New video player, what do you think?

[stargate]

Actually is not just a video player. More like a3in one sollution: video player, tv-tuner viewing software, broadcasting software. It's called AIW Player and it's homepage is here - http://stargate.dots.ro/aiwplayer/index.htm. Please read the Overview and the Features section to get a better ideea.

I know, it'a a very "beta" product but I would like your guidence, suggestions... whatever you think.

[Little_Dragon]

Interesting ... I'll have to give this a try after I reinstall my tv-tuner drivers.

Not really looking forward to the experience. ATI's software installers rarely go smoothly.

[avih]

for some strange reason, whenever i try to redirect my browser to that url (or any of it's parent folders), it tries to save the page. tried Mozilla 1.6, mozilla-firebird nightly, and IE5.5

anyone else experiencing this??

[stargate]

My host is having some difficulties at the moment. I am sorry for the inconvenience.
I haved mirrored the site to my other host. Please try http://www.fightersoft.3x.ro/aiwplayer/index.htm

[avih]

thx. better now.

ps.
tried also opera 7.10 before, but forgot to mention it ;)


ok tried it a bit.
looks like a promising start. i really like the size of it (280K single exe, no installation). i wish all apps would be so fast to use. seems to have many usable functions.

now to the 'review' (after only about 10 mins of using it):
- tried to open an avs file (avisynth) -> crashed beyond recoverability. had to kill the process.
- normal playback -> plays fine, full screen, FF, etc. nice.
- tried the capture/broadcast options: set the tv/audio inputs ok. then got messages "interface not supported" when trying to actually use it. (i have btwincap, and it's working well in the dshow sample capture application).
- GUI: a bit simplystic, but functional.

summary: very promising. keep up the good work. broadcast mode for live video would be very nice, if i could only get it to work. how about a broadcast mode for video playback as well?

cheers.
avih

[stargate]

Thank you for your time!
- hmmm never did try to open an avisynth file. You are right, it does crash, thanks for pointing that out, I will look into it.
- about the video capture - like I said it's very beta and I didn't have time to test with more drivers (only wayjet.com.tw ones). Theoretically it should of worked ;). Just to make sure - first the tv-card must be selected then capture mode must be engaged (sources - capture) and then configure it. Anyway the improuvement of compatibility and capture functionality are on the TODO list.
- playback video broadcast will be available soon

Thanks again.

[Kb_cruncher]

A great player, i like it a lot.Just a few things.

-Ogm isn't listed as a supported format.
-It would be nice if eventually actually capturing video could be an option.

I love the desktop funtion and i like the fact i can watch full screen TV with it too.

Keep up the great work.I look forward to future releases.

[stargate]

Released version 0.30. Here are the changes:

0.30 - Fixed filter in open dialog (when browsing for files). Now ogg and ogm appear as supported media files. Fixed bug when not remembering Silent Channel Change option. Added further support for tv-cards. Now settings made in Crossbar and Format dialogs are remembered. Now when right clicking the channel listbox in main window the main popup appears instead of the playlist popup. Moved Capture View Options, Broadcasting Options and Channel Setup in the Settings menu. Also deleted the according buttons from the main panel (too crowded). Now when resizing AIW Player window the main panel items are keeping themself centred. Compact mode enhanced - now the channels from the left listbox are not visible anymore. Also, some code optimizations.

Kb_cruncher, capturing video to hdd will be implemented in future versions. It will also have on the fly and post-proccessing required type presets.
Ogm was supported in the first place (forgot to add it). Any directshow codec should work with AIW Player.

[Kb_cruncher]

Awesome, thanks for such a fast update.Now i can watch my OGM movies in desktop mode :cool:

[stargate]

The major updates: Greatly improuved tv-card compatibility, added Spanish language, integrated Direct VobSub filter, written AIW Player Component Installer.
AIW Player Component Installer installs/uninstalls DirectVobSub filter, AC3 filter, RealMedia and Matroska splitters. I also enhanced the autorun feature - you can choose to autoinstall the enumerated filters when setting AIW Player to autoplay on a CD. The operation is quick and hidden so the normal user wouldn't be bothered by it.

