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OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/18488/Syllable_Gets_Gnash_Flash_Player Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:32:55 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com cool http://osnews.com/thread?264735 http://osnews.com/thread?264735 yes, it's cool. i've downloaded syllable live cd, it is rather interesting and workable thing. http://prevedgame.ru/in.php?id=20508 Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twistys) Comments gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264742 http://osnews.com/thread?264742 does it work? as in, can one watch youtube and similar using gnash?

thats about the only real use for flash that i can see right now, and if they put native ogg support into the next HTML spec, even that will be a waste. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments sweet http://osnews.com/thread?264744 http://osnews.com/thread?264744 this is why gnash rules - flash for lots of different platforms Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments RE: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264745 http://osnews.com/thread?264745 it works with youtube nowadays, yes. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments RE[2]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264746 http://osnews.com/thread?264746 maybe ill look into installing it then. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments "Gnash Flash player clone" http://osnews.com/thread?264755 http://osnews.com/thread?264755 "Gnash Flash player clone"

That should be either "Gnash Flash player" or "Adobe Flash player clone". Actually, I'm sure the gnash dev would say their goal is to make a (insert praising adjectives) flash player, not specifically a clone of Adobe's player. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (moltonel) Comments RE[3]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264757 http://osnews.com/thread?264757 There is also another Free flash implementation called swfdec. For the little testing I've done with both, it seems to be a bit ahead of Gnash (though each one has its advantages over the other).

http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/ Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luis) Comments RE[4]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264758 http://osnews.com/thread?264758 ah, you got to love the effective use of resources of the open source community

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE[5]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264759 http://osnews.com/thread?264759 You must understand that it's not always possible to dig into existing stuff. The original project might be bloated, stupid or just have plain wrong implementation (from YOUR POV). This is why there's so many OSS implementations + the fact that there's no marketing boss shouting "competition is going to walk over us so let's cut it".

In the end it's beneficial, see compiz fusion..

It's sometimes best for all parties to work their way, and then perhaps see the merits of each to unite later.

So I think it's pretty good resource management. In closed source world, you'd drop the second project developers and that'd be the "dump resource management". Now at least they aren't lost. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments Pigs can fly... http://osnews.com/thread?264762 http://osnews.com/thread?264762 ...the world is flat, the water is dry, beer is unhealthy and strong salt licorice is an acquired taste...

I don't believe my eyes... Flash now works on syllable... Cooooool

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[6]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264764 http://osnews.com/thread?264764 i know i would regret attempting sarcasm/irony... Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments I wonder http://osnews.com/thread?264770 http://osnews.com/thread?264770 I wonder how it is working compared to gnash for Haiku. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mikesum32) Comments perf ? http://osnews.com/thread?264776 http://osnews.com/thread?264776 I've seen the BeOS port of gnash running and it seems to be quite slow (and bloated according to the porter)... I wonder if it's usable in Syllabe.
Anyone knows much about the pref difference to swfdec ? Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mmu_man) Comments RE: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264777 http://osnews.com/thread?264777 It's been there for years. That's what the OBJECT tag is for. It's always been (or embed but it's unofficial). There is absolutely *no* reason to use flash to play a video. Except braindeadness.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mmu_man) Comments RE[2]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264782 http://osnews.com/thread?264782 im guessing there problem with those is that they dont define a set codec. as in, you can toss in any kind of object, but unless the browser, or a plugin, understands the kind of object its dealing with, its useless.

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#video

this is whats being suggested for html5.

hell, isnt flash just another use of the object tag?Edited 2007-08-21 13:56 Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE[2]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264798 http://osnews.com/thread?264798

There is absolutely *no* reason to use flash to play a video. Except braindeadness.

OR if you want your visitors to have the same control interface for viewing/listening the media.

Braindeadness is a *bit* strong. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vege) Comments Looks promising http://osnews.com/thread?264802 http://osnews.com/thread?264802 Syllable is gradually starting to get to the stage that if there would also be enough reliable small scale office like software (messaging, contacts, word processing, basic image editing, some basic media player etc.) available for it, many people, who need just a small good suit of software for basic needs, could start to consider using Syllable as their ordinary desktop OS, especially on slower and older computers that couldn't handle modern resource hogs like Windows XP/Vista, MacOS, or Linux with KDE or GNOME.

