Can JMF be webstarted?

[Andrew Thompson]

Can JMF be deployed using webstart? My experiments*
suggest yes, but I am after more test results..

* The page linking the test launch file (JNLP)
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/>

(Note, x-posted to c.l.j.programmer and help -
no follow-ups set, please set them as you see
appropriate.)

Andrew T.

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Can JMF be deployed using webstart? My experiments*
suggest yes, but I am after more test results..

* The page linking the test launch file (JNLP)
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/>

(Note, x-posted to c.l.j.programmer and help -
no follow-ups set, please set them as you see
appropriate.)

Andrew T.

Andrew, just tried this on my Intel Mac that has never had JMF installed.
I see the frame and in the top left corner, after loading, it has a very
small movie clip of what looks like clouds moving across some hills. Is
the movie clip supposed to fill the frame?

OK, I just tried to resize the frame and the clip expands to fill it and
now I can see what it is. Where is that? Somewhere in Australia?

Dan.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

....
Andrew, just tried this on my Intel Mac that has never had JMF installed.
I see the frame and in the top left corner, after loading, it has a very
small movie clip of what looks like clouds moving across some hills. Is
the movie clip supposed to fill the frame?

Wow! I had 'kinda' hoped that jar did not include
Win. specific classes, and might work on some *nix
boxes - but had never dared hope it would work on a
Mac.! Mac' is where the JMF is weakest.

OTOH - it probably comes down to careful choice
of format (the MOV's were made using the JMF classes).

OK, I just tried to resize the frame and the clip expands to fill it and
now I can see what it is.

Yes. Now this has gone beyond "one guy's
crazed ravings", I shall need to fix that.

...Possibly even do something about caching those
enormous media files. (I just blew the last of my
100 Meg download limit for this month - it's 28.8K
till October!)

..Where is that? Somewhere in Australia?

Yep. Bald Hill, NSW (just south of Sydney), looking
south over (the top of) Stanwell Park - the focus is the
cloud, which I only caught in the edge of the frame.

Thanks for the test results.

Andrew T.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Can JMF be deployed using webstart? My experiments*
suggest yes, but I am after more test results..

* The page linking the test launch file (JNLP)
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/>

Silly me. When I posted that, I was under the false
impression that the JMF could not be 'run from URL's
within a sandbox'.

The third example shown here..
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/#test2>
suggests otherwise. I simply call the main of JMStudio
with the URL, from within a sandboxed webstart launch
file.

Note that while it does not throw security exceptions,
I still have not seen an entire video load and play this way,
opening them from within the player* itself, seems more
successful.

I also posted the links to the media used (which
now includes a tiny test MOV of just over 200Kb), as
well as links to other MPEG's, MP3's and WAV's.
The media files are listed here..
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/#test2>

* Simply launch JMStudio and Ctrl 'u' to open an URL.

After all and any more test results. Note that for the
sandboxed JMStudio, you do not need to accept
code signed by some guy claiming to be Andrew
Thompson.

Andrew T.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Can JMF be deployed using webstart? My experiments*
suggest yes, but I am after more test results..

* The page linking the test launch file (JNLP)
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/>

A more interesting example - the JMF Performance Pack.
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/#test3>

Seems to work on Win., untested on *nix, false advertising
for the Mac. (there is no PP for the Mac., so it gets standard
JMF + the soundbank.gm).

Andrew T.

 

[Daniel Dyer]

A more interesting example - the JMF Performance Pack.
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/#test3>

Seems to work on Win., untested on *nix, false advertising
for the Mac. (there is no PP for the Mac., so it gets standard
JMF + the soundbank.gm).

Andrew T.

Just tried it on my laptop (PC), which is running Ubuntu Linux. The JWS
dialog comes up and starts downloading but then an error dialog comes up
with the message "Unable to launch JM Studio - Performance Pack". Looks
like a config problem because the JWS dialog looks like it's trying to
load a file from the local D: drive (which obviously doesn't exist on
Linux). The text in the JWS dialog is:

Requested file:/D:/projects/jmf/player/lib/linux-natives.jar
Failed to load resource

Dan.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 22:53:30 +0100, Andrew Thompson

....
(JMF - Performance Pack)

....
Just tried it on my laptop (PC), which is running Ubuntu Linux. The JWS
dialog comes up and starts downloading but then an error dialog comes up
with the message "Unable to launch JM Studio - Performance Pack". ...
Requested file:/D:/projects/jmf/player/lib/linux-natives.jar
Failed to load resource

Damn! Sorry about that. I have two versions that I
have been using for testing, kludgily changing the
codebase between local and server testing.

