mafintosh / mafintosh/playback

Support for other codecs?

Open
#124 1 comment 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
2k
Forks
228
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Is it possible in Electron/Chromium to play video files in other codecs? I'm thinking, for example, Apple ProRes Quicktime files.

Obviously, they're not supported by the `` element, and VLC can no longer be used as a plugin in Chromium due to the retirement of the NPAPI interface.

The Playback webpage mentions "currently has support for playing MP4/WebM..." At what point do you expect to add wider codec support and, more importantly, HOW? I'd be very happy to help with this effort, but I have no idea where to begin.

NB Using ffmpeg to transcode e.g. ProRes to MP4 in order to play it would be a bit of a mad solution, in my opinion. More processor power to produce a lower quality image!

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with Electron/Chromium media codec support and the Playback webpage's current MP4/WebM support. Investigate the video element, the retired VLC/NPAPI path, and the proposed ProRes QuickTime use case; done would mean a concrete, supported path for wider codec playback rather than transcoding.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
electron, javascript, node.js
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.