hi all,

i'm planning to develop a real-audio/video plugin for zoom player

anyone who knows where i can get free open-source real-audio/video codec?

thx

First of all you can't create a real-audio/video plugin for ZoomPlayer only.ZoomPlayer is a directshow based player that uses directshow filters for decoding.So you need to create a directshow filter that will work with all directshow players such us Windows Media Player,Media Player Classic,ZoomPlayer,RadLight etc.

Now in business:

RealVideo Codecs

RV10 RealVideo 1
RV20 RealVideo G2
RV30 RealVideo 8
RV40 RealVideo 9+10

RealAudio Codecs

14_4 14.4 Audio Codec
28_8 28.8 Audio Codec
COOK Cooker G2 Audio Codec
DNET DolbyNet Audio Codec
SIPR ACELP-NET Voice Codec
RAAC LE-AAC Audio Codec
RACP HE-AAC Audio Codec
RALF RealAudio Lossless
ATRC Sony ATRAC3 Audio Codec


RV10 (RealVideo 1) and RV20 (RealVideo G2) can be decoded by libavcodec, DNET (DolbyNet Audio Codec) can be decoded by liba52, RAAC (LE-AAC Audio Codec) and RACP (HE-AAC Audio Codec) can be decoded by libfaad2.I think you could also find open-source codecs for SIPR (ACELP-NET Voice Codec) and ATRC (Sony ATRAC3 Audio Codec) but I don't know any.

For RV30 (RealVideo 8),RV40 (RealVideo 9+10),14_4 (14.4 Audio Codec),28_8 (28.8 Audio Codec),COOK (Cooker G2 Audio Codec) and RALF (RealAudio Lossless) I don't think you can't find any open-source codec....

I personally use ffdshow for:
RV10 RealVideo 1
RV20 RealVideo G2
DNET DolbyNet Audio Codec
RAAC LE-AAC Audio Codec
RACP HE-AAC Audio Codec

I also use Gabest's RealMedia Spitter for:
RV30 RealVideo 8 (with drvc.dll)
RV40 RealVideo 9+10 (with drvc.dll)
14_4 14.4 Audio Codec (with 14_43260.dll)
28_8 28.8 Audio Codec (with 28_83260.dll)
COOK Cooker G2 Audio Codec (with cook.dll)
SIPR ACELP-NET Voice Codec (with sipr.dll)
RALF RealAudio Lossless (with ralf.dll)
ATRC Sony ATRAC3 Audio Codec (with atrc.dll)

Also pncrt.dll is required.

You don't have to modify anything in registry or to install RealPlayer,RealAlternative or any other codec pack!
Just register RealMediaSpiltter and copy pncrt.dll, drvc.dll, 14_43260.dll, 28_83260.dll, cook.dll, sipr.dll, ralf.dll and atrc.dll
in system32 directory.If you also copy drv2.dll, ddnt3260.dll, dnet3260.dll and raac.dll you will also be able to decode the rest of Real codecs without the need of ffdshow except RV10 (RealVideo 1).For RV10 (RealVideo 1) you will need ffdshow.

As you can see you can only create an alternative to Gabest's RealMedia Spitter.You filter should also wrap Real codecs because there aren't open-source codecs for all Real codecs.

In my opinion there are other directshow filters that I would like to see them developed.
For example:
A directshow source filter that could wrap winamp input codecs(plugins).
A directshow source filter that could wrap quicktime codecs with streaming support.(an alternative to Cyberlink QuickTime Source and Intervideo QuickTime Source).
A directshow source filter that could wrap real codecs with streaming support.
A directshow filter as an alternative to Microsoft's AVI Decompressor.

AVI Decompressor can wrap VfW codecs but it works only with installed codecs.It searches them in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32
and looks in VIDC.???? for the codec's location.When it finds the VfW codec it wraps it and starts decoding.
For example if you have an AVI video file with I263 fourCC Microsoft's AVI Decompressor will search in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32 and VIDC.I263 for the appropiate VfW codec.It will wrap it and the decoding in directshow and ZoomPlayer in particular will start.
The alternative AVI Decompressor could follow the same operation but look in another registry key also.
With this filter we could decode any kind of codec that can be multiplexed in AVI,MKV,OGM without the need to install hundred of codec and make our computer unstable.We don't need all of these old codecs installed because we don't encode with them nowdays.We only need them for decoding old videos.This way every codec pack will be history.

macarthor:
Most real files can be played if the real codecs are installed along with the gabest splitter/decoder.

The bigger problem is quicktime... A good alternative to 3ivx splitter would be welcomed (which would also be useful for MPEG4 ISO playback) along with decoding of all audio/video streams (currently a popuilar quicktime audio stream can not be decoded as far as I recall). I think all quicktime video streams can be decoded by xivx/xvid/ffdshow (MPEG4 ISO and Sorenson 1/3 which are the most widely used quicktime video formats).

@Blight
Most quicktime video streams can be decoded with ffdshow but not all.
What we need is a good open-source mov splitter,better than 3ivx.
3ivx in my computer can only split quicktime videos with AAC audio.QDesign is not splitted!Am I doing something wrong?
We also need an open-source quicktime video wrapper and an open-source quicktime audio wrapper.
I fed up with quicktime decoding so I installed WinDVD6(for Intervideo QT Source),I deactivated the activex decoding in ZoomPlayer and I enabled Intervideo QT Source as source filter for qt and mov files in registry.QuickTime decoding is perfect now in ZoomPlayer!

Could you also please tell me your opinion as regard the development of a vfw video wrapper.Most problems as regard media playback in computers are caused by codec packs and codec conflicts.

Thaks,
teris

Haven't really encountered much content that would require a VFW wrapper...

Is the WinDVD wrapper that good, I saw a few wrappers that were somewhat badly broken, didn't handle sprites/jpegs properly so that image had the wrong AR or half the image was cropped (spiderman 2 trailer if I remember correctly).

It works good for me.It is slower in seeking compared to 3ivx and latest Nero Digital Parser.But AR is correct I think.There are many advantages for using this wrapper instead of QT activeX.First of all I can use ffdshow for post-processing.You can't even imagine you good quality my qt videos now have
The only problem that I had is with spiderman 2 trailer.It didn't have the wrong AR and half the image wasn't cropped.It couldn't split the audio track.
Customized support for this would be could.Now for using ffdshow I have to enable raw video decoding.With customized support I could have Intervideo QT Source-->ffdshow raw video filter-->Video Rendeder without having to enable raw video decoding in ffdshow video decoder.
Also thumbnails view works for mov and qt files and works great after adding the following registry keys,

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov\ShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.qt\ShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.qt\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

The filter can also be used for all files QuickTime Player can play.I've tested it in 3gp,3g2 and gsm files and it works great.