By the way, what kind of security Syllable has in network environment or what kind of solutions are at least in development for it? So is it more like Windows or BeOS or more like Linux/Unix in that sense? Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (irbis) Comments Slightly off-topic http://osnews.com/thread?264808 http://osnews.com/thread?264808 I can't wait till either Gnash or swfdec becomes mature enough to be included by default on all of the free OSes. If it works for 90-95% of uses (basic YouTube playback represents a large part of that) it's probably ready. Then users of free operating systems don't have to depend on a proprietary plugin anymore which so many of us do right now. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Simon Gray) Comments RE[3]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264809 http://osnews.com/thread?264809 Before the flash era sites were using object with the video in and custom controls with bitmaps, absolutely no difference. Except they were hardcoding the player with those crappy WiMP GUIDs but at least you could work around it in the browser. But now it just ships the player with the video, so you must have flash to play it. Some sites have an url to the flv in the code so you can grab it, but others have it hidden in the .swf. I repeat, braindeadness. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mmu_man) Comments h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?264812 http://osnews.com/thread?264812 Although I support an open source flash, it seems programs like Gnash have always been one step behind whatever Adobe releases. h.264 and HE-AAC adds one more incompatibility to all the open source flash alternatives.

h.264 video will make flash videos truly HD capable now, I can only hope that websites, especially youtube, increase the resolution and bit rate of their videos. The current state of flash driven video on the internet sucks due to bandwidth issues. And the "Pro" codec for flash video is On2 Vp6 which is still blocky at high bitrates/resolutions. Here is some of my internal testing of getting the most out of current flash technology:
http://ordorica.org/ap1
http://ordorica.org/kbv1
http://ordorica.org/video

I will be deleting the top two links shortly

HE-AAC with a good encoder will save some space in the flash videos compared to mp3, but I am waiting to see multichannel/subtitle support.

@mmu_man: I prefer flv videos due to the fact that it currently provides the most compatibility to reach a large audience. The flv player I use doesn't require me to have anything else but the flv video and swf player. And the html is very simple to implement into any website. The old method of bringing up a separate stream or avi, or rm, or mov, or ... Well, there were so many delivery methods and so many incompatible players. Flash gets around the problem for most users.Edited 2007-08-21 16:24 Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hechacker1) Comments RE: Slightly off-topic http://osnews.com/thread?264814 http://osnews.com/thread?264814 "I can't wait till either Gnash or swfdec becomes mature enough to be included by default on all of the free OSes. If it works for 90-95% of uses (basic YouTube playback represents a large part of that) it's probably ready. Then users of free operating systems don't have to depend on a proprietary plugin anymore which so many of us do right now."

I completely agree. Personally, I don't like "Flash" because it's not a standard, there are better (but not very well known) alternatives and still very proprietary. But even if it stays proprietary, along with the development of a free alternative conforming to the "Flash" formats, "Flash" could get a standard. In the same way as web browsers render HTML source nearly the same way, interpret JavaScript the same way, support Java applets the same way, these web browsers could contain "Flash" playing functionalities by default (using the concept of pluggable modules). This would make web pages accessible in a better way, especially for disabled (e. g. blind) people who usually see nothing when they enter a web page which has any content blocked by improper "Flash" use. (Possible conclusion: Web pages that do force you to use nonstandard software to view them may be not worth looking at them.) On the other hand, if people would use free alternatives (such as OGG/Vorbis or OGG/Theora), the actual problems (or uncomfortabilities) with the use of "Flash" would not occur. May I assume the worst solution prevails here, as usual?

Furthermore, I hope web browsers will be more strict in interpreting HTML content, say, displaying nice errors or nothing if a web page does not contain valid HTML. This would force the providers / authors of the web pages to use HTML as it is intended and recommended. Just test your (or the average user's) favourite web pages using the W3C's validator... surprise surprise... :-) Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE: h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?264827 http://osnews.com/thread?264827 uh, they're always behind by design. you can't be a clone of something and lead in the development, and you can't just make new codec features up out of the blue when you aren't the one who defines the spec. duh. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments RE: h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?264851 http://osnews.com/thread?264851 Nice collection of HQ resolution Flash movies - just too bad that the collection includes 911 conspiracies... Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[3]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264869 http://osnews.com/thread?264869 or what if the user wants to actually have some say in what goes on, on his computer??

flash is simply an abomination that should be put to death, right alongside anyone that would contaminate the web with it... Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Redeeman) Comments RE[2]: h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?264873 http://osnews.com/thread?264873 And why is that ? Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (__xodam__) Comments RE[4]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264895 http://osnews.com/thread?264895 Until there's an international law that dictates "any media permitted to play on a user's computer implies the user's permission to permanently record/replay said media," you're discussing what you want versus what content producers want. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snozzberry) Comments RE[4]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264898 http://osnews.com/thread?264898 "or what if the user wants to actually have some say in what goes on, on his computer??"

The user (especially the average one, but the low-skilled one, too) is not interesten in what's going on on his computer. He hust wants to see the dancing elephants, rip DVDs or download music for free. If some software product makes such a promise ("With our great nerw product X, you can simply do Y without being a professional."), the user will be pleased to get it installed, and he will do anything to get it onto his computer.

"flash is simply an abomination that should be put to death, right alongside anyone that would contaminate the web with it..."

To force strict HTML validity would eliminate 99% of such web pages. Having alternatives built into web browsers (in form of plugins that are distributed along with the browser or the OS distribution) would do the rest. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[2]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264903 http://osnews.com/thread?264903 If the coding was referred to as HMML (HyperMedia), I'd be inclined to agree with you.

