# Video playback library? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [August 19, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468 "2007-08-19T22:26:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/1 "2007-08-19T22:26:48Z")
I’ve recently begun learning ruby (coming from a mainly java world), and so far I really like it. Now I’m trying to write as much as I can using ruby so I can get a better feel for the language. So, I have an upcoming project that will require writing a program that can do some simple video playback. I would need it to be cross platform (at least Windows and OS X, which rules out the gstreamer and xine bindings for ruby that I’ve seen), and it would need to be able to play some common video formats like mpeg-1 and avi. I would love to write this in ruby, but I have been unable to find anything that looks like it fits my needs. Does anything like this exist, or am I stuck using JMF? Thanks! John ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 10:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/2 "2007-08-19T22:56:10Z")
VLC is a nice cross-platform app, open source, made in C. It could probably use some Ruby API though… ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/3 "2007-08-19T22:57:10Z")
John Reiter wrote: > So, I have an upcoming project that will require writing a program that > can do some simple video playback. I would need it to be cross platform > (at least Windows and OS X, which rules out the gstreamer and xine > bindings for ruby that I’ve seen), and it would need to be able to play > some common video formats like mpeg-1 and avi. Just a guess; the format of the future is a video rendered as a Flash animation. Then you put the backend in whatever format you want, and render on-demand into Flash. That even supports Linux! > I would love to write this in ruby Ruby can only be the glue code there. Video playback is \>cough\< CPU intensive… ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/4 "2007-08-19T23:26:13Z")
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:54:47 +0900 John J. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > VLC is a nice cross-platform app, open source, made in C. > It could probably use some Ruby API though… And can be remotely controlled programmaticly via its telnet interface. -jh ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/5 "2007-08-20T04:04:09Z")
Phlip wrote: > Just a guess; the format of the future is a video rendered as a Flash > animation. Then you put the backend in whatever format you want, and > render > on-demand into Flash. That even supports Linux! Unfortunately, Flash isn’t going to be an option for this particular project. > > I would love to write this in ruby > > Ruby can only be the glue code there. Video playback is \>cough\< CPU > intensive… Oh, I realize. I was hoping for a cross-platform version of something like the gstreamer or xine bindings I had seen, just a ruby API on top of C/C++ code. ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 4:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/6 "2007-08-20T04:06:09Z")
Jonathan H. wrote: > And can be remotely controlled programmaticly via its telnet > interface. That might be something worth looking into. Thanks! John ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 7:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/7 "2007-08-20T07:31:44Z")
On Aug 19, 2007, at 9:06 PM, John Reiter wrote: > VLC ([videolan.org](http://videolan.org)) is very cool, quite good. Has python bindings, so Ruby bindings should be doable! ---
**Author:** ![jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@jjrussell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jjrussell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/video-playback-library/112468/8 "2007-08-19T23:18:12Z")
On Aug 19, 2007, at 3:55 PM, Phlip wrote: > Yep. You could have bindings/API of some sort like the way RMAgick works for ImageMagick, but the core code is going to be C/C++ every time for video. Especially cross-platform.