The altered JNLP (requesting files from the real live server)
has been uploaded.

*But* now I'm getting the message 'corrupted jar file' on the
Win natives Jar - I suspect that whatever I've done wrong with
that is common to the other jars for the *nix natives.

Hold on further testing till I look more closely into it.

(Shrugs - unless you are bored, and have bandwidth to burn!)

Andrew T.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

...
(JMF - Performance Pack) ....
...now I'm getting the message 'corrupted jar file' on the
Win natives Jar - I suspect that whatever I've done wrong with
that is common to the other jars for the *nix natives.

Hold on further testing till I look more closely into it.

The 'corrupted jar file' turned out to be a corrupted webstart
cache on this PC. I started a new cache, and now the Win.
version loads and runs successfully.

We are 'set to go' for further testing.

Andrew T.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

....
Andrew, just tried this on my Intel Mac that has never had JMF installed.

.....
Now I have tried something still more ambitious, and perhaps
even a little insane.

I figure the Mac. can use the Linux based Shared Objects,
so I have attached them to what I hope is a 'Performance Pack'
JMF for the Mac (and the others).

<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/#test5>

This installation (should you choose to accept it) should
be relatively well hidden from the other, but to be sure of
no problems, it might be best to uninstall the earlier
'JMStudio - Performance Pack' application from the
WebStart manager first - perhaps even more so because
the launch files have identical program titles (and will
appear the same name in any uninstall screen!).

Andrew T.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Daniel Dyer wrote:
...

...tried this on my Intel Mac ..

As an aside, what does that box return for..
os.name / os.arch ?
Ala, <http://lopica.sourceforge.net/os.html>

Andrew T.

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Daniel Dyer wrote:
..

As an aside, what does that box return for..
os.name / os.arch ?
Ala, <http://lopica.sourceforge.net/os.html>

Andrew T.

java.runtime.name: Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition
java.vm.version: 1.5.0_06-64
java.vm.vendor: "Apple Computer, Inc."
java.runtime.version: 1.5.0_06-112
os.arch: i386
os.name: Mac OS X
os.version: 10.4.7
java.version: 1.5.0_06
java.vendor: Apple Computer, Inc.

Dan.

 

[Daniel Dyer]

....
Now I have tried something still more ambitious, and perhaps
even a little insane.

I figure the Mac. can use the Linux based Shared Objects,
so I have attached them to what I hope is a 'Performance Pack'
JMF for the Mac (and the others).

<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/#test5>

I'm not convinced that it should work, but I don't know anything about the
native libraries used by Macs. If it does work it will only be on
Intel-based Macs.

What am I supposed to see? I don't get any errors and I do get the little
JMStudio window show up and do nothing.

Dan.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Daniel Dyer wrote:
....

What am I supposed to see? I don't get any errors and I do get the little
JMStudio window show up and do nothing.

OK - the two formats most of interest (those that
will tell me most) are..

1) .mpg - These supposedly can be loaded by the *nix/Win
boxes, but not Macs.

There are a number of MPEG's ranging from 4-9 Meg.
available at <http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/midi/>,
see <http://www.physci.org/test/anims/faves.html> for
description.

Each loads and plays OK in the Win. version, though
in each one, the 'progress bar' maxes out before the
animation is more than 1/4 complete - but they do play
through to the end as I recall them.

Given the size, it might be best to test on any MPG's you
have on the local file system - unfortunately I do not seem
to have any smaller MPG's lying around..

2) .mid - these files are listed* as 'not supported' for Mac. at all,
but I am guessing that with the addition of the soundbank,
and with the sound API being included in Java 1.3+, they
will load and play.

There are several small MIDI files at..
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/midi/> & I just confirmed that..
<http://www.javasaver.com/testjs/jmf/midi/EclipseH.mid>
...loads and plays OK in the Win. version.

* In the JMF list of 'supported formats' at..
<http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jmf/2.1.1/formats.html>

Andrew T.