Unfortunately it's HTML, and the point of XHTML was to reinforce the point that HTML is a document language, not an interactive multimedia engine. The entire point of deprecating all rectangular nontextual elements (even IMAGE) in favor of OBJECT was to keep HTML from being needlessly corrupted by technology-based elements whose purpose and definitions were likely to be corporately controlled and highly mutable over time.

The consequences of this austerity measure are as follows:
1. The W3C is not in the position of mandating minimum codec requirements as the situation is not directly comparable to mandating alpha-enabled PNG support.
2. Content providers recognize that codecs tether users to players, providers to expensive server software, and OSS solutions like OGG offer no content protection which like it or not is a dealbreaker.
3. Macromedia provided a platform-neutral VM with its own server technology, affordable authoring tools, and noncomplex content protection (albeit crackable).

I work in this field for a university. I'd prefer everyone stuck with Real, myself, but Macromedia's solution was the least painful for end users, and they drive standards adoption as much as we try to push it. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snozzberry) Comments RE[2]: Slightly off-topic http://osnews.com/thread?264906 http://osnews.com/thread?264906

Furthermore, I hope web browsers will be more strict in interpreting HTML content, say, displaying nice errors or nothing if a web page does not contain valid HTML. This would force the providers / authors of the web pages to use HTML as it is intended and recommended. Just test your (or the average user's) favourite web pages using the W3C's validator... surprise surprise... :-)

They already do that -- if the webserver sends them as "application/xhtml+xml" rather than "text/html". Unsurprisingly, only one browser is incapable of displaying webpages using this MIMEtype. Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snozzberry) Comments RE: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264918 http://osnews.com/thread?264918 Too bad Gnash sucks, or did anyway.

Last I checked it wouldn't even play You Tube videos. Thats pretty much a show stopper, IMHO. Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments RE[2]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264935 http://osnews.com/thread?264935 0.8.0 seems to be able to do so now.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/release-0.8.0.txt Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE[3]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?264965 http://osnews.com/thread?264965 ... "content protection" is a moot point. It's bad ethically, doesn't and will never work correctly, only impair fair users' rights but barely stops people who really want to pirate stuff anyway. It's only a carot waved by vendors to make sure ppl use their proprietary solution instead of open and [Ff]ree ones. Notwithstanding the fact that their protection by DMCA/EUCD/... infringe the constitutionnally given freedom of speech of software developpers (software is speech) by forbidding writing breaking apps or forcing us to use them in apps thus forcing apps to be closed source (yes, have a look at DADVSI...), DRM should be banned along with flash.
"noncomplex content protection" ROTFL. As I said it only limits the rights of average joe to exercise fair use, does nothing to the people it should target.

It's also one more way to impair the "free fair competition" ("compétition libre et non faussée" in french), EU's primary official goal, in disfavor of open source solutions, because, until I see a formal proof, open source DRM is by essence impossible, except maybe in sun's DReaM ...

Did I disgress or something ? Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mmu_man) Comments RE[3]: Slightly off-topic http://osnews.com/thread?264991 http://osnews.com/thread?264991 I agree, but the inclusion of h.264 just made this a lot harder once the free flash players implement its playback. Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments RE[3]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?265012 http://osnews.com/thread?265012 ... While I don't agree with the OP ("Gnash sucks"), at least for me (Fedora 7/CentOS 5, x86_64, nVidia) gnash doesn't seem to handle YouTube videos.
Once I have some free time I'll see if I can dig some meaningful debug information and post a bug report about it.

Never the less, I rather have a semi-working open source Flash player the works on any platform/browser that bothers to port it then a stable (?), closed source player that only works on a -very- limited set * of platforms/browsers.

- Gilboa
* E.g. No 64bit support, no BSD/Solaris, etc.Edited 2007-08-22 16:59 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gilboa) Comments RE[4]: Slightly off-topic http://osnews.com/thread?265032 http://osnews.com/thread?265032 Libavcodec decodes h264 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jgfenix) Comments RE[4]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?265063 http://osnews.com/thread?265063 your using 0.8.0? Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE[5]: gnash & flash video... http://osnews.com/thread?265105 http://osnews.com/thread?265105 Yep.

$ rpm -qa | grep gnash
gnash-plugin-0.8.0-1.fc7.x86_64
gnash-0.8.0-1.fc7.x86_64
gnash-klash-0.8.0-1.fc7.x86_64

- Gilboa Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gilboa) Comments RE[3]: h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?265179 http://osnews.com/thread?265179 Well, I'm allergic to stupidity

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[4]: h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?265286 http://osnews.com/thread?265286 So what is stupidity in this context exactly ? Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (__xodam__) Comments RE[5]: h.264 videos, HE-AAC http://osnews.com/thread?265431 http://osnews.com/thread?265431 Don't bother trying to argue xodam...sheep don't think. Fri, 24 Aug 2007 04:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wakeupneo) Comments RE[5]: Slightly off-topic http://osnews.com/thread?265443 http://osnews.com/thread?265443 that's fine. it's patent infested though, so what distro will touch it? Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments