seek and pause

[jasonic]

How to control VLC to seek to a frame, pause and display the new location?

Very important - need to do this accurately by remote console, macroscript or http please...

thanks for any help - Jason

[The DJ]

VLC has no notion of a frame, so it cannot go to a particular frame.
It's an inheritence from our streaming origins. i might be solved in the future, but don't hold your breath.

[jasonic]

Thanks..

If not frame-accurate, I hope at least some kind of precise time control is possible.. VLC 'seek' function seems to be good to the second.

But how to directly pause it at the same time?

A the moment 'seek' toggles and goes directly into play, which makes it very hard to build up any kind of playlist type metadata within a video clip.

There are many applications which could benefit hugely from this control, especially with VLC mega-cool http remoting!

FlashMX can do some of what I want, using its video as "FLV" files. But I'd *love* to use VLC instead of FLV, as it is poor quality. Flash video can be progressively loaded, and/or streamed. FLV are special version of H263 files as specified by Sorenson. I see ffmpeg is used by VLC and handles FLV version of H263.
http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC19

"Flash Video is based on the H.263 video compression standard. It’s based
on the version of H.263 dated May 1996, sometimes referred to as H.263v1.
This is distinct from the revised version of H.263, dated February 1998,
sometimes referred to as H.263v2 or H.263+."

I've been sucessful at loading them into, but not yet at saving them out from VLC in any fileformat which FlashMX can recognize. Maybe because I just have not found the right format settings..

Anyway, if VLC can provide some kind of accurate seek and immediate pause via remote control, that will alrady be a huge advance on existing solutions.

I want use VLC for big collaborative learning/training project. The base video content library will be much more effective if it does not have to be cut up into a zillion pieces, and instead can be configured in larger sections tagged in metadata files and functions.

Thanks for creating such great open toolset, and for any insight you have about these problems.

- Jason

[The DJ]

In 0.7.0 seeking keeps the state in which you were. either paused or playing. Problem is that you need to start playing again after a seek to get a new frame. this is because we need to read date to decode these frames at the new location and reading data cannot be done while being paused.

But reading what you are saying here. that's what PowerPoint and DVD's are build for. There is no implementation of a videosystem that does what you want i think. MPEG4 will be able to do it at one time in the future, but the programs to use that particular part of the specification haven't been written yet.

My advice, stick with what works and is tested and don't waste any time

[jasonic]

In 0.7.0 seeking keeps the state in which you were. either paused or playing. Problem is that you need to start playing again after a seek to get a new frame. this is because we need to read date to decode these frames at the new location and reading data cannot be done while being paused.

Thanks for your advice..

Q: How to seek then play a tiny bit and then pause?

If I can just do that, then allowing for a small time offset, we'll be very happy.

But reading what you are saying here. that's what PowerPoint and DVD's are build for. There is no implementation of a videosystem that does what you want i think. MPEG4 will be able to do it at one time in the future, but the programs to use that particular part of the specification haven't been written yet.

VideoLAN is so good in so many respects, that I'd rather invest the time in developing a set of nice modular tools and interfaces to work with it in cool ways. It's mainly a matter of managing external linked metadata well.


My advice, stick with what works and is tested and don't waste any time

Well Yes but VideoLAN works great

Until now have been using Sony Vegas 4.0 - a superb video editing tool. It now has scriptable API. So one can control multitrack media and keyframe properites with frame accuracy. But its proprietary win32 software and does not inteface well with external applications. MAyeb a later versoin will add remote features, streaming etc. Sony only bought it last year [it was developed by Sound Forge] . They may bundle it in smart ways as part of teh booming PVR revolution.

Vegas is a great app and I recommend ity to anyone looking for low cost sound and DV editing. I'd much rather go with a cool openSource prject and community when it comes to remote collaborative video project.

- Jason

[Drake]

In 0.7.0 seeking keeps the state in which you were. either paused or playing. Problem is that you need to start playing again after a seek to get a new frame. this is because we need to read date to decode these frames at the new location and reading data cannot be done while being paused.

Hi,
I am also interested in how to do 'seeking with the state of puase'. In my project, I need to pause a video made by ourself and do frame-by-frame seeking. We tried to get frame-by-frame seeking by manually calculating the "position" or "time" (I am not sure right now). But after the seeking, the video doesn't sync because what you said.
could you or someone tell me where to trick this part? I still can't find out which part of code snippets to do that