have to see lots of HD videos this summer, "for testing purpose" 0:-)

VLC tricks: Lua playlist

Geoffroy Couprie — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:33:00 +0000

Try it!

You certainly know that VLC media player can play your videos and musics if you make it open your file. But what happens when you try to open a Google Video or Youtube webpage? If you don't know, try it! Cool, huh? And now, I'll show you how to do it for other video websites, using the Lua interpreter embedded in VLC.

In your VLC installation directory, you will find the subdirectory lua/playlist. In this directory, you will find the Lua scripts responsible for finding the video content in the website page.

Create the Script

I chose Koreus to do my script, because there's a great deal of funny and weird videos, like this one :p

First, create koreus.lua in this directory. Your file must contain two functions: probe and parse.

The probe function

Probe tests if the website is the good one and if it's the URL of a video. Here is the small code I wrote, for an URL like http://www.koreus.com/video/pouet.html :

-- Probe function.

function probe()

if vlc.access ~= "http" then

return false

end

koreus_site = string.match( vlc.path, "koreus" )

if not koreus_site then

return false

end

return ( string.match( vlc.path, "video" ) )

end

That's really simple: just a test, to know if it's HTTP, on a koreus website, containing video in the url, you return true if you found what you want.

The parse function

Parse looks into the HTML code, finds the metadata and the video url, and send it to VLC media player. That's a bit more code, but nothing really hard.

-- Parse function.

function parse()

while true do

line = vlc.readline()

if not line then break end

if string.match( line, "<meta name=\"title\"" ) then

_,_,name = string.find( line, "content=\"(.-)\"" )

end

if string.match( line, "<meta name=\"description\"" ) then

_,_,description = string.find( line, "content=\"(.-)\"" )

end

if string.match( line, "<meta name=\"author\"" ) then

_,_,artist = string.find( line, "content=\"(.-)\"" )

end

if string.match( line, "link rel=\"image_src\"" ) then

_,_,arturl = string.find( line, "href=\"(.-)\"" )

end

if string.match( line, "videoDiv\"%)%.innerHTML" ) then

vid_url = string.match( line, '(http://media%d?%.koreus%.com/%d+/%d+/[%w-]*%.mp4)' )

if vid_url then

return { { path = vid_url; name = name; description = description; artist = artist; arturl = arturl } }

end

Yep, if you look into the source of a koreus webpage, you see that they send an mp4 file to their flash player. You can also get the flv and play it in VLC, but I prefer mp4. About the small regexp: we loo, for a string like "http://media9.koreus.com/00067/200903/tortue-pigeon.mp4", with media{number}.koreus.com or media.koreus.com. That's easy, isn't it?

You can download the whole file here. Enjoy!

VideoLAN in the Google Summer of Code 2009

Geoffroy Couprie — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:29:33 +0000

VideoLAN was accepted for the Google Summer of Code 2009! All the would-be students are encouraged to come in #videolan on freenode and say hello!

There is a bunch of ideas for this year that I would like to see done:

Lua audio filters: that's something I will steal from the project ideas if no student wants to do it! With this, you would be able to create audio filters for VLC with a Lua script. No need to build the whole program, and you could share your fiters with the world. High level of coolness!
Media Library: that's definitely an useful feature (just look at WMP or Amarok and you'll be convinced). Some work has already been done on this project by ECP students, and I want to see it in VLC soon!
Qt embedded interface: I worked for a bit of time on the Windows CE port, especially on the interface, and I've got to say that this interface sucks bears. That's some old code that nobody dared to touch until I came for last GSoC. A Qt embedded interface would be better-looking, and would be portable on Maemo, Nokia, or even an hypothetical Symbian port (does someone want to do the Symbian port? Come on, it'll be fun!).
GPU-based decoding: this project has a very high degree of coolness! Imagine, being able to decode videos on your graphic card... There are APIs for that on Linux, but I don't know well about these. What I know is that DXVA and Media Foundation let you do it on Windows, and nearly easily (WARNING, I don't say that this project is easy. In fact, you may have big problems with your development environment, as MinGW still doesn't include the DXVA API). I've begun working on this on my bred time, so if no student wants to so it, you will still see it in VLC in a not-so-far future.

