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Player - Features List


This is a detailed list of features supported by the MPEG-4 playback components of the IBM Toolkit for MPEG-4. An application, or applet, can be deployed with a sub-set of these features as required.




Java 1.1 or above required. Will run as Applet or Application; can include optional alternative native code dlls for improved performance in key areas.

  1. Systems
    • 2D Graphics
      1. Geometric Shapes (Circle, Rectangle, Bitmaps, Points, Lines, Polygons, Curves)
        • Java 1.2 and above
          • Color per Vertex for Lines, Polygons
          • Full Curve support for MoveTo, LineTo, CurveTo drawing
      2. Text


      3. Appearances (Material2D, LineProperties, ImageTexture, MovieTexture, PixelTexture, TextureTransform, MaterialKey)
        • Java 1.1
          • LineProperties fixed to width 1, style solid
          • Transparency support - minimal (< 0.5 is invisible, >= 0.5 is visible)
          • No MaterialKey Support
          • Texturing of Rectangle only
          • No scaling of text
          • Basic font support for standard types (Serif, SansSerif and Monospaced)
        • Java 1.2 and above
          • Full support for LineProperties (widths other than 1, and all line Styles)
          • Transparency support - complete
          • MaterialKey supported - ie. chromakeying for irregular shapes
          • Texturing of all Geometric Shapes
          • Scaling, rotation of text supported
          • Full support for drawing with all installed fonts on the platform
          • Antialiased drawing; interpolated high quality scaling
    • SceneGraph
      1. Scene Elements (Group, OrderedGroup, Switch, Transform2D, Layer2D).
        1. Switch provides hide-show function
        2. Transform2D positions, scales and rotates objects
          • Java 1.1 - Translation and Scaling only (translation, scale, center)
          • Java 1.2 and above - adds Rotation (translation, scale, center, rotationAngle, skewOrientation)
        3. Layer2D provides windowing of scenes within scenes
      2. Linking to another scene (Anchor)


      3. Scene Animation (TimeSensor, ColorInterpolator, ScalarInterpolator, PositionInterpolator2D, CooordinateInterpolator2D)
        • Animates color, position, size, rotation, shape etc etc
      4. Scene Interactivity (TouchSensor, DiscSensor, PlaneSensor2D)
        • Interact with scene via pointing device
      5. Flexible Timing - application level QoS timing based on Flextime (TemporalGroup, TemporalTransform)
    • BIFS
      1. Dynamic Scenes (Node, Field and Route updates, includes all Insert, Replace and Delete methods)
      2. Pixel and Meter metric support
      3. Conditional node support for in-scene activation of BIFS allowing scene changes by user interaction or any other trigger mechanism that activates the conditional
    • OD Framework
      1. Insert and Delete visual or audio streams (ODUpdate etc)
    • Programmability
      1. MPEG-J support for SceneGraph APIs.

        Intelligent MPEG-let support for animating and interacting with scene. Can Set/Get properties etc. of all elements in the scene

    • Network types (DMIF) - playback from following network (and file) types
      1. MPEG-4 local file
      2. 3GP, 3G2 local file (MPEG-4 video, H263 and AAC (not AMR))
      3. MOV local file (MPEG-4 video, H263, AAC and MP3)
      4. AVI local file or over HTTP* (MPEG-4 video, H263 and MP3)
      5. HotMedia MVR file from local file or over HTTP*
      6. M4Mux flexible multiplexed M4X file from local file or over HTTP*
      7. RTP/RTSP support for ISMA level (video and audio only) as well as including Systems. Support includes UDP, TCP interleave and HTTP tunneling. Playback can also be initiated using an SDP file. Multicast support too.
      8. ICY protocol support for Shoutcast streaming MP3 audio. Playback can also be initiated from a Playlist (.pls) file.
      9. Single file playback of video, audio, image from local file or over HTTP*, e.g. playback of MP3 directly

      * Content so marked playable through HTTP may also be accessed using other built-in Java protocols support by Java's URL connections. The resultant behavior however is dependent on the protocol and may or may not be suitable for progressive download streaming.


  2. Audio
    • Media Types
      1. Java - G723, MP3 and AAC
      2. Native Dlls for Windows, WinCE, Linux, OS/2 for G723, MP3 and AAC
    • Players
      1. Java - Sun Audio 8kHz uLaw playback under Java 1.2 and below
      2. Java - JavaSound playback for up to 44kHz stereo streams on Java 1.3 and above
      3. Native Dlls for Windows and WinCE for WaveOut playback
      4. Native Dll for Windows only for DirectSound playback

  3. Visual
    • Media Types
      1. Java
          a. Still image formats:
                 JPEG (and JPEG sequence - more than one JPEG in a single stream)
                 PNG - Java 1.4 and above
          b. Video: H263 and MPEG-4
      2. Native Dlls for Windows, WinCE, Linux, OS/2 for MPEG-4

  4. Overall player
    • Java 1.1 and above. Takes advantage of JavaSound (1.3 and above) and Java2D (1.2 and above) features when detected.
    • Scalable player in terms of deployment, feature detection and Profile support
    • Player kernel can be deployed as stand-alone application or applet; or embedded as part of any other tool, e.g. as preview window as part of authoring tool to play the present state of the authored content to see how it looks
    • Include only necessary feature set and player core detects what is present in the deployed code automatically
    • Pause, Play, Stop features
    • Built-in control panels (stop, start buttons etc) can be re-used by any applet or application.
    • Scaling of displayed content to x2 x4 etc.
    • Scene dump
    • Screen capture

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