[TEB]

Nice player, will it support multicasted mpeg2 streams? Like joing 225.1.1.1 : 5000 and decode the UDP (IGMP) Transport Stream with subs, soundtracks (DVB) ? if i install a mpeg2 filter that can handle it..?

teb

[stargate]

No, at the moment AIW Player has no support for mpeg2 and DVD playback. This is mainly because my Pioneer DVD-ROM broke down recently. It will take some time for me to purchase another one, but when I'll do that I will certenly add DVD playback support.

[TEB]

dont need dvd support.. only mpeg2 :)

[stargate]

Oh.. I was stuck in a feedback loop with the whole mpeg2/dvd thing. I never thought about it this way... I will look into it.

[stargate]

AIW Player 0.40 released!

Here are the changes:

Added features: AutoTune - now AIW Player can automatically search and store channels. Go to the Channel Setup to check it out. Auto Update - now you can set AIW Player to automatically search for updates at startup (internet connection required). Go to the Help - Auto Update menu to check it out. Added integrated WANChat support - see the open url dialog. Added advanced language support - now other languages than English are beeing stored in lang.pak file wich must be placed in the AIW Player folder. You can disable language support alltoghether by unselecting Use lang.pak option from the Settings menu. Added try to keep settings feature when upgrading from earlier versions.

Fixed bugs: Fixed a bug that caused an "out of bounds error" when clicking or double clicking the white area in the Channel Setup dialog. When deselecting StayOnTop AIW Player no longer hides behind all the other windows.

Interface changes: Now all AIW Player dialog windows are opened topmost. Added builtin Windows XP manifest (graphical enhancement on Windows XP systems). Now when double clicking a TV channel the Channel Setup is opened. Redesigned the About window. Moved the Make autorun.inf option to the Tools menu. Added the How To ... menuitem in the About menu.

I've also written AIW Player Full Package 0.40. It contains AIW Player, AIW Player Components Installer, WANChat, AmpBand, the language pack, the Girder configuration file and offline help pages (changes, features and howto).

Starting with AIW Player version 0.40 the language pack is no longer integrated in the exe file. For other languages the user will have to download the AIW Player Language Pack from the Downloads Page and place it in the same folder as aiwplayer.exe.

Download Page: http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=1

I've also written a How To guide (among other things it presents the whole configuration process of a tv-card and setting up channels in AIW Player):
http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayer/howto.htm

AIW Player HomePage:
http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayer/index.htm

[avih]

sounds like a really interesting update. will check when i get home. thx.

[stargate]

Released two new versions:

0.41 - Fixed bugs: On some systems when trying to add channels or autoscan it resulted in "Invalid float value" error on some systems -now fixed.

0.42 - Added features: Greatly improuved autoscan feature and added the "More accurate results" option in the Channel Setup. TV-Card initialization and closing AIW Player when in capture mode are lot faster now.

Fixed bugs: Now AIW Player no longer outputs an "Out of bounds error" when using scroll wheel and no channels are present in the channel list.

[stargate]

And yet another release - AIW Player 0.43 featuring deinterlacing support. Check out the quality and the low processor usage - http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiw_deint_demo.JPG . The vertical text was moving in that text box and the horizontal one was moving too fast for a screenshot. However note the missing horinzontal interlaced-coused lines.

[stargate]

AIW Player 0.44 released!

Added features: Recording (capture to file). Go to Recording Options to set it up. Please note that this is highly experimental at the moment. The recording mode will be greatly enhanced in the future. Added broadcasting from file. Go to Broadcasting - From File to check it out. Also speeded up opening and closing processes.

Fixed bugs: Fixed english language check issue. Fixed an issue that caused AIW Player to freeze when opening files on some systems. Fixed enable / disable deinterlace filter bug.

Interface changes: Added the Recording Options menuitem (Settings menu) and expanded Broadcast menuitem (Sources menu).

In the next releases the recording module will be greatly enhanced and so is the broadcasting module. I want to merge both broadcasting submodules into one so that users can connect with WANChat and select wich tvchannel or video file shall be broadcasted.

[avih]

man you're working fast :)
do u know if your recording/broadcast will work with a btWincap driver? (as i couldn't set up the tv card with AIW the last time i tried)

[stargate]

As a matter of fact I recently changed my drivers to btwincap (finally found a Girder plugin for my remote controll that will work with btwincap). Earlier versions had some issues with compatibility. Now everything gets configured via Capture View Options (Settings menu) so I think it will work with many other cards. So far I tested it succesfully with bt878 tuners (wayjet standard bt878 drivers and btwincap) and with cards that have Philips chipset.