Don't forget that original ideas will be rewarded so, don't be afraid to propose something else. Last year, I came willing to implement MPEG4 BIFS (if someone wants to do it this year... watch out, it may be a hard project!).

Another thing: we won't accept students that didn't even say hello. And to be accepted, you also need to prove that you understand the VLC code and that you're able to build it, by sending a patch (fixing a bug, implementing a nice feature).

For more information, you can look at our GSoC 2009 project ideas.

VLC on Windows CE - End of Google Summer of Code 2008

Geoffroy Couprie — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:47:55 +0000

That's the end of the Summer of Code! My patches are not all applied yet to the main tree, but I'm still working on it. I just got write access to the main repository of VLC, so I'm now a real VLC developer! Yay!

My projects for now:

finishing the port on Windows CE
working on the Windows version
going back to school for my second year :P
finding a 6 months internship in Lille, France, from now to March 2009
finding a 6 months internship abroad, from March 2009 to September 2009

(if someone read this and is interested in employing me, feel free to contact me :P)

That was a nice summer, I really enjoyed working on VLC, and it's a great experience for the future!

Many thanks to the VideoLAN and the Google teams!

Screenshots of VLC on my phone

Geoffroy Couprie — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:04:21 +0000

Have a look at the old and ugly (yet working) interface of VLC :) There will be a nicer one when I have the other problems fixed.

This is the main window. I think this part is fine. I may redraw the buttons and simplify the menus, but it's already easy to use. The angry users of Windows Mobile may thank me for adding a menu entry that really kills VLC (damn you, upper right cross!)

This is the playlist interface. That's ugly and unintuitive, there are buttons we can't understand ( the bubble means "shuffle", any idea for a more expressive drawing ? ). Clearly, I will have some work to do here. But not now! I'm too busy porting codecs :P Oh, and since my last post, I got it to work a bit ( aka "it doesn't segfault after 10 seconds of use").

The preferences are simple: you choose something in the tree in the bottom, and the infos are displayed above.

Another update since the last post: the video works. I tried the GDI output module, and there's no problem. There's a GAPI module, but it's not working yet. About the codecs and other libraries, I think I'll have these ones ready by the end of GSoC : FFMPEG(not really working yet), Ogg (ported), Vorbis, x264, MP3, libmpeg2 (ported, with a little hack). That will be enough to read many media for now, but don't worry, the rest of the codecs is coming too!

Windows CE port of VLC: update

Geoffroy Couprie — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:30:00 +0000

My last post was a long ago, I have been a bit busy coding since then. So that's where I am:

The LibVLC really works, it should be possible to start using it in WinCE programs
The file input has been reworked (again)
The audio output works, but seems to slow, I have timing issues when I want to listen to music
The video output has been ported but not tested
Nearly all modules compile fine
I worked on the port of some codecs
The interface rebuilding is in progress: the preferences are now working, but not the playlist. The rest is working fine

There's still some work to do :)

Now, I need to make it read properly audio and video, have a good interface, prepare the compilation process (automake, etc.) and do some docs!

YAY IT COMPILED!!

Geoffroy Couprie — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:03:00 +0000

I just got VLC compiled for Windows CE! That's certainly not working, but I'm happy!

First issues when porting an application on Windows CE

Geoffroy Couprie — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:46:57 +0000

Windows CE is a wonderful platform, but there are some problems I encountered that are worth mentioning.

I use mingw32ce from the cegcc project, which means I don't use newlib. All calls in the program go through a mingw dll and are redirected to the system libraries. With this configuration, I have to use functions from Windows CE, and that's sometimes very tricky.

Missing functions

rewind(file) can be replaced by fseek(file, 0L, SEEK_SET); clearerr(file);
GetVersion is not present, but can be replaced by GetVersionEx both on Windows NT and Windows CE (and even older versions):

if (GetVersion() < 0x80000000)

replaced by

OSVERSIONINFO osinf;

ZeroMemory(&osinf, sizeof(OSVERSIONINFO));

osinf.dwOSVersionInfoSize = sizeof(OSVERSIONINFO);

GetVersionEx(&osinf);

if(osinf.dwPlatformId == VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT || osinf.dwPlatformId == VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_CE)

if(osinf.dwPlatformId >1)

to keep compatibility with future versions.

