LiveCode and videos

[ETphonehome]

Hello,
It's incredibly boring to be only allowed to use quick time videos with LiveCode. What a lost of time and serenity !
Do you know if something will be improved about this in the near future of LiveCode ?
Anyway, what I'm suppose to do in order to generate .mov files ? Buy Quick Time Pro ? Is there a free alternative (not online, I want a software) ? On the internet I only found conversion FROM .mov and not TO .mov.
I read about "externals" (http://forums.runrev.com/phpBB2/viewtop ... =4&t=13168) but I'm not sure to understand. Does it mean that the soft LiveCodeCommunity (open source) is not able to work properly with videos and that we have to buy plug-ins in order to use them ?
Thanks for help

[jacque]

QuickTime is not strictly required. If you will deploy cross-platform then you should use a video format that every OS supports. QuickTime is built into Macs and it will automatically be used to play back the video. On Windows, if QuickTime is installed on the user's machine, it will also be used but if QT isn't installed then the native WMP is used.

Note that Windows doesn't ship with all video and audio codecs, so the user will need to download a codec if your format is an unsupported one. But basically you are not limited to .mov files at all.

[ETphonehome]

@ Jacque
Thank you for these explanation. Anyway I clearly miss something in order to use them.
I saw two ways in order to put a video on the stack :
1) with the "Quick Time Player" tool
2) File > Import as control >VideoFile
- With the tool, the only possible format is .mov
In fact it's what I thought because of the selector that only shows "quick time movies" like option and because with the "all files" selector I tried "flv" and nothing appears... After your post I tried the mp4 format and it works. So I can open .mov and .mp4 until now.
- With the import command absolutely nothing happen whatever the file format !
- I have no idea how to use videos with codecs (I know what it is and I use them with my video editor) or just to put an external player (like VLC player) in action with LC. I suppose I need a titurial. Do you know one that exists ? Thank you.

[jacque]

An imported video gives you almost no control and the feature is mostly deprecated. You should use player objects instead (from the tool palette.) Imported videos were all we had before the player object was added to LiveCode but they are now historical and mostly useless. When you imported the video it was added to your stack as binary data that you can't see. Imported videos will not display or run until you write scripts to do that. They have no controller and limited playback control. To remove it, go to the Application Browser pane of LiveCode preferences, select the checkbox that displays audio and video files. The video will now show in the app browser. You should right-click it and delete it because it is making your stack size larger.

Choosing "all files" was the correct way to select a video for use in a player object.

QuickTime does not support flv videos, which is why it doesn't work in your stack. To test a video, try to play it in Apple's QT Player. If it works there, it will work in your stack. I don't believe Windows supports flv natively either, so that format is not good for cross platform work.

Here is a list of video formats that QT supports: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3775
Here are Windows-supported formats: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245608

If the Windows machine has QT installed then all the QT formats will play. If it does not, then you are limited to a very small number of video types. Mp4 is not natively supported on Windows, the user will need to download a codec pack and install it. As a developer you don't need to work with codecs directly, you only need to be sure they are installed. Do a google search for "windows codec" and you will find many sites that have installers for the formats that Windows does not ship with natively. Your users will need to install one of these (and so will you in order to test playback.)

[ETphonehome]

@Jacqueline
Thank you for this long interesting answer.

«When you imported the video it was added to your stack as binary data that you can't see. Imported videos will not display or run until you write scripts to do that. They have no controller and limited playback control.»
=> Very important to know. Thanks.

« To remove it, go to the Application Browser pane of LiveCode preferences, select the checkbox that displays audio and video files. The video will now show in the app browser. »
=> Interesting to discover these options. But no. Even with checkbox selected : nothing appears on the stack. And I had no error messages at the moment of the importation. Strange !

«Here are Windows-supported formats: XXXXX windows site »
=> In fact it's "windows media player" 's format rather than "windows" supported formats. Of course it's the default player on windows but on PC people usually forget it immediatly and use VLC (open source !!!). Have a look here : [XXXX site télécharger] In France VLC is in the top ten of most downloaded software. It is in the second position after the avast antivirus and even before firefox !

«I don't believe Windows supports flv natively either, so that format is not good for cross platform work.»
=> VLC usually doesn't need codecs (XXXXX VLC site : «Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed:
MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3... »). With VLC I can read .flv (on my windows XP, 7 or too. I don't remember adding a codec for .flv but maybe...

« QuickTime does not support flv videos, which is why it doesn't work in your stack.»
=> VLC works with MAC and PC (windows, linux) and needs less and less (by the years) external codecs. Maybe it would be interesting that LC developpers add a VLC player tool rather than QT player like tool !

«Choosing "all files" was the correct way to select a video for use in a player object.»
=> Strange for newbies and a lost of time with the selector but why not. When you know what to do it's simple.

Thanks again for help. Video in LC is still a bit confusing for me but I understand better.

[jacque]

Since VLC doesn't need a codec pack, then it probably has the codecs built into the app. But those won't be available to LiveCode. And you're right, I should have said "Windows Media Player" instead of just "Windows". LiveCode uses WMP if QuickTime isn't installed.

I'm not sure why you didn't see the video content in the App Browser after you imported it. Were you looking at the new Project Browser instead of the older Application Browser? The Project Browser is displayed by default, to see the Application Browser you'd need to choose it from the Tools menu.

I haven't used the new project browser much, I'm too used to the old one, so I don't know if videos show there or not.

[Quentin Brown]

VLC uses the open source ffmpeg which in turn contains LibAVCodec which is an open source repository of codecs giving a wide range of codec support. I am hoping that the upcoming future re-workin of Livecode's media engine will be implementing ffmpeg and the LibAVCodec libraries - since they are multi platform and open source they would seem like an ideal fit. Fingers crossed.