[avih]

mind you, your download just below AIW ("Key Logger 1.00 released! (06.03.2004)") doesn't give me confidense that your app is free of spyware. i sugget that you at least move it to another part of your site.

AIW does NOT contain anything like that, or other kind of spyware, right?

[stargate]

Ok, I will deffenetly remove that download. I wrote it for my dads computer. :)

AIW Player DOES NOT contain any spyware / trojans or anything of the sort. I don't want my work to be questioned because of this stupid program. I will remove it right now.

Have you tried it with your btwincap drivers?

Later edit: removed it from the site and the news. Please use any antispyware software you have on AIW Player to clear all doubts.

[avih]

no need to use any anti-spyware. i take your word that it doesn't have any kind of spyware.

i didn't download yet, i wanted to try it last night, but then saw your keylogger and got kinda scared ;)

i hope i'll be able to give it a try later today.
thx for the clarification.

[stargate]

And again :D

AIW Player 0.45 released:

Added features: When the media played by AIW Player is audio only AIW Player now displays an image instead of an empty video window. Go to View menu to enable / disable the feature.

Fixed bugs: You no longer need to setup a capture device in order to make the Broadcasting Options menuitem appear. Now preview mode when broadcasting from file works.

[avih]

this time i did download it. sorry mate, i still don't like the fact that it 'phones home' every time i ran it (even if it's 'just' to check for a new version. it should be selectable before the 1st time it calls home). at 1st i blocked it using my firewall, then i let it access the net since i wanted to try the broadcast. everytime i opened a file from the broadcast menu, i got an error (tried both xvid-avi and MPEG 1 file). both files play well in 'normal' mode. this is on a computer without a sound card (i'm not at home now) and XP-Pro (dual PIII 500Mhz).

the user interface and the normal playback features are very nice imho and well orgenized. nevertheless, i couldn't get the broadcast to work.

as in one of my 1st tests of this player, i got it into a state (twice) that i couldn't close the app. whenever i click the 'close' icon of the window, i get an error message. same if i try from the task manager. only after a while windows let me see the 'app not responding, kill it?" dialog, and only then it got killed (with another error message).

seeing so much potential with this player, i strongly recommend that you make error checking in every stage of your app. in every system call, check if it worked. if it didn't, fail gracefully. that's the abc of good programming. because other computer are different than yours and u can't know all the conditions in advance (well, u probably can, but it's a lot of work). at least make sure the system calls return success. or else, act gracefully upon it. i got many "pins not connected" messages, and saw once or twice that u try to write into memory pointed by a NULL pointer ("trying to write to memory addredd 00000" or something similar).

also, make sure u keep the privacy of your users. even if you just check for a new version, users with active firewall will see that your app tries to access your site, and they won't know what it does it for.

again, i see much potential with this great player, but i think it's time to stop adding features for a short while, and start to stabilize your code. clean it up. make sure that as few as possible error messages appear. check your pointers. check return values from functions, etc. make it a seemless experience for your users. the organization of your UI is a very good start. simple is good. now back it up with some quality code that i know u can produce ;)


good luck.
avih

[stargate]

Thank you for your review. I've been asked by many users to make an autoupdate feature because of the rate that I release new versions. :) Anyway, the feature has it's off setting. In future versions it will not be activated by default anymore. When autoupdate is selected AIW Player checks http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayerupdate.htm if it contains a different string than AIW Player's version - that's all - a 4 bytes transfer. If it does, the program offers autoupdate.
Regarding file broadcasting - ups, I forced it to render both streams (video and audio - regardless if they exist or not). If you didn't selected a soundcard from the Settings menu it couldn't start. It will be fixed in future releases.
These errors appeared because of the missing card soundcard and because of the fact that the program assigns a soundcard to the audiofilter. I know, I still a long way from a bugless program - hence the version 0.45 (leading 0). There are still problems when deactivating the filtergraph. Work is underway to make it quit gracefully ;). I know that my programming way is a little bit odd - this is caused by my lack of hardware diversity and beta testers. First I add the features as best I can and after getting user feedback I correct as many bugs as possible. The website does states that AIW Player is under heavy development. The point that I'm trying to make is - expect better compatibility in future versions. :)

I didn't understand from your post if the capture mode worked (tv-card viewing). I'm very curious if the filtergraph builds succesfully and the deinterlace filter is added on your system.

Again, thanks.

[stargate]

AIW Player 0.48 released!

Changes since my last update:

Added features: Added the Audio Options menuitem - Settings menu. You can use it to configure your audio line for your tv-card. Added audio controll when in capture mode. Added captionless window when Small Window mode is engaged. Added features: Now the user can specify the desired fps when in capture or broadcasting mode. Also enhanced the code a bit to get lower processor usage when decoding video files. Added timed shutdown feature (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours). Added some additional settings to the Capture mode - check Settings - Capture View Options - Advanced (color compression, fps setting, rendering pin). Now you can manually change channels by typing the channel number. Added the New Entry button in the Channel Setup.

Fixed bugs: Fixed some issues when closing AIW Player. Now when opening AIW Player with params no longer results in an access violation error. Fixed not remembering channels and stayontop issues reported by some users. Fixed some small window restore bugs.

Download page: http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=1

[stargate]

AIW Player 0.50 released!

Added features:

Added radio tuning support. It works both for normal capture mode and broadcasting mode. You can use WANChat with when broadcasting radio exactly the same way like when broadcasting TV channels. Check out the incredible low processor usage when in FM mode (0.5%). You can save FM station frequencies and change them at will.

Added a playlist editor. Now you can manage your playlist, save and load it. To check it out right click on the playlist and choose Playlist Editor.

Added export and import global AIW Player settings (this includes TV Channels, FM Stations, resume points and all other AIW Player settings). Also added export and import TV channels (for easy TV channel installation among the users). Now you can change the TV channel order when in Channel Setup.

Now when browsing for a subtitle file you start from the video file path. Added Space as hotkey for pausing / resuming playback.

Fixed bugs: Now AIW Player no longer outputs an error message stating "Interface not supported" then prematuring pressing CTRL+< or CTR+>.

Homepage: http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayer/index.htm
Download: http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=1

[avih]

congrats for the new version. much better :)

much less error messages (still got few 'interface not supported' and 'cannot connect pin'). not connecting automatically to the network. i can watch tv, and broadcast (i think, i don't know how to view the broadcast).

the channel scan works very nicely :)
i wish for custom capture resolution though, and the deinterlace filter didn't work.

but generally, seems a very good release to me. cheers.

ps.
how DO u watch the broadcast?

[stargate]

You can watch broadcast (and since radio support now you can listen too :) ) with AIW Player or Windows Media Player. Read http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayer/howto.htm on more informations on how to setup broadacsting mode. At the moment I recommand Windows Media Player because it has improuved buffering support.

For the deinterlace filter to work you have to run AIW Player Components Installer and install the deinterlace filter from there. If you already done this and still doesn't work - there are any error messages present when selecting the Deinterlace checkbox from Settings - Capture View Options?

Custom resolutions and much improuved recording (capture to hdd) are on the way.

About the error messages - working on it.

[stargate]

Updates since 0.46:

0.57 Added features: Added DVD playback support. You can now watch DVDs and benefit of all the other AIW Player specific features (desktop playback, small window mode, multimonitor, and so on). Also expect more DVD specific features in the upcoming versions. Enhanced the small window mode by adding an option to remove the border of the window by pressing CTRL+B.
Fixed bugs: Fixed some manual scan bugs, some window resize label issues, fixed a bug that occured when sending to tray, fixed some small window issues.

0.56 Added features: Added manual scanning for tv channels (with fine tuning). Now you can setup you tv channels in 3 ways: specify the frequency, autoscan or manually search for tv channels. Added channel recall feature (right click menu or press L). Added some hints and renamed some labels. Enhanced send to tray feature. Updated the language pack. Now when using the browse button in the playlist editor AIW Player automatically adds the selected files to the playlist.
Fixed bugs: The timeline is now visible only when a file is beeing played. Fixed some keyboard shortcuts issues, fixed the not adding extension issue when saving the playlist, fixed the file order when opening multiple files (both when opening files in the AIW Player window and in the playlist), fixed the object not found issue when no file is present in the playlist and the play button is pressed. Fixed some other playlist issues.

0.55 Added features: Added mobile timeline. Just click the option from the popup menu or press 'N'. You can slide through the movie and you have access to the play, pause, stop, prev track, slow motion, normal speed, fast speed, next track buttons in full screen. Added remember window position (View menu). When selected AIW Player no longer starts in the center of the scree, but where it was last time before closing.
Fixed bugs: AIW Player no longer resizes and positiones itself in the center of the screen when coming out of desktop mode or full screen. Fixed some sound volume issues, when clicking Clear List channels, AIW Player no longer stops responding to commands. Fixed a bug that created the lang.pak file on every location when params where used to open a file.

0.54 Added features: Added the AIW Player scheduler - now you can set AIW Player to shutdown your computer, to close itself, to start playing a file, to start tv mode, to start fm mode, to start broadcasting whenever you want (more functions will be added in the future). Added a save dialog when making an autorun.ini file.
Fixed bugs: Repeat and Auto SD hints, fixed an issue when switching renderers, now AIW Player remembers last channel or fm station even if AIW Player wasn't closed when in TV or FM mode. Fixed some bugs with the FM mode.

0.53 Added features: Now AIW Player can be sent to tray icon with no additional windows present (useful for audio / fm mode). Now when in FM mode the FM stations are available from the popup menu too. Greatly enhanced the AIW Player keyboard shortcuts. Please refer to Help - Shortcuts menu for more information. Now AIW Player has buil in language support (however if AIW Player detects lang.pak in it's folder it will use that one).
Fixed bugs: Added the debugging option (Tools - Debugging). When checked AIW Player writes a logfile containing developer information when closing. The file is called dev.txt and can be found in the same folder as AIW Player. Fixed some other minor issues and optimized the code a little bit.

0.52 Added features: Now AIW Player remembers if last time was used in small window mode. Now when selecting Remember Mode (View menu) AIW Player remembers how to open next time (normal, tv-capture mode or fm-capture mode). Now AIW Player shows real time FPS when selecting Options - File Properties.
Fixed bugs: Fixed small window restore issue (each time switching to small window mode the window was getting smaller). Fixed an issue with make autorun function - no AIW Player no longer automatically unpauses when selecting this option. Renamed some labels on the File Information window.

0.51 Added features: Added a compatibility mode option. This will increase the compatibilty for webcams and previously unsupported tv-cards. More improuvements regarding compatibility are on the way. Now when pressing play after pausing a video clip AIW Player displays "Playing" in the upperleft corner of the video window (Overlay mode only - Settings - Renderer - DsWindowEx).
Fixed bugs: Fixed a visible component that wasn't supposed to be visible. Fixed some issues with broadcasting mode. Now when pressing Space to pause the Repeat checkbox no longer toggles (a more permanent fix will be implemented in the upcoming versions).

0.50 Added features: Added radio tuning support. It works both for normal capture mode and broadcasting mode. You can use WANChat with when broadcasting radio exactly the same way like when broadcasting TV channels. Check out the incredible low processor usage when in FM mode (0.5%). You can save FM station frequencies and change them at will. Added a playlist editor. Now you can manage your playlist, save and load it. To check it out right click on the playlist and choose Playlist Editor. Added export and import global AIW Player settings (this includes TV Channels, FM Stations, resume points and all other AIW Player settings). Also added export and import TV channels (for easy TV channel installation among the users). Now you can change the TV channel order when in Channel Setup. Now when browsing for a subtitle file you start from the video file path. Added Space as hotkey for pausing / resuming playback.
Fixed bugs: Now AIW Player no longer outputs an error message stating "Interface not supported" then prematuring pressing CTRL+< or CTR+>.

0.48 Added features: Added timed shutdown feature (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours). Added some additional settings to the Capture mode - check Settings - Capture View Options - Advanced (color compression, fps setting, rendering pin). Now you can manually change channels by typing the channel number. Added the New Entry button in the Channel Setup.

0.47 - Added features: Now the user can specify the desired fps when in capture or broadcasting mode. Also enhanced the code a bit to get lower processor usage when decoding video files.
Fixed bugs: Fixed some small window restore bugs.

http://fightersoft.openvision.ro/aiwplayer/index.htm