_wopen is replaced by _open
_wunlink is replaced by _unlink
_wstati64 replaced by _stat

These three functions are replaced by their ANSI version because their implementation in cegcc uses Unicode. As an example, see unlink.c in cegcc. You can easily reimplement the unicode version of these functions.

asprintf and vasprintf are missing, and this is really painful, as they are widely used. Both are implemented in VLC, but there's a trick in vasprintf. Here's the old code:

static inline int vasprintf (char **strp, const char *fmt, va_list ap) {

int len = vsnprintf (NULL, 0, fmt, ap) + 1;

char *res = (char *)malloc (len);

if (res == NULL)

return -1;

*strp = res;

return vsprintf (res, fmt, ap);

}

And now I'm crying loudly, because the behaviour of vsnprintf is different on different platforms. In glibc 2.1, vsnprintf returns the size it would have needed to store the string copied. BUT, in glibc 2.0 and in the Win32 API, vsnprintf returns -1 if it couldn't copy. So here's my workaround:

static inline int vasprintf (char **strp, const char *fmt, va_list ap) {

int n, size = 50; char *res, *np;

if ( (res = (char *) malloc (size)) == NULL )

return -1;

while (1) {

n = vsnprintf (res, size, fmt, ap);

/* If that worked, return the string. */

if (n > -1 && n < size)

{

*strp = res;

return n;

}

/* Else try again with more space. */

size *= 2; /* twice the old size */

if ( (np = (char *) realloc (res, size)) == NULL )

{

free(res);

return -1;

}

else

{

res = np;

}

} }

Again, it's buggy, so wait for the new version.

strcoll can be replaced by wcscmp
tmpfile: i replaced

if ( (file = tmpfile ()) == NULL ) by if(GetTempFileName(strpath,strprefix,0,buf) || ( (file = fopen(buf,"wb+")) ==NULL ))

Missing headers

There's no errno.h for Windows CE. I had to copy the errno.h from cegcc.
There are not the same signals. I had to copy signal.h from cegcc

Multithreading

I don't have SignalObjectAndWait, and it's painful. I tried the SetEvent solution from this website, but I'm not sure of the consequences, as I'm not a multithreading expert.

Unicode

Windows CE is full Unicode, I had to replace the ASCII functions by the Unicode ones.

UPDATES: 30/09/08-: _open and _unlink are internally unicode

Bugfix: vasprintf implementation - changed if( n > -1) to if( n == -1).

VLC media player, Windows CE, what's going on?

Geoffroy Couprie — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:57:34 +0000

VLC media player is a powerful multimedia player, which can play nearly all video and audio formats, can be used as a streaming server and client, ca reencode various formats, etc. It can be used on a large number of OS, but the Windows CE has been broken for a long time, and now, I'm here to fix it!

Windows CE is one of Microsoft's OS, and is designed for embedded devices. It is highly configurable, and can be used on many types of hardware. Windows Mobile, the OS for PDAs and Smartphones, is based on Windows CE. This system is a bit different from the other Windows, so I'll have some work this summer!

The difficulty here is that VLC media player must be used on various plateforms, so I must not break the code for other systems. I also have to recompile for Windows CE all the libraries used. I'll use the cegcc development tools. I have chosen to use the Visual Studio remote tools and gdb combined with the Device simulator. With that, I'll be able to check the behaviour of my port on various virtual machines. And of course, I'll use it on my phone :)

Le fourre-tout à Geo - VideoLAN

Utterly useless uses of VLC

See also

VLC: now with DxVA support

So you want to contribute...

Ingredients

Recipe

Preamble

Module descriptor

Create function

DoWork function

Now in the oven

Eat it while it's still hot

VLC tricks: get comfortable

VLC tricks: customize your interface

Customizing Qt4

Default profiles

Make your own profiles

Skins

DxVA in VLC!

VLC tricks: Lua playlist

Try it!

Create the Script

The probe function

The parse function

See also

VideoLAN in the Google Summer of Code 2009

VLC on Windows CE - End of Google Summer of Code 2008

Screenshots of VLC on my phone

Windows CE port of VLC: update

YAY IT COMPILED!!

First issues when porting an application on Windows CE

Missing functions

Missing headers

Multithreading

Unicode

VLC media player, Windows CE, what's going on?