Category: Open Source

PHP Library for QuickTime embedding

PEAR::QuickTime
From the site:
Apple’s QuickTime multimedia architecture has some fantastic features that can be exploited through server-side scripting and HTML embedding, but it’s something of a black art. There is confusion and inconsistency in how best to embed QuickTime in web pages, deal with QTVR, let movies talk to each other, pass XML QTLists back and forth between movies and servers, and much more (did you even know that QuickTime could do all this??!). We hope to expose this in a clean and elegant way so that QuickTime can reach the audience it deserves.

This project aims to provide a simple and consistent interface to these features through a set of PEAR-compatible PHP classes and functions. We’d also like to get this project into a state where it can become part of the PEAR respository, to ease installation for everyone, and open up the hidden world of QuickTime to more developers.

Hacks for the Linksys WRT54G wireless router

Portless Networks
The other day I put this hacked firmware on a spare router. It was fun to look at the additional capabilities that are offered (such as SSH) but what I would really like to do is be able to modify one of these and put a very light weight streaming server on it. Unfortunately, you need a solid Linux box setup (I have to get to work on that one) to build a new firmware image.

Oh yeah, what is MORE interesting (to me at least) is that Linksys has made available the firmware for their wireless cameras as well (also Linux based). Looking through the firmware image for the WVC11B I was able to confirm my suspicion that in fact they do not offer a true MPEG-4 solution, rather it appears as though they *may* be using an MPEG-4 codec but wrapping it in an ASF file (hence the reason you need the stoooopid active x control to view the stream).

In any case, it is one of my missions to hack a true MPEG-4 solution onto one of these. How cool would that be!

Open Source “Legitimate” Peer to Peer Tech

LionShare: Home Page
From the site:
The LionShare P2P project is an innovative effort to facilitate legitimate file-sharing among individuals and educational institutions around the world. By using Peer to Peer (P2P) technology and incorporating features such as authentication, directory servers, and owner controlled sharing of files, LionShare promises secure file-sharing capabilities for the easy exchange of image collections, video archives, large data collections, and other types of academic information. In addition to authenticated file-sharing capabilities, the developing LionShare technology will also provide users with resources for organizing, storing, and retrieving digital files.