Re: [9fans] Gecko based web browser

[Jonathan Sergent <sergent@etla.net>]

On Wed, 19 Jul 2000 07:54:18 GMT,
forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk <forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>it's only available via binary plug-ins, and some -- perhaps many -- of those
>only work under windows (and sometimes only within
>a browser, though that might not be true of realaudio).
>by `format' i meant the whole thing.
>it seems a bit pointless to implement the transport without being
>able to replay the sounds it contains.

There are RTP (RFC 1889) payload types for several compression algorithms
which are free, and that could be implemented without too much trouble.

I'm not sure how hard it is to get Real's server to stream most of them,
but Apple's QuickTime streaming stuff (also controlled by RTSP, RFC 2326)
supports several standard codecs and standard RTP payload types for audio
and video.  (They have their proprietary formats as well, but it's not
hard to produce content in the free codecs; they just aren't typically
as well suited for low bitrate streaming or aren't as high quality).

It's not hard to throw together a simple RTSP and RTP client.  For some
of the easy audio codecs (i.e. uLaw) it should be fairly simple to throw
together something to do playback for Plan 9.  I think the JPEG stuff
should probably be easy with reuse of the existing JPEG display code once
you depacketize the stuff.  The RTSP part could probably be done in rc.

You usually don't have to do much of a browser plugin for these things.
There's nothing wrong with showing it in another window.  The page
does often use an EMBED tag but you could send those to the plumber
and have it know to pop up the RTSP client for it.

Getting a server for this stuff on Plan 9 is probably a bit more
challenging...


--jss.