Re: [Celestia-developers] Fwd: celestia QT4 on linux (movie support)

[Bernard G. <ber...@gm...>]

I also have only Linux boxes so I did not test theora on Mac or Win.

Concerning the patch to enable/disable theora, it is not sufficient to
modify celestia.pro. The preprocessor macro in qtappwin is always
including the theora code if the platform is not win32, so this needs
to be changed otherwise compilation will fail on linux and mac if
theora is disabled. Also the celestia.pro mac section should include
the theora option (at least until someone can tell if it works on
mac).

About the choice of video encoder, I would prefer to use theora or
VP8/WebM for a multiplatform encoder, because they are "assumed" to be
patent free and hence they can be supported on any platforms.
Many players support theora:
http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/TheoraSoftwarePlayers
WebM/VP8 is backed by Google.

I don't think the fact that theora is not a very common format should
be a reason for not using theora. If everyone think like this, then
patent free format are never going to get popular and we will never
get good interoperability (think about the HTML5 video mess). If
celestia chooses theora then it will make theora a little more popular
and I don't think it will make celestia less popular.

If you want multiplatform support for many different formats, I would
suggest having a look at gstreamer.
- gstreamer now even supports windows
- it supports many formats
- it doesn't seem to have too much dependencies
- there is this nice user friendly python application named arista
that uses gstreamer and that can decode/encode many formats and that
one might want to check to see the capabilities.
http://www.transcoder.org/
https://github.com/danielgtaylor/arista

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 8:54 PM, Selden E Ball Jr <se...@co...> wrote:
> Fridger,
>
> In the U.S. most people use network services provided either by
> the local cable TV company or by the local telephone company. Although they
> usually provide email services, very few, if any, provide file storage
> space or Web services. Use of the free Google and Facebook services
> is just too attractive.
>
> FWIW, Dailymotion (the #2 video service provider) is based in France,
> so their services are more likely to be compatible with EU privacy
> standards.
>
> s.
>
>
>> Selden
>
>> On 04/17/2012 07:42 PM, Selden E Ball Jr wrote:
>> > Fridger,
>> >
>> > Most people do not have their own video hosting system. They upload
>> > their movies to a video hosting service (like YouTube)
>> > and then past links to their videos on their favorite Web sites.
>> > YouTube happens to be the most popular but there are many similar
>> > services (like Dailymotion). There's no need for the person
>> > viewing such a video to do any conversions.
>> >
>> > It's the responsibilty of the person generating the video to convert it
>> > to one of the several formats that a hosting service supports for
>> > uploads.
>> >
>> > Hosting on a remote service provider has advantages and disadvantages,
>> > of course.
>> > s.
>> >
>> You people in the US seem to be considerably less nervous about all that
>> info that such hosting services are eager to collect about you.  No
>> comparison to us here in Europe. Google still seems to be your friend
>> ;-) . Google and associates are manifestly violating our European laws
>> about peoples' privacy and personal data protection. Notably with their
>> recent "unification effort",  all to the benfits of their customers...
>
>> In the course of time, I was producing quite a few video clips about
>> Celestia-related stuff, for example. Since I deny uploading to Google's
>> YouTube for the reasons mentioned, I have to make each time a concrete
>> decision about the format I am going to use in my uploads to
>> CelestialMatters.
>
>> That was the scenario I was referring to, previously. So I started
>> counting the number of clicks on my videos as function of their format.
>> The results were beyond doubt. At least for me it's frustrating to
>> realize that people won't barely look at my videos if I use this
>> Linux-based format. Don't  misunderstand me: I like Linux and I like
>> Ogg/Theora.
>
>> I just browsed through the vast Nokia docs about "Qt-multimedia", where
>> also OGG plays a role, as well as the well-known Phonon backend
>> GStreamer. Perhaps the Qt approach is preferrable due to its
>> cross-platform encapsulation. Will continue to investigate...
>
>> Actually, in Germany most people get their own Webspace for free
>> together with their
>> ADSL contracts (e.g. Telekom, Vodafone,...). Typically 1-2 GB at least
>> are for free. More can be bought cheaply. Is that so different in the
>> US? Would be surprising. Or were you referring specifically to young
>> highschool guys below 20, say?
>
>> Fridger
>> >
>> >> Selden,
>> >
>> >> On 04/17/2012 07:00 PM, Selden E Ball Jr wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > My impression is that manu, if not most, people share videos
>> >> > bu using one of the manhy video hosting services. Don't most of them
>> >> > convert whatever is uploaded to a more popular format?
>> >> >
>> >> > Wikipedia claims that Dailymotion (the #2 service) uses OGG format.
>> >> While I have never used such services ( ;-) ), are you really saying
>> >> that whenever you  come across an .ogg video clip in shatters.net you'd
>> >> undertake the effort of looking up such a hosting service first, upload
>> >> that clip and wait for the converted result before glancing at it??? [I
>> >> am sure you have VLC installed ;-)...]
>> >
>> >> Hmm...
>> >
>> >>  From counting the number of downloads of my own video clips in
>> >> CelestialMatters, I made an entirely different quantitative experience:
>> >> If I upload my videos in MS compatible format, the number of downloads
>> >> is MUCH higher on average than for .ogg format.... That was the basis of
>> >> my remarks below.
>> >
>> >> Fridger
>> >> > s.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >> While my knowledge about video stuff is somewhat superficial, let me
>> >> >> nevertheless make a few repsective comments wrto Bernard's Theora
>> >> patch
>> >> >> and Nils' "optionalization" thereof:
>> >> >> One may certainly ask whether it's a good idea to go again for a
>> >> video
>> >> >> format (Ogg Theora) that offers besides good performance also a
>> >> >> remarkable amount of incompatibility with the most established
>> >> players
>> >> >> outside Linux. There are only three cross-platform players  that
>> >> support
>> >> >> the Theora format: VLC,  Miro 4 and MPlayer. Neither seems terribly
>> >> >> popular among the far dominating Windows community.
>> >> >> Fortunately, Firefox>  3.5 also plays .ogg format! It works fine as I
>> >> >> checked, yet there are many users indeed that still enjoy Internet
>> >> >> Explorer, MS Media Player and nothing else! What remains for
>> >> Theora fans
>> >> >> is the frustrating fact that only a tiny fraction of people out there
>> >> >> will be able to look at their great Celestia video creations in .ogg
>> >> >> format...
>> >> >> On the other hand, we may also share Bernard's view that with his
>> >> patch
>> >> >> Celestia-Qt at least receives some basic video capabilities which is
>> >> >> certainly better than nothing.
>> >> >> Anyway this situation leaves me with split feelings. Personally, I'd
>> >> >> prefer some further investigation about some possibly existing
>> >> >> alternative video support with both good /cross-platform
>> >> acceptance/ and
>> >> >> performance.
>> >> >> Opinions?
>> >> >> Fridger
>> >> >> PS: @Nils/@Bernard:  Were you able to actually test your patches for
>> >> >> MAC-OS? Are you using MACs besides Linux?
>> >> >
>> >> >> On 04/17/2012 04:26 PM, Nils Larsson wrote:
>> >> >>> lördagen den 14 april 2012 15:55:54 skrev  Bernard GODARD:
>> >> >>>> Hi all,
>> >> >>>>
>> >> >>>> I am proposing again this patch which seems to have been
>> >> forgotten. It
>> >> >>>> would not be good to release the QT4 version of celestia without
>> >> movie
>> >> >>>> support on Linux. I know the patch implements very basic support
>> >> but
>> >> >>>> it's better than nothing.
>> >> >>>>
>> >> >>>> Thanks.
>> >> >>> +1
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> Attached patch is Bernard's qt-linux-build-fix-and-theora.diff
>> >> but with theora
>> >> >>> support optional.
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>>
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> >>> Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to
>> >> >>> monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second
>> >> >>> resolution app monitoring today. Free.
>> >> >>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >> >>> Celestia-developers mailing list
>> >> >>> Cel...@li...
>> >> >>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/celestia-developers
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> > Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to
>> >> > monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second
>> >> > resolution app monitoring today. Free.
>> >> > http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev
>> >> > _______________________________________________
>> >> > Celestia-developers mailing list
>> >> > Cel...@li...
>> >> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/celestia-developers
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to
> monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second
> resolution app monitoring today. Free.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Celestia-developers mailing list
> Cel...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/celestia-developers